Respecting this language, heard by Herodotus at Krêstôn and Plakia, Dr. Thirlwall observes (chap. ii. p. 60), “This language Herodotus describes as barbarous, and it is on this fact he grounds his general conclusion as to the ancient Pelasgian tongue. But he has not entered into any details that might have served to ascertain the manner or degree in which it differed from the Greek. Still, the expressions he uses would have appeared to imply that it was essentially foreign, had he not spoken quite as strongly in another passage, where it is impossible to ascribe a similar meaning to his words. When he is enumerating the dialects that prevailed among the Ionian Greeks, he observes that the Ionian cities in Lydia agree not at all in their tongue with those of Karia; and he applies the very same term to these dialects, which he had before used in speaking of the remains of the Pelasgian language. This passage affords a measure by which we may estimate the force of the word barbarian in the former. Nothing more can be safely inferred from it, than that the Pelasgian language which Herodotus heard on the Hellespont, and elsewhere, sounded to him a strange jargon: as did the dialect of Ephesus to a Milesian, and as the Bolognese does to a Florentine. This fact leaves its real nature and relation to the Greek quite uncertain; and we are the less justified in building on it, as the history of Pelasgian settlements is extremely obscure, and the traditions which Herodotus reports on that subject have by no means equal weight with statements made from his personal observation.” (Thirlwall, History of Greece, ch. ii. p. 60, 2d edit.)
In the statement delivered by Herodotus (to which Dr. Thirlwall here refers) about the language spoken in the Ionic Greek cities, the historian had said (i. 142),—Γλῶσσαν δὲ οὐ τὴν αὐτὴν οὗτοι νενομίκασι, ἀλλὰ τρόπους τέσσερας παραγωγέων. Miletus, Myus, and Priêne,—ἐν τῇ Καρίῃ κατοίκηνται κατὰ ταὐτὰ διαλεγόμεναί σφι. Ephesus, Kolophon, etc.,—αὐται αἱ πόλιες τῇσι πρότερον λεχθείσῃσι ὁμολογέουσι κατὰ γλῶσσαν οὐδὲν, σφὶ δὲ ὁμοφωνέουσι. The Chians and Erythræans,—κατὰ τὠϋτὸ διαλέγονται, Σάμιοι δὲ ἐπ᾽ ἑωϋτῶν μοῦνοι. Οὗτοι χαρακτῆρες γλώσσης τέσσερες γίγνονται.
The words γλώσσης χαρακτὴρ (“distinctive mode of speech”) are common to both these passages, but their meaning in the one and in the other is to be measured by reference to the subject-matter of which the author is speaking, as well as to the words which accompany them,—especially the word βάρβαρος in the first passage. Nor can I think (with Dr. Thirlwall) that the meaning of βάρβαρος is to be determined by reference to the other two words: the reverse is, in my judgment, correct. Βάρβαρος is a term definite and unequivocal, but γλώσσης χαρακτὴρ varies according to the comparison which you happen at the moment to be making, and its meaning is here determined by its conjunction with βάρβαρος.
When Herodotus was speaking of the twelve Ionic cities in Asia, he might properly point out the differences of speech among them as so many different χαρακτῆρες γλώσσης: the limits of difference were fixed by the knowledge which his hearers possessed of the persons about whom he was speaking; the Ionians being all notoriously Hellens. So an author, describing Italy, might say that Bolognese, Romans, Neapolitans, Genoese, etc. had different χαρακτῆρες γλώσσης; it being understood that the difference was such as might subsist among persons all Italians.
But there is also a χαρακτῆρ γλώσσης of Greek generally (abstraction made of its various dialects and diversities), as contrasted with Persian, Phœnician, or Latin,—and of Italian generally, as contrasted with German or English. It is this comparison which Herodotus is taking, when he describes the language spoken by the people of Krêstôn and Plakia, and which he notes by the word βάρβαρον as opposed to Ἑλληνικόν: it is with reference to this comparison that χαρακτῆρ γλώσσης, in the fifty-seventh chapter, is to be construed. The word βάρβαρος is the usual and recognized antithesis of Ἕλλην, or Ἑλληνικός.
It is not the least remarkable part of the statement of Herodotus, that the language spoken at Krêstôn and at Plakia was the same, though the places were so far apart from each other. This identity of itself shows that he meant to speak of a substantive language, not of a “strange jargon.”
I think it, therefore, certain that Herodotus pronounces the Pelasgians of his day to speak a substantive language different from Greek; but whether differing from it in a greater or less degree (e. g. in the degree of Latin or of Phœnician), we have no means of deciding.
[427] Aristotel. Meteorol. i. 14.
[428] Homer, Iliad, xvi. 234; Hesiod, Fragm. 149, ed. Marktscheffel; Sophokl. Trachin. 1174; Strabo, vii. p. 328.
[429] Stephan. Byz. v. Γραικὸς.—Γραῖκες δὲ παρὰ τῷ Ἀλκμᾶνι αἱ τῶν Ἑλλήνων μητέρες, καὶ παρὰ Σοφοκλεῖ ἐν Ποίμεσιν. ἐστὶ δὲ μεταπλασμὸς, ἢ τῆς Γραὶξ εὐθείας κλίσις ἐστίν.