The Dialects of North Greece

by Herbert Weir Smyth

THE

Dialects of North Greece

 

BY

HERBERT WEIR SMYTH, Ph. D.

Johns Hopkins University.

Read at the Meeting of the American Philological Association
held at Ithaca, July 1886.

Reprinted from The American Journal of Philology, Vol. VII, No. 4.

BALTIMORE

Press of Isaac Friedenwald

1887

The Dialects of North Greece.^[1]

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The statement of Strabo (VII 1, 2, p. 333) πάντες οἱ γὰρ ἐκτὸς Ἰσθμοῦ πλὴν Ἀθηναίων καὶ Μεγαρέων καὶ τῶν περὶ τὸν Παρνασσὸν Δωριέων καὶ νῦν ἔτι Αἰολεῖς καλοὺνται is a statement which epigraphic testimony proves to contain an illegitimate use of Αἰολεῖς, but which is doubtless to be explained by reference to that plastic use of tribal names the most patent case of which is the extension of the term Ἕλληνες. By the Greeks before Aristotle Thessaly was regarded as the cradle of the Greek race, and bore origmally, i. e. before the incursion of the Thesprotians under Thessalus, the name Αἰολίς. This incursion gave the impetus to a series of revolutions in tribal relations which it is impossible for the historian to control with certainty. The Αἰολιδέων πόλις in Phocis on the way from Daulis to Delphi (Hdt. VIII 35), and the territory of Pleuron and Calydon, called Αἰολίς, in Southern Aetolia, received in all probability their names from exiled Aeolians, In the case of Pleuron (Πλευρωνία) such a conjecture has at least the testimony of antiquity in its favor (Strabo X 3, 6, p. 465), and, as Meister remarks, the statement of a historian in Steph. Byz., ἐν μέν τοι Δωριεῦσιν Αἰτωλοί, can readily be brought into agreement with the assertions of Thuc. III 102, and the scholion on Theocr. I 56 (Αἰολὶς γὰρ ἡ Αἰτωλίς), by regarding the Doric Aetolians as the inhabitants of the ἀρχαία Αἰτωλία. The passage from Strabo quoted above is the only authority which affixes to the inhabitants of northwestern and north-central Greece the name Aeolic. On the other hand, the consentient testimony of the ancients regarded Thessaly and Boeotia alone as Aeolic, and the grammarians restrict the use of the term “Aecolic dialect” to the idiom of Lesbian poetry, very infrequently characterizing as Aeolic a form which is Boeotian or Thessalian.

Giese (Der aeolische Dialekt, p. 131) has well remarked, in discussing the difficulties presented by the utterances of the Greeks in reference to their tribal and dialectological relations: “Nicht in den Meinungen der Alten liegen die wahrhaft historischen Zeugnisse, sondern in ihrer Sprache selbst.” If we supplement this statement by another, which in reality is not excluded by the first: “Ohne Rücksicht auf das Leben des Volks ist die Sprachwissenschaft todt und werthlos” (Fick, Ilias, p. 564), we open up the two avenues by which the science of Greek dialectology is to be approached. It will, therefore, in the first instance be necessary to pass in review the various phenomena which constitute each of the cantonal idioms of that wide territory reaching from the Aegean Sea to the western part of Epirus, and from Olympus to the southernmost parallel of those states washed by the Corinthian Gulf Upon this scientific basis alone can we hope to attain results, the value of which will doubtless be enhanced by the fact that so comprehensive an investigation has as yet net been attempted in Germany.

To establish the position of the dialects of Thessaly and Boeotia as dialects of North Greece, in their connection with Asiatic-Aeolic and in their relation to one another, I present the following table of their chief distinctive morphological features.

I.—Dialect of Thessaly.

A. Peculiarities which belong specifically to Thessaly.

1. ε for α in διέ. 2. ου for ω; ω has ceased to exist. 3. κ for τ in κίς. 4. φ for θ in φείρ. 5. τθ for φθ in Ἀτθόνειτος. 6. δδ for δ inἱδδίαν. 7. Gen. sing. -ο decl. in -οι.^[2] 8. Demonstr. pron. ὄνε. 9. Infin. pass. in -σθειν. 10. 3 pl. pass. in -νθειν. 11. Infin. aor. act. in -σειν. 12. μά for δέ. 13. δαύχνα for δάφνη in ἀρχιδαυχναφορείσας. 1314. σσ for ζ in ἐμφανίσσοεν. 14. -εν in 3 pl. imperf. aorist (ἐδούκαεμμά).

B. Points of agreement with the dialect of Boeotia.

1. ε for α in θέρσος (θάρσος also is Boeot.). 2. ει for η. 3. A labial for a dental: Thess. Πετθαλός = Boeot. Φετταλός. 4. A dental surd and aspirate in Thess. = a double dental in Boeot. = σσ in Attic. See example under 3. 5. θ for τ; ἐγένονθο ἐφανγρένθειν Thess., παργινύωνθη, ἐποείσανθο Boeot. 6. ἐροτός for ἐρατός. 7. ϝ = υ in middle of a word. 8. μικκός = μικρός (gramm.). 9. γίνυμαι for γίγνομαι from the analogy of the -μυνι verbs. The change must have taken place after the withdrawal of the Asiatic Aeolians. 10. Dat. pl. cons. stems in -εσσι (also Lesbian). 11. Inf. in -εμεν (not Pharsalian), Lesbian -μεναι and -εν. 12. Part. perf. Thess. -ουν, Boeot., Lesb. -ων. This is one of the proofs that these dialects sprang from a common source. 13. ἐς = ἐξ before a cons. Thess., Boeot.: ἐσς in B. before a vowel (ἐκ in Lesbian before a cons., ἐξ before a vowel). 14. ἐν for εἰς. 15. Patronymics in -ειος, ιος. 16. βελ in B. βειλόμενος, Thess. βἐλλειτται; B. also βολ in βωλά, Locrian δείλομαι. 17. ποτι B., Aeolic πρός, πρές. 18. Doubling of σ before τ, κ, χ. 19. Absence of ψίλωσις. 20. τ for σ before vowels. 21. Absence of ν ἑφελκ. in the prose inscriplions.

