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ceffary to fubjoin the more prominent diftinctions*. Certain it is, that the modern Greek, pronounced as the ancient in England, would be as unintelligible to them as the Italian at Rome or the French at Paris, if we spoke or read them exactly as they are fpelled, giving the letters and fyllables the fame power as to those in our own language.

"The Romeïka refembles in its conftruction the Italian and French, and rejects the tranfpofition of the

ancient Greek or Latin. It retains the articles and inflection of cafes, but has neither duals nor aorifts. The tenfes are formed by the verbs fubftantive.

"A fummary account, which my prefent limits allow me only to of fer of a language fo little known in Europe, may be confidered as no unacceptable curiofity by fome readers.

"The grammar of Simon Portius was the earlieft attempt. Pere

"The ancient alphabet and character are retained by the moderns, who are ill verfed in or negligent of orthography, both in their epistolary correfpondence and monumental infcriptions. Their printed books are tolerably correct. Some of the write the character very neatly. In their books for the church fervice the capital letters are grotefquely made and ornamented, departing entirely from the antique and fimple form.

"Without entering into too wide a digreffion, I fhall remark only the different powers given to letters which in the combination of fyllables produce a found fo different from that which we have been accustomed to hear given them.

"B, connected with fyllables, is pronounced as our v, and is expreffed by the modern Greeks by a after a μ: Barisùs, vafilefs — apworɛç, ambotes.

"A and, as the hard or foft th of the English: Sav, then. Mr. Knight, in his ingenious treatife entitled An Analytical Effay on the Greek Alphabet,' 4to. 1791, obferves, that the ancient manner of pronouncing 8, was indifputably that which is ftill preferved by the modern Greeks, the Copts, and the English, that is, by a constrained afpiration between the tongue and upper teeth. All the other European nations pronounce it as a mute confonant, and throw the aspiration on the next fucceeding vowel." P. 13. A is fyllabically formed by rafter: wara, panda.

"E has a found of frequent recurrence, and with a certain nicety of articulation is expreffed indifcriminately with the dipthongs at and ; which mode feems to have been adopted from the French. It has a broad tone, as e in être, or out a in fate.

“♦ for f, as in philofophy—the diphthong as is univerfally au, as nurse, autos.

"I has a foft tone between the g and y of the English; as Navayìa Panugèa. Two are ng, as in the ancient Ageños.

"I medial as ee, and final as y in humanity.

"K incipient as with us. X incipient very guttural.

"N final is generally quiefcent, and when preceded by two vowels, the latter is likewife funk: To vepiv, to nevò — ro xpaciov, to krafy.

" and are used indifcriminately. The double is the diphthong ou, as in the French.

"I after μ is b, and before rf, as era, efta.

❝r, incipient, medial, or final, as ee.

"H and the diphthong & have likewife the fame found.

"Or has the force of wi in French, and correfponds with the English w.

"As a mechanical mode of facilitating pronunciation, the following management of the organs of fpee. h is recommended, as tending to the acquirement of those founds which are moft frequent in the Romeika.

"X, before a confonant, as in xtos, is beft pronounced by drawing the tongue to the throat, and holding it fufpended under the palate with the lips a little open. as dth, which is effected by forcing the tongue against the upper row of teeth. "rincipient as gh, more gutturally than in English.

"fofter than A, which found is produced by placing the point of the tongue be tween the teeth, almost closed with a kind of hiffing.

"But perfection, must depend upon an accurate ear, colloquial facility, and long prac tice.

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Thomas, a capuchin of Paris, compofed another; and Spon has affixed to his voyage a meagre vocabulary, which he calls Petit Dic⚫tionaire.' Mavro Kordato's Lexi'con' (as I have before obferved) contains the moft fyftematic analyfis. There are grammars extant of Romeika, French and Italian, for the use of the natives who acquire thofe languages. That of Benardino Pianzola, of Turkish, Romeïka, and Italian, printed in the Roman character, is that in moft general acceptation.

“With no pretenfions to philological accuracy, I offer a fummary fketch, noticing the leading difcriminations, from claffical Greek, and its analogy to the Italian and French, in grammatical conftruction. - "ARTICLES. The modern Greeks retain the articles 0, 7, 70, as ufed by the ancients, which are conftantly prefixed to nouns, as demonftrative of genders, of which the neuter is admitted as one. Pleurals feminine are made by the article at and the ancient dative, as a ruspais days.

"NOUNS are declined by articles, prepofitions, and inflections. Nouns mafculine and feminine have univerfally but three different terminations in both numbers, and the neuter but two only. There are five declenfions arranged according to the termination of the nominative cafe.

"ADJECTIVES are always prefixed to nouns, as in English, excepting by the intervention of a verb, and are declinable with articles peculiar to the three genders. There are likewife five declenLions.

