THOSE DEAD LANGUAGES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 20042, 3 September 1920, Page 6

THOSE DEAD LANGUAGES.

Many people havo an idea that Wh Greek and Hebrew arc dead lavage to ones. Hebrmv mon es * still the language of the Children of Israel, wherever they are found and t has been brought up to date by the invention or assimilation of scientific and other modern terms. GrSk too •£ spoken by .the people of Greece to-' d.i 3 is nearly the same as the Greek or the classics. th? r S hj T r. alt °- red Very little «'noe the time ofc Corais. The first fhirfcyone verses of the Gospel of Sfc f„hn rw published a t Athens in 1855, ami tarn only rmo departures from Ihe classical typo; whereas the corresuond- !"? K-Sf of the Romtli ° version, published 2W) years ago-, contains twentvS; In t. he walks of Greekliterature tins purity of style i s very •narked. In thirty-one pages of r,.;. coupis' "History of the Greek War of Independence," published in London in 1803, there are only fifteen dem-ions from the standard of Ancient Greet, while in two chapters of Paspati's " Vi s ' tory of the Capture of Constantinople ,La he , rurka ' Published at Athens in loyl), thcro are' only ten. The stand. ard chosen by Professor Blackie for }•?» comparison, is that of Plato Xenophon Diodonis, Lucian, Polybius, and Chrvl sostom. ' * - In -.he colloquial Greet of common lifo *■!.'• ie are, ol course fa* more deviations from the standard, L-.it e\en in this there aro very few worls lor rowed from other tongues, and the accented syllable still remains as it was fixed by the Alexandrian grammarians. Recent travellers havo also shown that the old Greek race continues in many parts of Greece in tolerable purity, despite the vicissitudes of conquest. Types of face and form are found which fairly startle the tourist by their resemblance to the marbles of the Acropolis or Pbigalea The fair hair and florid cheeks of the children are a proof of their northern extraction, and bear out the tradition of a Hellenic migration from the north and north-east.