C. The Thessalian dialect has these points of similarity with Asiatic-Aeolic:

1. ε for α in θέρσος. 2. ι for ε (ει) λίθιος. 3. ο for α in ὀν = ἀνά. 4. υ for ο in ἀπύ. 5. Assimilation of a liquid with a spirant, ἐμμι. 6. σσ for σ between vowels, ἐσσεθειν. 7. Dat. pl ατ. conson, decl. in -εσσι. 8. Personal pronoun ἁμμέ, ἁμμέουν; Lesb. ᾶμμε, ἀμμέων. 9. Contract verbs are treated as -μι verbs; not in Boeotian inscriptions. 10. Part. perf. act. in -ουν, Lesb. -ων. 11. Part. of the substantive verb in ἐούν = ἑών, Lesb. and Boeot. 12. Article οἱ, αἱ. 13. ῑα for Doric and Ionic μία, Goth. si, or αευα. The feminine of εἰς is not found in any Boeotian literary or epigraphic monument. 14. κέ for ἀν. 15. The name of the father is indicated by a patronymical adjective in -ιος. 16. μικκός = μικοός (gramm.). 17. Διόννυσος = Aiolic Ζόννυσος. 18. ἁῖν (the accent is uncertain); cf. Lesbic αἰιν, ὰῖν and Boeot. ἠί, άἱ. 19. ϝ = υ in middle of a word. 20. Absence of ν ἐϙελκ. in non-κοινή inscriptions.

II.—The Dialect of Boeotia.

A. The Boeotian dialect is akin to that of Lesbos and Aeolis herein:

1. ε for α, θέρσος, Boeot. also θράσος. 2. Βελφοί, Aeol. Βέλφοι. 3. ο for α, στροτός,^[3] Boeot. also στρατός. 4. πόρνωψ for πάρνωψ, Aeol. Πορνοπίων. 5. υ for ο, ὸνυμα (but ἀπό). 6. ᾶτερος (gramm.) 7. ο + ο = ω. 8. ο + α = ᾱ. 9. Gen. ο decl. in -ω. 10. -εω verbs treated as -μι verbs, according to the grammarians, and at least at the time of Aristophanes (Achar. 914). 11. Name of the father is expressed by a patronymic adjective. 12. Πειλεστροτίδας B., πήλυι Lesb. for πηλόσε. 13. μικκός = μικρός (gramm.). 14. ϝ = υ in middle of a word (ϝ is also preserved in B.). 15. ζά = διά, Corinna δια-. 16. Absence of ω ἐφελκ. in the prose inscriptions.

B. The following are the chief peculiarities of the dialect of Boeotia, and not found either in Thessaly or in Lesbos. (Many later peculiarities are here included.)

1. α for ε in ἱαρός, Thessal. ἱερόν, Aeol. ἷρος < ἵερος or *ἱρος. 2. ι for ει throughout. 3. Accus. pl. ο decl. in -ως, Aeol. -οις Thessal. -ος. 4. ω from compens. length. This transformation of ονς occurred after the separation of the three dialects. 5. ου for υ, ιου after λ, ν and dentals. 6. ου for ο in Διουσκορίδαν. 7. οι is written οε, υ, ει. 8. η forαι. 9. γ for β in πρισγεῖες. 10. ττ for σσ. 11. ττ from στ. 12. ἀπό, Thessal., Lesbian ἀπύ. 13. βανά for γυνή. γυναικί is, however, also Bocot, 14. ¢heev=iupev, 15, Inflection Gite; Lesb,, Thess. He egTuC.

C, Divergences between Boeotian and Asiatic-Aeolic:

1. Vrep. a; Aeol., Thessal, dv alone; 4 is the only farm in Roeot. and Doric. 2. wétraprg, Aeol. wésarpes, zfovpre, 3. xpdrtoc, also Thessal,: Aeol, npiveg. 4. xa, AeoL xf; “Apreae, Acol, “Aptymtic. §. & for 4 thronghout. The solitary example of ce in Leshic is worezuevec. 6. 7 for & throughout. 3. « from compensatory length: Burd, Aupinaye; aceus. pl. seryypdder; fem. part. H4woa, §. ov for x, ov after 2,» and deutals. 9. ov fora. 10. oF, v, o¢ for on ir. yforen, 12, 1 before vowels =e, et. 13. Gen. pl, ~iwy, Lesh, -ar, 14, €f = Goeat. ue Lesb. 7%, 15. sai-+ & = Boeat. », Lesh, @ seldom 3, 16. Aecolie ynezwme js not found in Boeot. 17, Acolic Papurduyoe. 18. Aeolic od, Koeot. §,dS = 55 ef. the Elean ¢, which is Doric, not Aeolic. 9. foc far €. 20, w verbs inf,; Boeot, -ver, Lesh. -, -ev. 21, hwe, de for Acol, éwe. “he jatter has heen attributed to Tonic influence. 22. Imperative -vfa, Lesbic wre. The Boeotian form is, of course, a later development. 23. Boeot. sare, Aso. niure. 23. Absence of yisware,

D. The dialect of Boeotia differs from that of Thessaly herein. (Many later peculiarities of B. are here included.)

1. iapic B, irpoe Thess., with the exceplion of C2 400,23 Crannon., 2. 4, Thess, ov, 3. Thessal. chanye to ein def, Fexidapocr; Boeot,a. 4. Ts. arperoc and orperde, hess, evpardc, §. Boeot. , Thess,on 6. ec in Roeot.= 4, Thess. é. 7, afin Docot.= 4, Thess. er or ce in the ending Tre, 8. vin Boeot, = on, wa, Thess, 2. g. a= Boeot. vs, r, £6 = Thess, o. 10. © hefore yowels Tioeat. ©, 4, €¢=2 Thessal. ¢,4 11. ¢@-- o = Roeot. ev, ev,@== Vhessal.d. 12.0 = Hoeat, cos Thess. co, 13. 0¢ = Neeot. 2 = Thess, opin -reog. ty. Thess.cc between vowels (cesotexr} = Boeot. o. 15. Thessal. 4 for x in pyar yre- onpecar, 16. Thessal, has nov teetuverendr, 17, Thess. semination of nasals and liquids. 18, avy, ores Roeot, uc, we = Thess. @¢, os, 19. C= Hoeat. J, dd = Thess. {, ae, 20, o¢ 2= Boeat, tr = Thess. ti, detredic, Wetiasde. 21, x for

7 in Thess, sic, 22. Gen. sing. -0 decl = Rueot. w, Thessal. ae. 23. Tocot. Tidate Phess, recacer, 24, Boeatxa = Vhess, xf.