"COMPARATIVES and SUPERLATIVES Change the pofitive as the ancients—copos, σn BorEpos, σoporaros, adding likewife the prepofitions apa and awo; o av9pwwos

σegoraros wapa tes anλes,' a very qvife man.

"DIMINUTIVES are much used in converfation, by the modern Greeks as by the Italians. They join e and axi to mafculine or neuter nouns, and iga and a to feminine; as, arpwwedi, wā.èàxi,' a little man—a little boy: yea, opir?x, a little foul-a little girl; But efpecially to proper names, as Ilerpani, Erga.

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"PRONOUNS. The genitives of pronouns perfonal are always added to mouns: πατήρμα, πατη το κατηρ της, πατήρμας, πατήσας, πατέντες

my, bis, ber, our, your, their father. "Perfonal relatives are declinable, and the others are supplied by the invariable pronoun se. There are likewife demonftratives and interrogatives, &c. as in the ancient Greek.

"VERBS. There are four kinds derivative auxiliary su, I am, bexw, I will, and exw, I have, which form the tenfes of the other; and anomalous, or imperfonal, which are but few.

"The derivative verbs are active, paffive, and deponent only, and are divided into two claffes, barytone and circumflex, the former of which have the accent placed on the last fyllable but one, as yes, I turite; and in the paffive on the laft fyllable but two, as you, I am quritten. The latter are accentuated on the final fyllable, as aɣamis, I love; and in the paffive on the laft but one, as ayawauzi, Į am loved.

The difference of conjugations is determined by the first perfon prefent and the first person perfect of the indicative mood. The barytones have four and the circumflex three conjugations.

"There is no infinitive mood, from which tenfes in other languages are deduced; but the potential with a conjunction is substituted,

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On the LATIN TERMS ufed in NATURAL HISTORY, by the REV. JOHN BRAND, A. M. &c.

[From the third Volume of the TRANSACTIONS of the LINNEAN SoCIETY.]

"TH

HE Latin has been adopted as the language of natural hiftory; but the Latinity of the natural hiftorians has undergone no fmall cenfure.

"By the adoption of the Latin as the common language of the fcience, in the degree in which it obtains, new difcoveries in it are propagated with great facility. Other branches of philofophy have not had the fame good fortune; and every European nation is become philofophical: and thus, as Monf. D'Alembert has obferved, he who devotes himself to the cultivation of any one of them, if he would keep his knowledge up to the level of its ftate, is reduced to the neceffity of flinging away a very valuable part of his life, in acquiring feven or eight languages.

"But the latinity of the terms in which natural history is written, has been cenfured: upon this charge the following remarks may be made.

"Such terms must be either primitives or derivatives; now either of thefe may be barbarifms, when not found in any good Latin au

thor; or improprieties (verba impropria, Quint.), when, though fo found, they are not to be found ufed in the fame fenfe. This must be admitted: but it is here contended, that it does not on, this account alone follow that they are so. This is proved from the practice of the ancient grammarians in the invention of technical terms, in conjunction with the authority of Tully.

"Firft, the ufe of a Latin primitive or derivative, in a fenfe in which it does not occur in any pure Roman writer, is not neceffarily an impropriety, technically fo called ; for if a confiderable variation from fuch an established sense were so, the very grammatical terms of the Roman writers would fall under that cenfure, as for inftance (articulus) an article, (verbum) a verb. When thefe terms were first ufed by grammarians, there was a great variation from their pre-eftablished fenfe, and their primary fignifications-a joint, a word.

"It is likewife certain, that if grammar had not been reduced into an art among the Romans, the fe

terms

have long purfued these researches; that to unusual fubjects I may apply terms which never have been in

terms would not have been now
found in their technical fenfes in
their writings. And if a writer of
this age, having reduced the art in-ufe.
to a fyftem, had prefented the world
with the firft Latin Grammar, and

6

"Atticus. Certainly but if our Latin language will not furnish

had given the fame names, verbum,them, you may bave recourse to the

articulus, to the fame things, his of fence against pure latinity, or the pre-eftablished good ufe of thofe words, would have been of the fame magnitude as that of the original Latin grammarians, and no more; the fame innovations in a language, living or dead, being of equal quality yet the charge against the propriety of the terms ufed by fuch a writer, would be the fame in kind as that brought against the natural hiftorians; but it muft have fallen to the ground-nor would it have been in degree lefs ftrong; for bolder extenfions in the fenfe of Latin terms, are not, that I recollect, to be found in the Lexicon of our technical language. Thefe faftidious grammatical exceptions are, in principle, exceptions both to the art and the philofophy of grammar. If the naturalifts err in this point, they err with the grammatical fathers (cum patribus).

