Friday 10 April 2015

Greek words in Latin texts: Quintilian

A list of Greek words (and uses) known primarily from Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria can be automatically generated, but needs refinement in person.

Of immediate interest is σαρδισμός, in VIII 3, 59: a mixture of dialects ... (from the mixed population of Sardis):

"There is also a fault known as Σαρδισμὸς, which consists in the indiscriminate use of several dialects, as, for instance, would result from mixing Doric, Ionic, and even Aeolic words with Attic. [60] A similar fault is found amongst ourselves, consisting in the indiscriminate mixture of grand words with mean, old with new, and poetic with colloquial, the result being a monstrous medley like that described by Horace in the opening portion of his Ars poetica,
"If a painter choose
To place a man's head on a horse's neck,"
and, he proceeds to say, should add other limbs from different animals" (Loeb).

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