III.—Points of Similarity between the Dialects of Thessaly, Boeotia and Lesbos.

1, ¢ fore in Pepooc, 2 Formation of patronymies. 3. Pronunciation of x {prohalily). 4. Termination of the perf. act. part. (or), 5. Participle of the substantive verb dor, 6. Termination -e¢e: in eonsonautal declension. 7. F in middle of a words, §. Absence of « Foetn, in the non xvrg prose in- suriptions,

From this summary it is clear that the dialect of Boeotia occupies an intermediate position between that of Thessaly and that of Lesbos, is nearer akin to that of Thessaly, and that the dialect of Thessaly has a distinctively Aeolic coloring.^[4] Aside from those special evolutions in vocalization to which the Boeotian dialect first gave graphical expression, and the Aeolisms af Boeotian speech, there is a remainder of Dorisms the explanation of which has offered no inconsiderable difficulty to the dialectologist.^[5]

That the inhabitants of Boeotia and Thessaly were of the Aeolic race is proved by the close similarity of their dialects, and by the indisputable belief of the ancients that the Boeotians were of kindred race with the Aeolians. Boeotians joined the κτίσαντες Αἰολεῖς expelled by the Dorians, in the emigration to Aeolis, Lesbos and Tenedos, a union of émigrés scarcely possible had there existed no ties of consanguinity between them.

Two great tribes occupied Greece north of the Corinthian Gulf—the Aeolic in the east, the Doric chiefly in the west and centre,^[6] the Dores themselves being referred to North Thessaly. From that western clement came the Pelopennesian Doric as an offshoot,^[7] now expelling the idiom of the original settlers, now absorbing its forms, which stand out as isolated landmarks of a bygone age (e. g. Ποοἵδαια in Sparta, the only example of the οι ablaut in this name). Though the Locrian dialect offers certain peculiarities, reappearing in Elean, it can nevertheless be adjudged to be a descendant of North-Doric speech.

Whether a dialectical separation between Peloponnesian and North-Greek Dorians took place at the time of the return of the Heraclidae, or whether they continued to use one and the same speech, is a question admitting merely a tentative solution, though the latter seems the more probable assumption, since there exist in North Doric a few remnants which are parallel to Pelopannesian Doric (gen. in -ω and -ως).

While the similarity between Thessalian and Boeotian was rendered more apparent by the dialectological ἑρμαῖον of the inscription from Larissa, their points af difference still await a final explanation. Upon the solution of the problem whether the original inhabitants of Boeotia were of Aeolic or of Doric blood depends the exact position of its dialect in its relation not only to that of Thessaly, but also to that of Western and Central Greece, We enter here upon a tortuous path, which is illuminated solely by the occasional rays of light cast by ancient literature.

It has been asserted by many, and, for example, by Merzdorf, that there existed an Aeolo-Doric period. This favorite assumption rests upon a probability that is purely specious, and has flourished upon the sterile soil of reverence for Strabo from the time of Salmasius to the present day. Its correctness has never been demonstrated by a detailed investigation, nor is it easily supportable by any more cogent argument than that in a both Aeolic and Doric have preserved a common inheritance, and that they retained ϝ with greater tenacity than the Ionians. But these considerations, together with some other minor points of agreement, by no means prove the existence of an Aeolo-Doric unity in any determinable prehistoric period, much less elevate such a unity to that degree of certainty sufficient to serve as a basis for exact dialectological investigation. Though Merzdorf accepts this unity as an incontrovertible fact, he fails to show that the Boeotian dialect, with its mixture of Aeolic and Doric forms, stands in direct succession to this primitive Aeolo-Doric period.^[8]

If, then, this contingent of Aeolic and Doric forms cannot be demonstrated to be an heirloom of an Aeolo-Doric period. it is necessary to take refuge in the theory of dialect intermixture through the agency of the influence of one race upon another.

The opinion has prevailed in many quarters that the inhabitants of Boeotia were originally Doric, and that they were Aeolized at the time of the irruption of the “Boeotians” from Arne in Thessaly, whence they were driven by the Thesprotians under Thessalus. Thucydides (I 12) says that, sixty years after the fall of Troy, the Boeotians, having been expelled by the Thessalians, took possession of the land, which was now called Boeotia, but which before had been called Cadmeïs, wherein there had previously dwelt a section of their race, which had contributed their contingent to the Trojan war. The latter statement is evidently a makeshift to bring his account into harmony with Homer, who recognizes the Boeotians as inhabitants of Boeotia. The account of Pausanias varies from that of Thucydides in that he relegates the immigration of the Boeotians to a period anterior to the Trojan war, and Ephorus states that the invading force was composed of the Boeotians from Arne, and af Cadmeans who had been expelled from Boeotia by the Thracians and Pelasgians. The theory of Thucydides that the Boeotians in their ingression from Thessaly into Boeotia were returning to their ancestral dwelling-place is evidently an invention, coined in the workshop of fiction, and failing to show that the Boeotians were of Aeolic stock. A similar inversion of historical fact is seen in the legend that the Aetolians “returned” to Elis at the time of the retarn of the Heraclidae. The atmosphere which Greek historians breathed was surcharged with “returns” of expatriated tribes.

