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TO THE

CLASSICAL PRONUNCIATION

OF

GREEK, LATIN, AND SCRIPTURE PROPER NAMES;

IN WHICH

THE WORDS ARE ACCENTED AND DIVIDED INTO SYLLABLES EXACTLY AS THEY OUGHT TO BE PRONOUNCED, ACCORDING TO RULES DRAWN FROM

ANALOGY AND THE BEST USAGE.

TO WHICH ARE ADDED,

TERMINATIONAL VOCABULARIES

OF

HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN PROPER NAMES

IN WHICH

THE WORDS ARE ARRANGED ACCORDING TO THEIR FINAL SYLLABLES, AND CLASSED ACCORDING
TO THEIR ACCENTS; BY WHICH THE GENERAL ANALOGY OF PRONUNCIATION
MAY BE SEEN AT ONE VIEW, AND THE ACCENTUATION OF

EACH WORD MORE EASILY REMEMBERED.

BY JOHN WALKER,

AUTHOR OF THE CRITICAL PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY, &c.

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY N. AND J. WHITE.

STEREOTYPED AT THE BOSTON TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.

PREFACE.

THE Critical Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language naturally suggested an idea of the present work. Proper names from the Greek and Latin form so considerable a part of every cultivated living language, that a Dictionary seems to be imperfect without them. Polite scholars, indeed, are seldom at a loss for the pronunciation of words they so frequently meet with in the learned languages; but there are great numbers of respectable English scholars, who, having only a tincture of classical learning, are much at a loss for a knowledge of this part of it. It is not only the learned professions that require this knowledge, but almost every one above the merely mechanical. The professors of painting, statuary, and music, and those who admire their works; readers of history, politics, poetry; all who converse on subjects ever so little above the vulgar, have so frequent occasion to pronounce these proper names, that whatever tends to render this pronunciation casy must necessarily be acceptable to the public.

The proper names in Scripture have still a higher claim to our attention. That every thing contained in that precious

repository of divine truth should be rendered as easy as possible to the reader, cannot be doubted and the very frequent occasions of pronouncing Scripture proper names, in a country where reading the Scripture makes part of the religious worship, seem to demand some work on this subject more perfect than any we have hitherto seen.

I could have wished it had been undertaken by a person of more learning and leisure than myself; but we often wait in vain for works of this kind, from those learned bodies which ought to produce them, and at last are obliged, for the best we can get, to the labours of some necessitous individual. Being long engaged in the instruction of youth, I felt the want of a work of this kind, and have supplied it in the best manner I am able. If I have been happy enough to be useful, or only so far useful as to induce some abler hand to undertake the subject, I shall think my labor amply rewarded. I shall still console myself with reflecting, that he who has produced a prior work, however inferior to those that succeed it, is under a very different predicament from him who produces an after-work, inferior to those that have gone bofore.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE SECOND EDITION

THE favorabue reception of the first edition of this work has induced me to attempt to make it still more worthy of the acceptance of the public. by the addition of soveral critical observations, and particularly by two Terminational Vocabularios, of Greek and Latin, and Scripture Proper Names. 'That so much labor should be bostowed upon an inverted arrangement of these words, when they had already been given in their common alphabetical order, may be matter of worder to many persons, who will naturally inquire into the utility of such an arrangement. To these it may be answered, that the words of all languages seem more related to each other by their terminations than by their beginnings; that the

Greek and Latin languages seem more particularly to be thus related; and classing them according to their endings seemed to exhibit a new view of these languages, both curious and useful. for, as their accent and quantity depend so much on their termination, such an arrangement eppeared to give an easier and more comprehensive idea of their pronunciation than the common classification by their initial syllables. This end was so desirabre as to induce me to spare no pains, however dry and disgusting, to promote it; and, it the method I have taken has failed, my labor will not be entirely lost, if it convince fute prosodists that it is not unworthy of their attention.

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INTRODUCTION.

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THE pronunciation of the learned languages is much more easily acquired than that of our own. Whatever might have been the variety of the different dialects among the Greeks, and the different provinces of the Romans, their languages, now being dead, are generally pronounced according to the respective analogies of the several languages of Europe, where those languages are cultivated, without partaking of those anomalies to which the living languages are liable.

Whether one general, uniform pronunciation of the ancient
languages be an object of sufficient importance to induce the
learned to depart from the analogy of their own language,
and to study the ancient Latin and Greek pronunciation, as
they do the etymology, syntax and prosody of those lan-
guages, is a question not very easy to be decided. The ques-
tion becomes still more difficult when we consider the uncer-

tainty we are in sespecting the ancient pronunciation of the
Greeks and Romans, and how much the learned are divided
among themselves about it. Till these points are settled,
the English may well be allowed to follow their own pronun-
ciation of Greek and Latin, as well as other nations, even
though it should be confessed that it seems to depart more
from what we can gather of the ancient pronunciation, than
either the Italian, French or German.t For why the English
should pay a compliment to the learned languages, which is
not done by any other nation in Europe, it is not easy to con-
ceive; and as the colloquial communication of learned indi-
viduals of different nations so seldom happens, and is an ob-
ject of so small importance when it does happen, it is not
much to be regretted that when they meet they are scarce-
ly intelligible to each other.‡

