With the world's people; an account of the ethnic origin, primitive estate, early migrations, social evolution, and present conditions and promise of the principal families of men (1915) (14578130207)

Identifier: withworldspeopl04ridp (find matches)
Title: With the world's people; an account of the ethnic origin, primitive estate, early migrations, social evolution, and present conditions and promise of the principal families of men
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Ridpath, John Clark, 1840-1900
Subjects: World history Ethnology
Publisher: Washington : Clark E. Ridpath
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive



Text Appearing Before Image:
h the Greek language became fixed and determinate was Aeolic. It Close kinship of IS m evidence that this dialect was spoken by the migrating tribes before the departure of the Hellenes and the Italians. A critical examination of the primitive Latin tongues shows that they still retained in the west many forms and features so nearly identical Avith. Aeolic as to demonstrate the original community of the dialects. This identity extends even to the vowels and diphthongs, which are the most shifting and uncertain parts of speech. The poverty of Latin in diphthongs, as compared with Ionic and Doric Greek, has an exact analogy in Aeolic; and the sameness in consonantal structure in the two tongues still further strengthens the argument. From Aeolic Greek, therefore, we may regard all the other Hellenic dialects as departures and developments. Aeolic was spoken in four principal dialects. The first was Lesbian, which is most characteristic of all, limited to
Text Appearing After Image:
THE GREEKS.—HELLENIC TONGUE. 133 the island of Lesbos, and strongly indicative of the Asiatic origin of the Greeks. The second variety was Principal dialecticai diver- Thessalian, and doubtfully Macedonian, though the latter tongue has never been critically determined in its relations with the languages of the south. The third dialect was Boeotian, and the fourth Elcan and Arcadian, the latter belonging to the Peloponnesus. Modern critics have found that the dialects of Elis and Arcadia are rather Doric Greek than Aeolic, though the latter may have been the original root. In Lesbos are several inscriptions which still preserve the ancient forms of the language; and the extant fragments of the poems of Alcasus and Sappho furnish literary examples of the same. One of the striking features of the language as illustrated in these works isLo-w tone and the absence of ultimate or Words which in are accented on the last syllable throw back the accent in .<^olic, just as in Latin