Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/69

PROPER PRONUNCIATION OF GREEK. 47 quum vulgari more dicunt: mihi, tibi, sibi (moi, toi, soi) ; aut pronunciant fidem, legem ac regem (foi, loi, roi). Hie enim audis evidentur utram- que vocalem o et i. " Leo : Sic est profecto. "Ursus: Ad eum prope modum sonuisse ve teres arbitror 110 i aoi^ Tohn et xupiot. "Leo: Probabile narras." And so on. The admirers of the great man of Rotterdam in different countries followed his system ; they pronounced the Greek according to his instruc- tion, or as if it were written in their own native tongue. The consequence was that since the sixteenth century a Babylonian confusion has prevailed concerning Greek pronunciation. No- body understands the Greek of a foreigner, still less that of a Greek. The small boy, when he learned in his book of natural history that the whale belonged to the class of mammalia, re- marked that the whale had brought disorder into zoology. Erasmus, indeed, is the whale in phi- lology. It is impossible to say haw much dis- order this man has caused during the past three hundred and sixty-five years — that is, since he introduced his absurd pronunciation. While it is amusing to read the origin of the Erasmian pronunciation, the matter presents