GREEK AS INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE. 24 1 In order to command a language, it is above all necessary to know how the people speak. The every-day language must be familiar to us. Whoever knows the conversational language of a nation has the key to the understanding of its writings like the people themselves. The Attic boy needed for reading the Greek poets, the Attic farmer for the theatre or a public meeting, only the knowledge of the Attic conversational language in its most simple form. It enabled them to understand the trag- edies of Sophocles and the speeches of Pericles. It has often been claimed that there are re- markably few words and sentences which suffice for the common man in speaking his native lan- guage, and which enable him to understand even that which to him is a new formation. The every-day language must first be known before acquiring the art language. Macaulay and others recommend, while learn- ing a language, to lay aside the grammar, as the laws of speech will be easily comprehended while reading good authors. It seems to me that whosoever begins the study of a language with the learning of its rules, will never learn the language, unless he abandons the study of the grammar and commences anew. 16
