The side towards the town (north-western aspect). This arch divided the ancient “City of Theseus” from the new quarter founded by Hadrian.
events was a public representation of Sophocles’ Antigoné in the Stadium. It may be questioned how far its language would be understood even in Athens by the less educated classes. Probably the proportion of citizens who understood it thoroughly was not much greater than in Oxford when similar plays were put on the stage in that city some years ago. In the days of Sophocles the whole community virtually spoke the same language, so that his plays would be understood by the masses as well as the classes. It would seem that even the peculiarities of his Ionic dialect did not prevent Herodotus from being understood by the Greeks assembled at Olympia when he recited his History to them before it was published as a book. Nowadays the style and vocabulary of the ancient classical authors are foreign to a large section of the Greek nation. Hence it has been found that when the plays of Aristophanes are turned into the colloquial speech and so presented on the stage at Athens, they are attended with far greater success than in their original form.
In closing, a few words may be said on what may be described as one of the burning questions of the day. For more than a century there has been a tendency in high quarters to approximate as much as possible to classical Greek. Especially during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, there has been a strenuous attempt on the part of the educated classes, backed by the authorities in Church and State, to mould the written language according to classical forms, by restoring the old orthography and grammatical inflexions and by expressing new ideas and inventions in ancient terms, frequently compounded in a curious fashion. The ideal cherished by many educated Greeks was expressed by the Metropolitan Archbishop of Athens when he said that he hoped the time was not far distant when they would be using the language of Xenophon, and that if the newspapers would introduce but one new classical word a day, they would add 70,000 words to the language in the course of twenty years. The archaic style has been adopted by the Government in all public documents and in the system of education; it dominates the speeches delivered in Parliament, except when passion gets the better of the speakers; it is approved by the Church, and is cultivated by the newspapers and journals, and the vast majority of authors. Hence the most of the Greek which one reads in current literature bears a strong resemblance to that of the classical authors studied at school and college, and a good Greek scholar has no great difficulty in reading an Athenian newspaper, if he make himself acquainted with a few modern particles of frequent occurrence, and have patience to make out the meaning of the new combinations that have been devised to meet the requirements of modern civilisation.
But side by side with this artificial language, which, though classical upon the surface, is generally modern in style and construction, bearing the stamp, especially, of French and English idioms—there is what may be called the vernacular Greek, spoken more or less by all classes when they are not on ceremony, and understood in all parts of Greece, and in the Levant. The difference between the two does not lie merely in pronunciation, or grammatical forms, or the occasional use of peculiar words, such as are found in the local dialects of almost all languages; it shows itself in the employment of different words to express the commonest things in daily life, such as water, bread, wine. You may see such things called by their classical names on the merchant’s signboard, and yet if you wish to be understood when you go into the shop you must use the popular equivalents.
The relation between the spoken and the written Greek is often compared to that of Italian and mediæval Latin. Italian had to struggle for a literary existence before it gained a secure position as the national tongue in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But unfortunately for Greek as a living language, ever since the days of Dionysius of Halicarnassus it has had to contend repeatedly against a persistent effort to go back, as far as possible, to the golden age of Athenian literature in the fifth century B.C. Its capacity for literary purposes has never been properly recognised, although it has preserved more of the original language than the Italian has of Latin. This fact is now forcing itself on the attention of the nation; and just as the descendants of the ancient Romans have practically given up the use of Latin, so there is an increasing party in Greece, supported by distinguished grammarians in other lands, who hold that the intellectual and moral life of the nation will never get fair-play and have full scope for its energies until the Atticising pedantry which has so long been the fashion both in Athens and in Constantinople shall be given up, and the popular speech be recognised as a suitable instrument for literary purposes as well as for the intercourse of common life. But those who are of this opinion will have a great battle to fight before they can hope to see their views prevail. A few years ago (in 1901) the world was startled by serious disturbances in Athens over a translation of the New Testament into the vulgar tongue, which showed what strong passions lie at the bottom of this linguistic controversy. A scholarly Greek merchant resident in Liverpool (Mr. Alexander Pallis), who has brought Homer within the reach of all classes of his countrymen by a translation into the language of the common people, set about rendering to them a similar service in the case of the New Testament. His version of the Gospel according to Matthew appeared in the Acropolis, one of the Athenian newspapers. It called forth a letter from the Patriarch of Constantinople to the Holy Synod of Greece, lamenting the degradation to which the sacred book was being subjected. Then followed a great outburst of indignation on the part of the educated classes, especially the “noble student youth” of the University. A demand was made for the excommunication of the translator and the banning of his work. But the ecclesiastical authorities were not in a position to proceed to this extremity. For the question was complicated by the fact that a popular version of