Though tradition is adduced pointing to an invading force of Aeolic blood, and though it has been assumed that this force was successful in subduing a Doric race in Boeotia, traces of whose language worked their way into the speech of the conquerors, it cannot be said that these suppositions have either been made convincing or even possible. According to Brand, the latest writer on the subject, all those Dorisms which appear in the Boeotian dialect are either survivals of the Doric speech of the conquered inhabitants, or are importations from the neighboring communities to the west. Whatever may be said of the plausibility of the latter assertion, which will not be overlooked later on, the grotesque ingenuousness of his argument that, because in all the cantons of Northern Greece, except that of Thessaly, at the time of Alexander the Great, there obtained a dialect which presents the same general Doric characteristics, therefore such must have been the case in prehistoric times, needs no refutation.^[9] Inasmuch as all previous treatises on the dialect of Boeotia have failed to investigate the source of its dialect-mixture, an examination of this problem may not be without value.

Upon the arrival of the expatriated Arneans in Boeotia, they found there a imxed population, of which the Cadmeans and the Minyae certainly formed a portion. (The Thebans are said to have taken possession of their land—συμμίκτους ἀνθρώπους ἐξελάσαντες.) Busolt denies that the Cadmeans were of Phoenician origin, though it is impossible to tell with any certainty to what race they belonged. It is, however, probable that upon their expulsion they settled in Claros, Laconia, in Melos and in Thera. Tradition informs us that Erchomenos, the city of the Minyae, of which Athanias, the son of Aeolos, was king, was connected with Ioleos^[10] in Thessaly, an Aeolic city, called an ἀποικία of the Minyae. if we remember that the seats of the Minyae were originally on the Pagasaean Gulf, and that they emigrated thence to the Copaic valley, we cannot fail to see that Boeotia and Thessaly were originally united into one territorial district.^[11]

Athamas was worshipped as a hero at Alos in Achaea Phthiotis, having a chapel connected with the temple of Zeus Laphystios.^[12] Here human sacrifice had been permitted—an importation from Boeotia, where it had been introduced by Phoenicians. In Boeotia and m Phthiotis was an Ἀθαμάντιον πεδίον. Near the Boeotian Coroneia was a temple dedicated to the Itonian Athena; a similar temple near a town called Itonus existed in Thessaly; cf Grote, Chap. XVIII. The architectural remains of the Minyae at Erchomenos are testimonials of Aeolic genius contemporaneous with those at Mycenae. The Achaeans were an Αἰολικὸν ἔθνος; and the Dorians did not develop at this remote period any architectonic greatness.

When the new-comers from Thessaly took possession of Boeotia, the Minyae fled to Lemnos, Phocaea and Teos, and thence to Triphylia in Elis.^[13] Pelias of Iolcos, and Neleus of Pylos, which was identified with the Triphylian Pylos, were brothers (λ 254). Busolt (Griech. Geschichte, I 95) finds it difficult to explain the origin of the settlement of the Minyae in Triphylia, and characterizes the Elean dialect as “related to the Arcadian.” The Arcadians, it is true, are said by Strabo to have been the earliest inhabitants of Triphylia. But, if the Minyae were of Aeolic stock,^[14] 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.^[15]

This digression was necessitated by my desire to develop and confirm the supposition that, of the original inhabitants of Boeotia, the Minyae at least were of Aeolic stock.^[16] The name of the inhabitants of the land drained by the Cephissus was in historical times inter alia Αἰαλεῖς Βοιωτοί. Now, the peculiarity of this denomination of a people which formed later on a federal unity, leads to the not unplausible supposition that herein we have a designation of two tribal entities—the Aeolians and the Boeotians; otherwise, it would be difficult to explain a compound name of this character not easily paralleled in the domain of Greek ethnography or elsewhere in Greek, but occurring in at least one cognate language. If in reality the tribe called Βοιωτοί was a part of that body of Dorian Greeks who, as pioneers of a Dorian civilization, left their western home to seek a new habitation in the east, the possibility of a solution of the problem of dialect-mixture in Boeotia becomes at once apparent. The Boeotians left Arne in Thessaly either before or after the Trojan war—our authorities varying between the one date and the other—but that they were necessarily Aeolians is far from being proved by the sporadic testimony of tradition. Pausanias, X 8, 4, couches his opinion in positive language: Θεσσαλίαν γὰρ καὶ οὖτοι (οἱ Βοιωτοί) τὸ ἀρχαιότερα ᾤκησαν καὶ Αἰολεῖς τηνικαῦτα ἐκαλοῦτο, but we have no warrant for the credibility of his source of information. Thucydides doubtless believed them to be Aeolians, since they were “returning” to Boeotia, which was an Aeolic country in his opinion. A dispossessed Aeolic people would naturally take refuge with a kindred race, but their arrival is signalized not by a fraternal welcome, but by the expulsion of the Minyae, once the most powerful tribe of North Greece. If it be granted that the Arneans were Aeolians—and we must confess that the balance of probability according to tradition inclines to this view—we are driven to the conclusion that at this turbulent period, when the Dores themselves were compelled to vacate their settlements, a body of Dorians must have forced their way across the confines of Boeotia and become amalgamated with the remnant of the original Aeolic population. Whence these Dorians came we know not, if they be not in reality the Arneans.^[17] Doubtless they were Dorians who had crossed the Pindus—such ultramontane Doric tribes are not without parallel—and, forced by the later incursions of the Thesprotians under Thessalus, pressed southward to seek a new abode in Boeotia.^[18] Or, perhaps, from the Dores who, on their expulsion from Thessaly, settled in Doris, may have come an offshoot, which forced its way into Boeotia. We must be content with a non liquet in the investigation of such an elusive problem, and rest satisfied with the results attained—that Boeotia was originally an Aeolic land, and that it was partially Dorized at an early period of its history. The possibility of Doric accretions from the west at a later period is not thereby excluded, though an examination of the dialect of the neighboring cantons justifies the conclusion that the Boeotians were more liberal in infusing peculiarities of their idiom into adjacent regions than ready to receive foreign loan-forms.