"Secondly, What I have to fay about derivatives not used in Latin writers, will be contained in a thort comment on a paflage in the Academic Queftions of Cicero, where he afferts the rights and privileges of thofe who treat on philofophical fubjects in a language not yet enriched with proper terms, and exemplifies his principles in the formation of a new derivative, an authority from which I apprehend no appeal will be made. The tranfiation of this paflage is as follows. The original is placed at the end of this article *.

"Varro. You will allow me the 'fame liberty which has always 'been affumed by the Greeks, who

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Greek.

"Varro. I am obliged to you; but I will endeavour to exprefs myfelf in Latin, confining myself to fuch terms of Greek derivation as are already naturalized among us, as philofophy, rhetoric, phyfics, 'dialectics. I have therefore form'ed the new term Qualitas, to exprefs the fenfe of the Greek word Ποιότης ; which even among them is not a word of common ufe, but confined to the philofophers. In like manner, none of the terms of the logicians are found in the popular language; and the fame is true of 'the terms of almost all the arts: ta new things new names must be given, or thofe of obers transferred to them. If the Greeks take this liberty, who have cultivated the fciences for ages, bow much fironger is the reafon it should be granted to us, in our first attempt to treat upon them!

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"Cicero. It feems to me, that you will do a work of utility to the public, if you not only increase the fuck of our ideas, which you bave already done, but clfo that of our words.

"Varro. We fhall therefore hazard the ufe of new words when neceflary, and by your authority.'

"And where the fame neceflity, arifing from the fame fource, exift, the fame liberty is to be taken. And as Cicero, on this point, is an unexceptionable authority, let us examine his practice to fee to what degree it may be carried. The word Qualitas, derived from Quale, is now familiarized to the ear. The ft boldnefs of this derivate is only perceived by reflection, but its

degree

fcience with a number of new difcoveries, confers a fecond general benefit, by enriching the language in which he treats of them, by all fuch terms as fhall be requifite to do it in the best manner.

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degree will strike us more immedi. ately, if we take the Englith words ubat, or fuch (as), which anfwer to the Latin pronominal adjective Quale, and add one of the fubftantive terminations [hood] or [nefs] to either, to make a philofophical term of it."Cicero, repeating his new term I ask the fevere grammarians, who quality, adds with great philofophiproteft against the clafs of new deri- cal pleafantry, Faciamus tractando vatives in the philofophical language ufitatius hoc verbum, et tritius.' of Linnæus, to produce among them And it may be faid of the terms of a bolder example of the creation of natural hiftory, that our elegant claffical scholars will find their afperities wear off very foon, if, by adding to their former acquifitions a knowledge of this new philofophy, they make themfelves practically versed in the ufe of them. There may remain fome precifely defcriptive, which may be yet added; fome reformation may be wanted in those which may have been haftily adopted; and from them we may expect it.

a new term.

"And by the fame authority, we may defend his impofing new fignifications on old words; for in a few lines after the conclufion of the extract, there occurs a liberty of this kind, and as remarkable as the former; for Cicero there gives a new fenfe to the pronominal adjective Quale, in correfpondence to that of his new derivative Qualitas; ufing it fubftantively to fignify any being or thing, as compounded of fubftance and accident, or matter and qualities: Et ita effeci quæ appellant qualia; e quibus in omni natura cohærente, et continuata cum omnibus fuis partibus, effectum effe mundum.'

"It deferves to be remarked refpecting these innovations, that this affertion of the legitimacy of the practice in all like cafes is here put by Cicero into the mouth of Varro, the greatest critic and grammarian of the Auguftan age; who wrote on the Latin language, and addreffed his works to Cicero himself.

"Hence it appears, that philofophy is not restrained to the ufe of the common terms of any language; nor, for the fame reafon, to thofe of the hiftorians, orators, dramatic writers, poets, &c. of that language, either feparately or conjointly: but, as every art has terms of its own, fo has every branch of science.

"That he who enriches any 1797

"It is to be obferved, that these arguments defend the liberty, not the licentioufnefs, of introducing new terms; and defend it upon the footing of neceflity only; and therefore extend that liberty no further than fuch neceflity actually extends.

"I had thought to have finished here; but having made fo much use of the authority of the great ornament of the Roman forum, the fen-timents of the elegant expofitor of our own laws on this fubject are not to be paffed by. Thefe, with a minute change to avoid the introduction of freth matter, are as follows

This is a technical language calcu'lated for eternal duration, and easy to be apprehended both in prefent. and future times; and on these ac'counts beft fuited to preferve thofe 'memorials which are intended to perpetuate [every difcovery, in natural biftory]. It is true indeed, that many of the terms of art with which

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H

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