DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0171
THE MAKING OF GREECE 145
Certain of these elements came into the iEgean world
comparatively late in history, and cannot be responsible
for the development of Minoan culture from its Neolithic
beginnings to its zenith in the great artistic periods.
Was the Greek language one of these late intrusive ele-
ments ? If it was so, is this a case where the coming of
a new language means only to a slight extent the coming
of a new race ? Was some kind of Indo-European spoken
in the iEgean before Greek,1 and did the men who intro-
duced Greek find there, when they came, men who were
partially akin to them in race ? Or was Greek itself
already in the ^Egean before the last wave of invasion
came, and did the last Northerners, as Professor Ridgeway
holds,2 contribute, not the Greek language, but other
Indo-European elements ? Was the coming of Greek
a simple thing, like the imposition of Arabic on Egypt,
where a small body of conquerors brought about a com-
plete change of language, but hardly any change of
stock ? 1 Or are we to look for analogies to the com-
plicated making of England, where four successive waves
of Indo-European conquest, Celtic, Roman, Saxon, and
Norman, have beaten out a language which in different
degrees bears the mark of them all, and yet have failed
to destroy the original pre-Indo-European race, that
has all the time survived almost unmixed in Wales and
Western Ireland, and is slowly reasserting itself else-
where.4
The problem that we have to face is one of intrusive
elements—when and whence they came, and what
particular contribution they made to the general stock.
Grant, with most ethnologists,6 that practically the
1 As held by Conway, B.S.A. viii. pp. 141-56.
3 E.A.G. i. 1901. 3 Petrie, Migrations, 1906, p. 15.
* Beddoe in J.A.I, xxxv. 1905, pp. 236-7 and Plate XVII. ;
Rhys and Jones, W.P. 4th ed. 1906, pp. 1-35, 617-41. See
below, p. 194.
0 E.g. Scrgi. M.It. 1901 ; Ripley, R.E. 1900.
10
Certain of these elements came into the iEgean world
comparatively late in history, and cannot be responsible
for the development of Minoan culture from its Neolithic
beginnings to its zenith in the great artistic periods.
Was the Greek language one of these late intrusive ele-
ments ? If it was so, is this a case where the coming of
a new language means only to a slight extent the coming
of a new race ? Was some kind of Indo-European spoken
in the iEgean before Greek,1 and did the men who intro-
duced Greek find there, when they came, men who were
partially akin to them in race ? Or was Greek itself
already in the ^Egean before the last wave of invasion
came, and did the last Northerners, as Professor Ridgeway
holds,2 contribute, not the Greek language, but other
Indo-European elements ? Was the coming of Greek
a simple thing, like the imposition of Arabic on Egypt,
where a small body of conquerors brought about a com-
plete change of language, but hardly any change of
stock ? 1 Or are we to look for analogies to the com-
plicated making of England, where four successive waves
of Indo-European conquest, Celtic, Roman, Saxon, and
Norman, have beaten out a language which in different
degrees bears the mark of them all, and yet have failed
to destroy the original pre-Indo-European race, that
has all the time survived almost unmixed in Wales and
Western Ireland, and is slowly reasserting itself else-
where.4
The problem that we have to face is one of intrusive
elements—when and whence they came, and what
particular contribution they made to the general stock.
Grant, with most ethnologists,6 that practically the
1 As held by Conway, B.S.A. viii. pp. 141-56.
3 E.A.G. i. 1901. 3 Petrie, Migrations, 1906, p. 15.
* Beddoe in J.A.I, xxxv. 1905, pp. 236-7 and Plate XVII. ;
Rhys and Jones, W.P. 4th ed. 1906, pp. 1-35, 617-41. See
below, p. 194.
0 E.g. Scrgi. M.It. 1901 ; Ripley, R.E. 1900.
10