Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/66

44 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. he also taught his students the Reuchlinian pro- nunciation. Moreover, he requested his Greek friend Laskaris to furnish him a Greek teacher in order that his own children should learn the correct pronunciation. The fact that he spoke Reuchlinian can be established by quotations from one of his colloquies, where the following end rhymes are found : Echo rhymes : eruditionis — ovot^ ; episcopi — xonot ; ariolari — Xdpoi ; astrologi — ^o/ot; grammatiki — eixi;; fameliki — Xoxot. It was not until fifty or more years after Eras- mus' death that the Erasmian pronunciation was adopted. The above-mentioned dialogue " de recta pro- nunciatione" is indebted, as Engel narrates, ac- cording to well-authenticated tradition, to the following farce: Erasmus, who was childishly vain of his Latin and Greek knowledge, and who styled himself " the most amiable prince of science," met with the following adventure: A gay visitor from Paris, inclined to perpetrate all kinds of roguery, told him the following fib: He had made the acquaintance of some Greeks, very erudite men, who spoke in a manner entirely different from that in which all the world pro- nounced the Greek. And then he showed Eras- mus how these remarkable Greeks spoke: ex-