In Thessaly, as frequently where alien races come into contact, the speech of the conquerors yielded to that of the conquered. That the invaders were Dorians is clear from many considerations, one of which has heretofore been overlooked. The leader of the Thesprotians was Thessalus, grandson of Hercules; the leaders of the Dorians who overran the Achaean Sparta were the sons of Aristodemus, grandson of the same hero. In both Thessaly and Sparta the subdued inhabitants occupied a similar position,^[19] the Achaeans and Magnetes in the north being reduced to a condition parallel to that of the περίοικοι, while the πενέσται were subjected to the fate of the Helots. Thessaly was divided into four, Laconia into six divisions. It need not excite our surprise that the tenacity of the Aeolic of the overpowered Thessalians was so vigorous as to supplant the dialect of the conquerors. The western Greeks, though of genuine Hellenic stock, were an uncultivated people, the Aeolians of Thessaly a people destined, together with the Achaeans, to be the nurse of the noblest development of Hellenic poetry. Hence the fact that we find so few Dorisms in Thessaly; e. g. ποτί, κράτος (Lesbian κρέτος), ψαφιξαμένας, etc.,^[20] whereas in the land of the crassi Boeoti, a people enkindled by no great love of the humaner arts—for Pindar was really extra flammantia moenia mundi—less resistance was offered to the speech of the invading Dorians. Thus we find such surviving Aeolisms^[21] as inf. in -μεν, patronymics in -ιος, dat. in -εσσι mixed with Dorisms; e. g. α for ε in ἱαρός (Thess. ἱερός, Lesbic ἷρος); the accus. pl. in ως, ει < η, by comp. length; ἀπό for ἀπύ, εἶμεν for ἔμμεν, ἄν for ὄν Thess., Lesb.; κά, the change of εο to ιο (?), inflection of θέμις θέμιτι), τοί, ταί, absence of assimilation, reflexive αὐτὸς, αὐτῶν, ἀσαυτῦ, fut. in -ξω, aorist in -ξα from -ζω verbs, Other non-Doric peculiarities of Boeotian speech which find no parallel either in Thessaly or in Lesbos are either individual developments of the dialect or importations from elsewhere; e. g. ττ from Attica or Euboea, as we may assume that the σσ on the most ancient Boeotian inscriptions (Κυπαρίσσι λιβύσσαι) is antecedent to the ττ of the later monuments.

Turning from the eastern to the western portion of North Hellas, we enter upon a field that has heretofore not been systematically explored by the dialectologist. The present investigation of the vowel and consonantal systems of the dialect of Epirus, Acarnania, Aetolia, Phthiotis, and of the dialect of the Aenianes, is the first that attempts to bring together all the phenomena illustrative of the dialect of this extensive region. Before proceeding to a summary of the chief features of this patois, it may be instructive to pass in review some matters of ethnographic and historical importance that will cast light upon this obscure corner of Greek dialectology.

Epirus. The Greeks held that Hellas proper ended at Ambracia, and that therefore the Epirotic tribes were non-Hellenic. Though Thuc. (II 81) expressly states that the Chaones were barbarians, modern investigation has determined that of the northern tribes some were wholly barbarous, while the southern tribes at least were Hellenized. If, however, the Thesprotians under Thessalus, presumably in the eleventh century, were the source of the admixture of Doric elements in the Aeolic of Thessaly, and perhaps of Boeotia, we cannot doubt but that the Epirotes were on a footing of ethnic equality with the other Hellenes, nor refuse to allot them a place among the sections of that Doric race which afterwards was split into a northern and a southern division. In history the Epirotes play no part till the rise of the Molossi under Pyrrhus; and in 168 B. C. they were subdued by the Romans.

Acarnania. The earliest inhabitants were Leleges and Curetes, the former of whom had originally their habitations in Caria. Tradition points to early settlements under Cypselus from Corinth, and Blass has declared that the Acarnanian dialect is nothing more than an imported Corinthian, a declaration which he has unfortunately not yet proved. The Acarnanians were at all times the bitter opponents of the Aetolians, serving as auxiliaries under Philip of Macedon after 220, to which fact they owed their fall in 197.

Aetotia. Curetes, Leleges and Hyantes are stated to have been the original settlers of Aetolia. At the period of the tribal revolutions Aeolians from Thessaly forced their way in to settle near Pleuron and Calydon, and Epirotes came from the northwest to augment the number of immigrants. The Aetolians were the early settlers of Elis under Oxylus, though tradition fixed the original seat of the Aetolians in Elis (Ἡλείαν προγονικήν). Thucydides, III 94, makes the uncanny statement in reference to the Aetolians, ἀγνώστατοι δὲ γλῶσσάν εἰσι καὶ ὡμοφάγοι, ὡς λέγονται. If this assertion be true, which is doubtful on account of the qualification, it ean readily be referred to the inhabitants of Aetolia ἐπίκτητος. The eastern Greeks evidently had a fragmentary knowledge of their western brethren, whom they characterized as semi-barbarians because they failed to keep pace with themselves in the race for intellectual development. If we may trust the evidence of the inscriptions (cf. especially Coll. 1413), which flatly contradicts the self-asserting superiority of other more favored tribes, there did not fail to exist, even in this western canton, some love of sculpture and of poetry. The Aetolian league disseminated for almost a century its Kanzleistyl over a large part of Greece and the Archipelago (Ceos, Teos). In Laconia (Cauer² 30, 32) we find traces of Aetolian forms in inscriptions otherwise composed in pure Laconian. In Phocis (Delphi was subject to the Aetolians from 290 to 191), Locris, South Thessaly, are inscriptions varying in no important particular from those discovered in Aetolia itself. One possibility must, however, not be suppressed—the dialect presented in the inscriptions may not be the native dialect of the inhabitants. As the Macedonian official language is separated by a chasm from the speech of the people, which suffered one of the earliest recorded Lautverschiebungen on European soil, so the judicial language of the Aetolian league may fail to present to us those delicate nuances of vowel and consonantal coloring which are the bone and sinew of a genuine “ dialect.”

