The Modern Greeks, and the Opinions concerning Them [pp. 143-165]

THE MODERN GREEKS, AND
and they never, in truth, went out of use,-but the language now
spoken may draw, in the use of words, to any extent, upon the
treasures of the ancient tongue. This being so, are not the two
substantially one? We venture to affirm that no spoken language has been better preserved-if indeed as well-through
such a track of ages; so much so that any one who has had the
opportunity of making observation, is struck with the facility
with which a Greek boy, as compared with any foreign boy,
learns the "Hellenic;" and if the post-haste rapidity with which
the voluminous Church services among the Greeks are despatched, with the nasal twanging of the intonations, would allow
of it, even the common people could catch some of the meaning
of what is read, especially from the Gospels; in fact they do
catch a good deal of it. And with a little instruction-even that
of an hour or two-as to certain etymological peculiarities of
the now spoken tongue, a person who is at all acquainted
with the ancient one, will find, to his agreeable surprise, that he
can, with little difficulty, understand, as he reads along, any
modern Greek book or newspaper put into his hands. That fine
scholar and competent judge, Prof. Felton, may be a little extreme in pronouncing that the Greek of our day is very much
that of the age of Demosthenes; but there is substantial truth in
his words. The Greek is yet a living language; less changed
in proportion,-indeed we might ray, in the absolute, at least in
its lexicography,-from what it was two thousand years ago,
than the English of to-day is from the English of the early
translations of the Bible of three centuries ago. But certainly
any man must be the slave of fanciful theory or of prejudices
who can believe that the vernacular could thus have stood, for
the ages past, while the people who spoke it were mixing with
foreign races and becoming no longer the same people!
HABITS, MANNERS, ETC., AS A TEST.
The manners and habits of a people too afford some of the
strongest proofs, on a question like the present. Change a people, and you change these. Such is the effect sometimes of mere
contact with other races, where there is no change of blood at
all; but how much more of extermnination, or even of amalgtamation! The traveler in GCreece, however, is struck with the preservation of ancient and primitive customs. The same modes,
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