In Pindar’s own text the right reading possibly is:—
πρὶν μὲν ἕρπε σχοινοτένειά τ’ ἀοιδὰ
διθυράμβων καὶ τὸ σὰν κίβδηλον ἀνθρώποισιν ἀπὸ στομάτων.
Mr. P. N. Ure suggests that Pindar’s real reference was not to the sound of san but to its form, and that κίβδηλον means either ‘misleading’ with reference to the similarity in form of san to mu, or ‘spurious,’ as not being the form for the sibilant employed at Thebes, where letters were introduced into Greece.
3. σχοινοτένεια: unusual feminine of σχοινοτενής, ‘stretched out like a measuring line.’
5. “That the σ in σδ meant z appears from what Dionysius presently says, that ζ is ‘quietly roughened by the breath,’ implying that it was voiced,” A. J. E. p. 44. The statement (p. 43 ibid.) that dz was probably an impossible initial combination to a Greek may be compared with Classical Review xix. 441 as well as with more ancient evidence.
13. Dionysius’ various statements as to the aspirates are discussed in E. A. Dawes’ Pronunciation of the Greek Aspirates pp. 29 ff. (as well as in Blass’s Ancient Greek Pronunciation).
15. Dionysius does not actually use Greek equivalents for the adjectives labial, dental, and guttural; but he clearly knows the physiological facts in which those terms have their origin.
18. As illustrating Dionysius’ own love of variety, compare μέσον ἀμφοῖν here with κοινὰ ἀμφοῖν (l. 14), μεταξὺ τούτων (l. 12), μετρίως καὶ μεταξὺ ἀμφοῖν ([150] 9), μέσον δὲ καὶ ἐπίκοινον ([150] 4).
23. κατὰ τοὺς μετεώρους ὀδόντας. “The pronunciation of the Greek and Roman t by placing the tongue against the roots of the gums in lieu of the upper teeth is not one of the more serious errors [in the modern pronunciation of Greek and Latin], at least it does not strike our ears as such. But it has always seemed to me that the taunting verses of Ennius,
O Tite tute Tati tibi tanta tyranne tulisti,