The ever-increasing sway which this Aetolian state-speech exercised throughout Hellas was a potent factor in the dissolution of the ancient cantonal idioms. So complete, indeed, appeared the authority of this dialect at the time of Ahrens, that he was misled into the assertion that North Doric was merely an extension of Aetolian Doric, an assertion proved to be false by the Locrian tables, and by the Delphic decrees of manumission.^[22]

The Aenianes were genuine Hellenes and closely related to the Myrmidons and Phthiote Achaeans. Their original habitation is supposed to have been Thessaly, though in historical times they occupied the valley of the Spercheios, covering in part the territory embraced by the ancient Phthia. From 279 to 195 they were members of the Aetolian league.

The inscriptions from the southernmost Thessalian quarter, Phthiotis, bear such unmistakable traces of North-Doric influence that the opinion of Fick, who has collected and commented upon them in Coll. II. 1439–1473, cannot be upheld, though supported by the authority of Kirchhoff (Alphabet³ 138), and Meister (Dialecte, I 289). These scholars all hold that the inscriptions afford a true picture of the Phthiote dialect. The inconsistency of Fick’s opinion is manifest when we remember that he assumed the Doric dialect of the invaders from Epirus to have succumbed to that of the subjected Aeolians in North Thessaly. Here, however, in Phthiotis, where the pulse of Aeolic life must have beaten with the greatest vigor, where dwelt the Phthiote Achaeans, close to Phthia, the home of the Myrmidons and of Achilles, who was undoubtedly an Aeolian of the Aeolians—here we are asked to accept a complete submerging of the Aeolic dialect and its replacement by a foreign speech. On the contrary, I hold that we have to maintain that the linguistic peculiarities presented by the inscriptions are the record of the political domination of the Aetolians. Despite the complete ascendency of the official language of the Aetolians, traces of the original native speech may have forced their way through, since the patronymic formations in -ιος—the surest criterion of the Aeolic dialect—in Nos. 1453, 1460, 1473 need not be explained as importations from any one of the three northern provinces of the τετραρχία. Whatever may have been the original form of the dialect of Phthiotis, so far as our epigraphical testimony allows us to judge, its present status is completely North Doric. Thus, for example, we find Θεσσαλῶν No. 1444 (183 B. C.), and Κάμων No. 1459 (160 B. C.), the North-Thessalian forms being Πετθαλοῦν and Κάμουν.

The following table presents the chief characteristics of the dialects of Epirus, Acarnania, Aetolia, of the Aenianes and of Phthiotis:^[23]

1. α for ε in ἱαραφυλάκων Aetol. ἱερος is also Aetolian and Acarnanian. There is no trace of Ἁρταμις. 2. ἑν- < ἑνϝ in ξένος, etc. ἑνήκοντα Oetaea. 3. Ἀπελλαῖος Oetaea. 4. ο in θεοκολέω Aetol.; cf. θεοπολέω Plato’s Leges. 5. There is no trace of ι for ε in ἐστία. 6. υ in ὄνυμα Aetol., ὄνομα in all the other dialects of this group; ὀνομα is also Aetolian. 7. ᾱ, as in Peloponnesian Doric and Aeolic. θεᾱρός and θεωρός Aetol. Πατροκλέας is a form declined according to the analogy of the ᾱ decl. 8. Hellenic η is everywhere preserved, with the exception of εἱάν, Epirus, and (probably) εἱράνα, found in all these dialects, The ingression of η from the κοοινή is comparatively rare. 9. The genuine diphthong ει appears as ε in Διοπέθης (Epirus), Διοπεί[θεος] Acarn.; ἑάν has the form εἱάν (Epirus). Ποσειδῶνι is the South-Thessalian form. 10. Spurious ει and not spurious η is the result of compensatory lengthening of ϝ before υς. ευϝ is reduced to εν. 11. Spurious ου from ονς; ορϝ = ορ except in Δορίμαχος Acarn. Aetol. 12. -ωι is either (1) preserved, or (2) reduced to -ω or -οι (or οι may be regarded as the loc.). 13. ηι has frequently lost the iota adscriptum. 14. Contraction of vowels: εα uncontracted or contracted to η; εε contracted to ει; εη contracted to η in -κλῆς; so uncontracted or contracted to ου, ευ; αο uncontracted or contracted to ω; οα uncontracted or contracted to ᾱ, NN; οο uncontracted or contracted to ου, ω in Ἀριστῶς; αε uncontracted; οε contracted to ου; αω contracted to ᾶ; εω uncontracted. 15. ϝ in but two examples, ϝεῖδυς, ϝαττίδας (both Epirotic).^[24] 16. ν for νν (?) in ἑνήκοντα Oetean. κόρνοψ = πόρνοψ Oet. Strabo XIII 1, 64. 17. ξ for σ once. 18. Declension: (1) ᾶ decl. gen. sing. -ᾶς, -ᾶ; gen. pl. -ᾶν. (2) ο decl. gen. sing. -ον; dat. sing. -ωι, -οι, -ω; accus. pl. -ους. (3) -ες decl. gen. sing. -εος, -ος once; -ους in Σωκράτους Aetol., -εους in Νικροκρατίους Phth.; dat. sing. -ει; accus. sing. -εα, -η. (4) -ευς decl. gen. -εος (-εωςlate); dat. ει, Δεί and Δί; accus. -εα. -n; gen. pl. -fev. {5) -t¢ decl. gen, sing. -/o¢; dat, sing. -2, é¢; nom, pl. -ie¢. {6) -w dec!. gen. -6¢ and ob, 1g. -ot¢ occurs in the consonantal decl.; there is na trace of -case. 20, Pronouns: tivo, airosavrd:; cf. Boeat. imin atrée air&, 21. Verbals: -7¢, -ovri, -av7e; € tn aor. of ~Jo verhs; -ew verhs do not generally contract -ea; Inf. -en for -2 verbs; -gev for we verbs, 22, Preposi- tions: a, wap, soré, é acens, and dat. 23. Adverbs, etc.: ct, «@, 321 once {Epit.); xafloe is very common.^[25]

In turning from the rich bloom of the generous dialect-life in the Aeolic cantons of the east to the monotonous sterility of the North Doric of the west, we enter upon a period of the development of Hellenic morphology in which the life-blood of the cantonal speech has been drained dry, in which the epichoristic idiom has suffered a disintegration which is equivalent to absorption into the lingua franca of Dorism. None of the western cantons resisted the encroachment of the κοινή, as long as did those of Central Greece, or equalled the tenacity with which the Laconian and Messenian dialects maintained their cantonal individuality.

