CH. VII. Corre sound. The well-known passage of Plato1—oi μèv apxaióτατοι ἱμέραν τὴν ἡμέραν ἐκάλουν, οἱ δὲ ἡμέραν, οἱ δέ νῦν nuéρav-probably means that Plato had heard some Greeks use the form iμépa: any one who is conversant with Plato's references to oi apxaîo will not attach any deeper meaning to the phrase than a polite refusal to investigate a question any further: here at least it is perfectly certain that the original vowel was a and not i: and e was of course used in ordinary Greek before n was established: but it undoubtedly would appear to be the natural conclusion from this passage, that the first vowel of the word just before Plato's time wavered between e and, and that n afterwards expressed the sound more exactly. On the other hand, we do not know what Greeks they were who said iuépa: we have no other evidence of the sound having occurred anywhere. Mr Geldart rightly rejects any evidence drawn from Cratinus' sheep which said (in our texts) Bĥ, By: because in Cratinus' own spelling they must have said Bé, Bé. On the whole I do not think that any slight variations of the n to in classical times, are sufficient to overbalance the distinct connection of the sound with a. Semitic transcriptions of n by i need not prove anything more than the absence of the ŋsound in those languages. Plutarch, transcribing Latin words, gives κάρηρε, μαιώρης, ῥήγας, &c.: and therefore I should think that it was probably either è, or (ě) pronounced long. A further piece of evidence with respect to e and o is gathered by Mr Roby from transliteration : o represents both o and u in Latin, e represents both e and г in Latin: which would seem to place o and e in Attic nearer to u and i than o and e are in Latin. The sounds of e and o in Latin are deduced by Prof. spondence Munro from the correspondence of modern Italian. In of Latin with that language close e and o represent ē and ō in Latin (and also and u, which is natural enough, see Table of Sounds in Chap. IV.): and open e and o represent ě, ae, 1 Crat. 418 c, quoted above. modern Italian. and ŏ, au. η CH. VII. 1 Grammar, p. lxv. 2 At p. 89. 3 Roby, p. 73. CH. VII. and hence this o might not unnaturally be thought to be sounded by the lips alone: in reality both organs must be employed in each sound. Mr Roby does not appear to draw any distinction between open and close sounds of e and o in Latin. I think the evidence of Italian usage, though not convincing, yet sufficiently strong to justify me in arranging the Latin sounds accordingly. Subjoined is a possible table of the single vowel-sounds of both languages. The idea is borrowed from Mr Roby1: whose table should be compared with this. I differ from him sometimes, but never without the feeling that he is more likely to be right than I am. 2. Greek Diphthongs. CH. VII. 2. AI=al, ει, οι ; ευ, ου. Diphthongs were originally "double sounds." The substitution of a, e, o for original a led of course to a corresponding increase in the number of diphthongs, in Latin originally as well as in Greek: but the Latin had suffered almost the whole of them to fall into disuse before AU=av, the classical period of its literature. In Greece the number of the symbols for the diphthongs was still further increased in classical times by the introduction of n and w. Thus the language possessed in the room of the original ai, au, āi, āu no less than ten symbols, ai, ei, oi, ́av, ev, ov, ni, wi, nu, wu, besides the rather rare vɩ. The diphthong iu is only found in the Teutonic family. There seems no reason to doubt that these were all at first what their name implies, double sounds; in which the transition from the first to the second sound was distinctly audible. It is probable from the nature of the case that two sounds should be sounded as two, and probable also from their origin. When it was not a dynamic modification of a simple vowel intensifying the idea which that vowel conveyed, a diphthong arose, either from the coalition of two distinct vowels by the loss of an intermediate consonant, e.g. Aéye(u)ev: or secondly, from a spirant being resolved into a vowel in accordance with laws of consonantal substitution to be mentioned in their place, e.g. ἀνδρεῖος from ανδρε-ψο-ς, λόγοιο from Moyo-syo (where the has left no trace of itself): or thirdly, from the prolongation of the original vowel-sound to compensate for the loss of a following consonant; thus when v was lost in povoa the first form must have been μούσα, as is shewn by the Doric μώσα, while the new vowel was weakened to v in Attic μovσa, to ɩ in Aeolic μoîoa. These new diphthongs often remained double sounds in Lesbian later than any other form of Greek CH. VII. History of the change of dissimilar diphthongs in Greek. し speech: thus we find Cota, Axiλλetos', &c. where the is It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to trace the history of the Greek diphthongs, and fix the time when they ceased to be double sounds-each sound presumably the same as when it occurred separately; neither can we do more than guess with more or less of probability at the new single sound of each. There can be little doubt that the corruption of the diphthong must have been little later in time than the causes which produced it. Two vowels following immediately upon each other are commonly troublesome to pronounce; the most simple (and probably the oldest) combinations of language shew us vowel and consonant occurring alternately: when a consonant fell out and two vowels met, there must have been at once a tendency to subordinate one vowel to the other: so that one of the two should become a "glide,” i. e. a sound too short to be called a perfect vowel, because it never 1 Theok. XXIX. 5 and 34. See Ahrens, 1. 105. 2 See Leo Meyer, Vergl. Gram. 1. 285, where numerous examples of Greek and Latin diphthongs are given, from which I have borrowed largely in this section. |