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it is true, are said by Strabo to have been the earliest inhabitants of Triphylia. But, if the Minyae were of Aeolic stock,[1] as is supposed by Fick (Ilias, p. 568), their settlement in Elis would explain that mixture of Aeolic and North Doric which is one of the chief peculiarities of the Elean patois.
Aetolians settled in Elis, under the leadership of Oxylus, at the time of the return of the Heraclidae. If these Aetolians brought with them a dialect not dissimilar to that of Locris, we understand why the Eleans displayed such a fondness for ᾰ before ρ, as in ϝάργον, πάρ; for ᾱ as in ϝράτρα and πατάρ, phonetic aberrations found chiefly in Locris as regards ᾱ, and in Locris alone as regards the ᾰ. Furthermore, we then comprehend such unmistakable traces of North-Doric influence as the dative-locative in -οι in the ο decl., -οις dat. pl. cons. decl., στ for σθ, and perhaps -XX accus. pl. (Delphic and Achaean). The Dorisms which are the common property of all Doric dialects, and which recur in this dialect, may be ascribed to the same source, e. g. τ for σ, ω by comp. length, ποτί, τόκα, πεντεκάτιοι, infin. in -μεν, though the possibility of the influence of Peloponnesian Doric is not thereby excluded. Strabo testifies to the admission of Doric elements into the Elean dialect, saying ὅσοι μὲν οὖν ἧσσον τοῖς Δωριεῦσιν ἐπεπλέκοντο καθάπερ συνέβη τοῖς τε Ἀκράσι καὶ τοῖς Ἠλείοις, οὗτοι Αἰολιστὶ διελέχθησαν. If the Minyae who settled in Triphylia (Hdt. IV 148) were Aeolic originally (and we need not assume that they had been Aeolized at Lemnos), their phonetic contingent was Aeolic, and we perceive whence came the Aeolic stratum in that remarkable combination of dialectical phenomena known as the Elean dialect. I refer to the ψίλωσις (ἐπίαρον), to the accus. pl. of the ᾶ and ο decl, in -αις and -οις (e. g. ταῖρ, τοῖρ, rhotacism being a later development), to the treatment of -εω verbs as -μι verbs in καδαλήμενος, though it must be conceded that this too is a peculiarity of the Locrian dialect. This theory of the origin of the intermixture of dialects in Elis (first suggested by Fick), though new, and perhaps destined to excite the hostility of surprise, cannot be dismissed without an examination of all the arguments that make for this conclusion.[2]
- ↑ The Asiatic Aeolians were then composed of two contingents: (1) The expelled Thessalians and Minyae, who joined the (2) Peloponnesian Aeolians, who reached their destination via Boeotia, The argument that the Minyae were Ionians who brought ἐκ (instead of ἐς cum genet.), εἰς, etc., to the Aeolic dialect, is a mere supposition. Duncker (V5 24), it is true, regards as Ionians those expelled by the Arneans.
- ↑ Blass lays weight upon the fact that Pisatis was connected with Arcadia