Of greater vitality, and therefore of greater moment to the dialectologist, are those phenomena of speech contained in the interlying dialects of Locris and Phocis (especially Delphi), dialects which occupy no unimportant place in an investigation of the problem of Greek dialect-mixture. These dialects in their oldest stage possess almost as strong a local coloring as the patois of Boeotia. The Delphic διάλεκτος, while not so strongly marked in its earliest epigraphical monuments as that of Locris, preserves a good part of its individuality till the birth of Christ; but the Loecrian patois was soon merged into that North Dorie which is spread throughout all the regions of the west.

The Locrian dialect is represented by two strata of phenomena: (1) An older stratum found in the inscription relating to the settlement of the Opuntians at Naupactus among the Ozolian Lacrians (Coll. 1478), dating from the first half of the fifth century, and in the inscription containing a fragment of the treaty between Chaleion and Oeanthea, placed by Kirchhoff at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war; (2) All the later inscriptions, The two documents of the first class, together with the βουστροφηδόν inscription discovered at Crissa (Cauer² 202), and dating at least from the fifth century, are (aside from the great Larissaean inscription) the most important epigraphical monuments of Northern Greece, and of incalculable value to the dialectologist, inasmuch as they contain traces of the oldest phase of Northern Dorie found nowhere else. The chief features of the older strata of forms are as follows:

i. The manifest fandness for a fore before p, which we noticed as being a chief peculiarity of the Olympian inscriptions; e.g. auitua, Feomdpinc, curapa. 2, Contractions: ¢-Fe my; aptoma: ¢dpusew, o-pemejpo-pos ay eprme;efn e+ do not suffer contraction, and x-+« in neut. pl. -¢ stems (nom, -0¢) is uncentracted. 3. The frequency of the use of @ and F (Fore, Féxaorec), 4. 67 for of, found also in Vhessaly, Boeotia and Elis; ¢. ¢. apiariua, éhectu, xojerat, 3, Vhe position of the dialect between the wAurai and the daswrecel; 2. 6,4, of, bday, ayer. 6. odecl. bas gon. sing. in -«, aceus. pl, in -ove (traces of this in Delphic are very problematical}, 7. «, vv, not ya from compensatory lengthening, 8. The flexion of the -ra verbs as =e verbs in dimedeiveros, og. Sin the fut. and aartst of -Se verbs. 10, Prepasi- tions; 20 for cic 3 x6, mol; wépy Exeex, 11. Dat. pl. consonantal deel. in -oe¢; €. fe eesuvoie, Nanetore.

The later stratum of forms presents the general Doric character of the western group, all the remarkable peculiarities of the older stratum having disappeared.^[26] Contraction of vowels is more frequent, ϝ ceases to appear, there is no α for ε before ρ. In this later development of the dialect there is one essential difference between the dialect of Opuntian and that of Ozolian Locris: the former alone has -εσσι in the dative plural of consonantal stems (χρημάτεσσι, about 200 B. C.). This characteristic mark of the Aeolic dialect is found from Mount Olympus throughout Boeotia, Opuntian Locris and Delphi, but is unable to force its way across the boundary into the territory of Ozolian Locris.

A survey of the dialect of Phocis, including that of Delphi, which contains some few peculiarities of its own, will complete our review of the speech of Northern Hellas. he oldest monuments of the Phocian dialect are inscription No. 1537 (Crissa), which Kirchhoff assigns to the sixth century as the earliest possible date, Page:The dialects of north Greece (IA dialectsofnorthg00smytrich).pdf/24 Page:The dialects of north Greece (IA dialectsofnorthg00smytrich).pdf/25 Page:The dialects of north Greece (IA dialectsofnorthg00smytrich).pdf/26 Page:The dialects of north Greece (IA dialectsofnorthg00smytrich).pdf/27 Page:The dialects of north Greece (IA dialectsofnorthg00smytrich).pdf/28 Page:The dialects of north Greece (IA dialectsofnorthg00smytrich).pdf/29 Page:The dialects of north Greece (IA dialectsofnorthg00smytrich).pdf/30 may lead to sub-dialect, and how each dialect may thus be bound together with the life of another by a “continuous series of minute variations.” But we are confronted in the science of Greek dialectology with phenomena dating from historical periods; for these phenomena we must seek a historical explanation as far as is permitted by the dim light of history. The wave-theory regards as merely interesting confirmations of its suppositions those causes of differentiation of a linguistic territory which to its opponents are the very sinew of the genealogical theory, It may well be questioned whether Schmnidt’s theory does not confuse these processes which caused dialects originally to come into existence, and those processes which give birth to phenomena that have become in historical times the property of two adjacent dialects which have flourished for a long period of time. Peculiarities which link together two dialects may be ascribed to the influence of one upon the other; but in periods antedating all historical ken the influence of a neighboring speech-territory need not necessarily have been the cause of dialectic peculiarities.

