The language of Athens is on the same level with the music; and there is no part in Greece, where the idiom and the pronunciation are so vitiated, although the Attic dialect was formely so much admired! "But what shall I say" exclaims Simeon Kavasilas," of the dialects which are numerous and different, being above seventy! Of all these the Athenian is the worst". (From Meursius, speaking of the language in Greece about the year 1575). The modern Athenian pronunciation is held in ridicule by the other Greeks. They have, in common with the rest of Greece, adopted many words which belong to the Latin, Italian, Arabic, Sclavonian, and Albanian.
Guillatiere asserts that in his time (Athens, ancient and modern, 1669) "the language of Athens was the most genuine and incorrupt of all the cities in Greece, and that it was no where spoken or understood in its primitive purity but at Athens". And I cannot imagine what could induce Mons. Guys to affirm, that the organic delicacy of the Athenian ears has preserved, from tradition, the sweetness of the pure and ancient pronunciation!
