Note 90 — GREECE BEYOND PELOPONNESUS. (continued 4)

“Others call him Tharypas or Tharypos. If we examine this name carefully, we find already a trace of the change, seen in the modern Greek, of an oblique case into the nominative, as ὁ πατέρος—it is one of the many traces which shew that, properly speaking, Epirot and Macedonian forms constitute the foundation of modern Greek, and that the latter is not the same as the popular language of the ancient Greeks, as is commonly imagined by the modern Greeks. My dear friend, Count Capo d’Istria, is not free from this prejudice, though he admits that, e.g., at Athens a different dialect was spoken. The Italians in the middle ages, especially Aretinus, entertained a similar opinion; they maintained that Cicero spoke Italian, that Latin was only the language of the learned, an artificial and improved Italian; and that Latin was indeed written, but that the people spoke Italian. But the Greeks confound the circumstances, and pretend to know more than is generally true. Many proofs, for example, may be adduced that a kind of modern Greek was spoken at Alexandria in the time of the first emperors; but that language was derived from the Epirot, Macedonian and Thessalian dialects; it is pure Greek, but at the same time has many peculiarities, many of which have passed into the Latin language. Thus Areus, the name of the Spartan king, is written Areas in Livy, which, therefore, should not be altered, but is quite correct; in the same manner we have Crotona for Croton, and in German Mailand for Milano.”