Herodotus’ Conception of Foreign Languages
based, of course, on his observation of the differences between the letter-
forms of his day and of his
Καδµήια γράµµατα
from Thebes. (It is perhaps
the relatively familiar form of these inscriptions that made it necessary for
him to reconstruct the development of the Greek alphabet in two stages.)
The shapes of the letters of the alphabet, however, appear in Herodotus’ ac-
count almost to mould themselves to the sounds of the Greek language.
Why should a change of language necessitate a change in letter-forms?
Clearly this was not a question which Herodotus thought to ask himself.
Does he, however, assume that there is an ideal fashion in which a letter
represents a sound?
We might also expect signs of non-Greek influence on the Greek lan-
guage in Herodotus’ discussion of the Pelasgian origins of the Greeks (.-
). Herodotus’ argument here requires a fairly lengthy précis.
His discussion comes in the context of his first introduction of the
Spartans and the Athenians (..), one of the Doric
genos
, one of the Ionic.
These two peoples were ‘in ancient times one Pelasgian, the other a Hellenic
people’, one a people which had never left its home, the other one which
had wandered widely. (Herodotus then recounts the wanderings of the Hel-
lenes in the reign of Deucalion until the point at which they enter the Pelo-
ponnese and are called Dorian, ...) What language the Pelasgians spoke,
Herodotus cannot say for certain, but if it is possible to say (
εἰ τούτοισι
τεκµαιρόµενον δεῖ λέγειν
, ..), the evidence of the surviving Pelasgians,
those who dwelt at Creston,
or those who had founded Placia and Scylace
on the Hellespont, suggests that the original Pelasgians spoke a barbarian
language. That the language these peoples speak is Pelasgian (or at least a
reliable index of the barbarian nature of Pelasgian) is suggested also by the
We may ask whether a similar idea lies behind the analogy between painting and
naming by a combination of letters at Pl.
Crat.
d-e. Of course, a change to Phoeni-
cian script did take place, the addition of vowels, leading Powell to approve of Herodo-
tus’ version of the introduction of the alphabet, Morris and Powell op. cit. (n. ) ; it is
questionable, however, in the light of his
Καδµήια γράµµατα
whether Herodotus had any
such accurate knowledge of the nature of the differences between Phoenician and Greek
script. On the question of the significance of the (actual) changes from Phoenician to
Greek script, see now the arguments of R. Woodard,
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