AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREEK. 39 language have been employed in literature, and besides, a considerable, say the largest, part of the literature vhich once existed in old Hellas has not come to us ; thus these purists seem to place old Greek on the same footing with Latin. 2. Those who adhered, and adhere, to the literary language in use to-day. 3. Those who wished, and wish, for the vul- gar Greek idiom ; these are called the /y<5ai <Tra:'. That the Hyperatticists did not and will not succeed can be seen from history. Two thou- sand years ago Atticists, like Phrynichos, Mocris, and their disciples, were carrying on the same controversy; they wanted the same purification as the xadapifftai of to-day, but in vain. Prose, science, school, and press will uphold the literary language; poetry, especially the comical, will find its appropriate organ in the people's demotic (Klephtan songs, almanacs, comic journals) idiom. This will be as it was during the golden age of Greece, as is found in the chorus of the Attic tragedy and in lyric poetry. Modern literary Greek, as history shows, is but Attic simplified and complemented.*
- A Greek translation of this lecture appeared in the Athe-
nian journal Katpoi, June, 1896.