* Middleton contends that the initial e before e and i ought
to be pronounced as the Italians now pronounce it; and that
Cicero is neither Sisero, as the French and English pronounce
it; nor Kikero, as Dr. Bentley asserts; but Tchitchero, as the
Italians pronounce it at this day. This pronunciation, how-
ever, is derided by Lipsius, who affirms that the e among the
Romans had always the sound of k. Lipsius says, too, that, of
all the European nations, the British alone pronounce the i
properly; but Middleton asserts, that of all nations they pro-
nounce it the worst. Middleton De Lat. Liter. Pronun. Dissert.
Lipsius, speaking of the different pronunciation of the letter

Nos hodiè (de litera G loquente) quàm peccamus? Italo-
rum enim plerique ut Z exprimunt, Galli et Belgæ ut Jcon-
sonantem. Itaque illorum est Lezere, Fuzere; nostrum, Leiere,
Fuiere, (Lejere, Fujere). Omnia imperitè, ineptè. Germanos
saltem audite, quorum sonus hic germanus, Legere, Tegere;
ut in Lego, Tego, nec unquam variant: at nos ante I, E, Æ,
Y, semper dicimusque Jemmam, Jøtulos, Jinjivam, Jyrum;
pro istis, Gemmam, Getulos, Gingivam, Gyrum. Mutemus
aut vapulemus.-Lipsius. De Rect. Pron. Ling. Lat. page 71.
Hinc factum est ut tanta in pronunciando varietas extiteret

ut pauci inter se in literarum sonis consentiant. Quod qui-
dem mirum non esset, si indocti tantùm à doctis in eo, ac non
ipsi etiam alioqui eruditi inter se magna contentione disside-
rent.-Adolp. Meker. De Lin. Græc. vet. Pronun. cap. ii.
page 15.

† Monsieur Launcelot, the learned author of the Port-Royal
Greek Grammar, in order to convey the sound of the long
Greek vowel n, tells us, it is a sound between the e and the a,
and that Eustathius, who lived towards the close of the
twelfth century, says, that βῆ, βῆ, is a sound made in imi-
tation of the bleating of a sheep; and quotes to this purpose
this verse of an ancient writer called Cratinus:

· Ο δ' ἠλίθιος ὥσπερ προβάτον, βῆ, βῆ, λέγων βαδίζει.
Is fatuus perinde ac ovis, bê, bê, dicens, incedit.

He, like a silly sheep, goes crying baa.

Caninius has remarked the same, Hellen. p. 26. E longum, cujus sonus in ovium balatu sentitur, ut Cratinus et Varro tradiderunt. The sound of the e long may be perceived in the bleating of sheep, as Cratinus and Varro have handed down to us. Eustathius likewise remarks upon the 499 v. of Iliad I. that the word Βλὸψ ἐστιν ὁ τῆς κλεψύδρας ἦχος μιμητικῶς κατὰ τως παλαίες; βῆ ἔχει μίμησιν προβάτων φωνῆς. Κράτινος. Βλόψ est Clepsydræ sonus, ex imitatione secundum veteres ; et βῆ imitatur vocem ovium. Blops, according to the ancients, is a sound in imitation of the Clepsydra, as baa is expressive of the voice of sheep. It were to be wished that

But the English are accused not only of departing from the genuine sound of the Greek and Latin vowels, but of violating the quantity of these languages more than the people upon the Harmony of Language gives us a detail of the parof any other nation in Europe. The author of the Essay true a picture of the English pronunciation of Latin, that I ticulars by which this accusation is proved: and this is so shall quote it at length, as it may be of use to those who are obliged to learn this language without the aid of a teacher.

"The falsification of the harmony by English scholars in their pronunciation of Latin, with regard to essential points, the length of vowel sounds, making them long or short merely arises from two causes only: first, from a total inattention to as chance directs; and, secondly, from sounding double consonants as only one letter. The remedy of this last fault is obvious. With regard to the first, we have already observed, that each of our vowels hath its general long sound and its of e lengthened is expressed by the letter a, and the short general short sound totally different. Thus the short sound sound of i lengthened is expressed by the lettere and with ters to the vowel sounds of our own language, we proceed all these anomalies usual in the application of vowel characto the application of vowel sounds to the vowel characters of the Latin. Thus, in the first syllable of sidus and nomen, long sound of the which ought to be long, and of miser and onus, which ought to be short, we equally use vowels; but in the oblique cases, sideris, nominis, miseri, oneris, &c., we use quite another sound, and that a short one. These strange anomalies are not in common to us with our

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† Erasmus se adfuisse olim commemorat cum die quodam solenni complures principum legati ad Maximilianum Imperatorem salutandi causâ advenissent; Singulosque Gallum, Germanum, Danum, Scotum, &c. orationem Latinam, ita berbarè ac vastè pronunciasse, ut Italis quibusdam, nihil nisi risum moverint, qui eos non Latinè sed suâ quemque linguâ, locutos jurâssent. -Middleton, De Lat. Lit. Pronun.

The love of the marvellous prevails over truth: and I ques tion if the greatest diversity in the pronunciation of Latin ex ceeds that of English at the capital and in some of the coun ties of Scotland, and yet the inhabitants of both have no great difficulty in understanding each other.

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