If linguistic phenomena alone be taken as the point of departure, we must confess that we thereby seek a refuge in a sauve qui peut, and renounce that ideal whose every patient endeavor aims at discovering in the disiecta membra of dialect-speech a clue that will reinforce those utterances of antiquity which make for the intimate connection between parent-stock and the offspring which, in periods subject to conjecture alone, left an ancestral home. This ideal in dialectology is as important a guiding motive as the ideal of the freedom from exception to phonetic law is in the science of comparative philology. We have, then, at least no mean purpose, if we search for the golden thread that shall lead us to an explanation of the genealogy of each separate form. With this ideal in view we may perhaps discover that, when the forms of adventitious growth have been separated from those which are indigenous, it is not impossible to construct genealogical trees for the Greek dialects, which will stand in harmonious interdependence. If we endeavor to sift the material which a kind chance has preserved to us, and believe that terra mater noua miracula suis ex uisceribus numquam emittere cessabit, we may trust that a solution may not be far off for many problems which the vigorous dialect-life of Hellas presents.

Herbert Weir Smyth.

1. Read at the meeting of the American Philological Association held at Ithaca, July, 1886.
2. In the Pharsalian inscr. the gen. ends in -ου.
3. This word is one of the few examples in which the relationship of Boeotian and Aeolic is proven without the concurrence of Thessalian.
4. This is not the place to enter upon a discussion of Collitz’s assertion: die thessalische Muadart bildet . . . die Uebergangstufe vom böotischen zum lesbischen, vom lesbischen zum kyprisch-arkadischen und vom kyprisch-arkadischen zum böotischen Dialekte.
5. Wilamowitz-Möllendorf regards the Boeotian idiom as a mixture of Achaean and Aeolic elements. Of the exact nature of the former we know too little to permit us to treat it as a basis of argumentation. When Aeolic and Doric agree it is difficult to determine to which the phenomenon in question is to be referred, e. g. Boeot. gen. in -ω.
6. The authority of Herodotus should not be invoked to militate against this assertion, since it rests solely on the supposition of the Ionic historian that the Dorians alone were originally pure Hellenes. From this πρῶτον ψεῦδος he concludes that the Dorians lived in Phthiotis, the seat of Hellen.
7. The consensus of historical investigation now relegates the wanderings of the Dorians to a period anterior to the irruption of the Boeotians.
8. Merzdorf finds four characteristic marks of the Aeolo-Doric period; 1. The treatment of -εω as -μι verbs. 2. ἐν for ἐις. 3 πέρ for περι. 4. Dat. plur. in -εσσι. The incorrectness of all these assumptions will be shown later on, when we come to a discussion of the intermixture of dialects in Central North Greece. Merzdorf assumes that in the Aeolo-Doric period the Dorians, who remained in North Greece, were more closely connected with the Aeolians than the Peloponnesian Dorians, i. e, that the North-Doric dialect is one of the bridges which lead from the Αἰολίς to the Δωρίς.
9. The substructure of Brand’s theory of a pan-Aeolic dialect is constructed of the flimsy materials of gratuitous assumption and a marvellous readiness to take refuge in that most pliable of arguments—the argumentum ex silentio.
10. Jason, leader of the Argonauts from Iolcos, was one of the Minyae.
11. See Curtius, Hist. Greece, American reprint, I 100.
12. In Boeotia Zeus Laphystios had a temple near Erchomenos.
13. Hdt. IV 145–49. ποταμὸς Μινυήιος, Λ 722.
14. 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.
15. Blass lays weight upon the fact that Pisatis was connected with Arcadia before its conquest by the Eleans in the fifth century, But from Arcadia the Elean diatect could have derived but few Aeolic ingredients. The general features of the Arcadian dialect are widely different from those of Elis;—thus—υ for ο in ἀπό, ἄλλο; ἐσς for ἐξ; ἰν for ἐν; πός for πρός; termination -νσι accus. pl. -τος, εἱ, ᾶν, ἡναι, -ϝεναι, change of τ to σ.
16. Πευμάττιος (Τεύματτος) Βελφοί, Πενηεύς have been regarded as survivals of the original Aeolic, a proof of the long life af proper names, even under the adverse conditions of the supremacy of an alien tribe.
17. Too much stress should, perhaps, not be laid on kinship between tribes. It is, therefore, impossible to show that the Arneans were not Dorians, from the fact that they compelled Locrians and the Abantes of Abae in Phocis to leave their homes. That the Aegidae of Thebes took part in the return of the Heraclidae does not prove the original inhabitants of Boeotia to have been Dorians.
18. Such tribes must have crossed the ridges of the Pindus at a period antedating the inroad of the Thesprotians, since Achilles calls upon the Zeus of the Epirotic Dodona as the ancestral divinity of his house. Had these Epirotes, it may be remarked, been barbarians, as a later age assumed, the preeminent position of Dodona and of the Achelous would be unexplainable.
19. “When Αἰολίς became Thessaly its real national history was at an end”—Curtius.
20. I regard the use of ἐν for εἰς as originally Hellenic, and not confined to the Doric of North Greece, Some portion of the Dorisms of Thessaly may, of course, be held to be later accessions. The inscriptions of Pharsalia in Thessaliotis are completely Aetolian in character.
21. It is improbable that any of these Aeolisms should have been importations from Thessaly.
22. There is no foundation for Giese’s statement that the language of Aetolia was Aeolic.
23. I have included in this table certain Oetaean forms of interest. We possess, unfortunately, no inscriptions from Doris, the metropolis of the Laconians and Messenians.
24. Meister, I, p. 106, quotes as Acara. the form ϝοινιάδαι:, which does not occur in the inscriptions.
25. The inscriptions all date from a late period. The two oldest of those of Epirus may be placed between 342 and 326, another between 272 and 260; the rest are all without precise date, though undoubtedly of late origin. The oldest Acarnanian inscription dates shortly after 206, the oldest Aetolian between 240 and 189, while the majority are of the second century. An Aenianian inscription, No. 1429, must have been written shortly after the death of Alexander the Great in 323. No. 1430 is anterior to 279, others are of the second century. None of the Phthiotic monuments antedate the period when Phthiotis was incorporated in the Aetolian league (279–193); others belong to the period of the later Thessalian league (193–146). Most of the inscriptions in this dialect are to be dared before 150 B. C.
26. The inscriptions of the Ozolian Locris contain the same dialectic features as those of Opuntian or Hypocnemedian Locris.