Chapter18
THE LANGUAGE OF NON,ATHENIANS
IN OLD COME,DY
Stephen Coluin
I
In Nicolas Roeg's fim The Witches,la comedy-thriller aimed at children but
equally enjoyablefor grown-upS,Anjelica Huston plays the evil and glamorous
chief witch, whose wicked plan is to turn all children into mice (the film is
an adaptation of Roald Dahl's book of the same name). The action is set in
England and Norway; the child protagonist is an American with a Norwegian
'What
is striking is that, in this slightly mixed ethnic setting,
grandmother.
Angelica Huston plays her role with a heavy and gratuitous German accent,
addressingher cat ('familiar') as mein Liebchen,and so on. The conclusion to be
drawn, though unpalatable, is unavoidable: the makers of the film (following
'phonetic'
spellings such as
Dahl's original text, which is characterizedby
Inkland) felt that at the end of the twentieth century it was still part of the
'baddie'
could be
dramatic convention of English-languagecinema that a
marked with a German accent - even when there is no dramatic reason for
a German characterto be introduced. The use of marked language(i.e. forms
which are felt to be linguistically deviant) to associateliterary characterswith
particular moral or intellectual qualities hasa long pedigreein English literature:
one need only think of Dr Caius (A French Physician) or Sir Hugh Evans
(A Welsh Parson')in Shakespeare's
Merry Wiues.Since a certain tribalism seems
to be built into the human way of looking at the world, even if it may have
ourgrown its evolutionary usefulness,and since linguistic variation is one of
the easiestways in which one social group may mark itself off from another
(or be defined by another), the associationof language and ethics in literary
activiry is common in cultures acrossthe world. Nevertheless,the claim of this
'linguistic
universal'is weakenedby the wide variations
phenomenon ro be a
which are found in the practice. First, it is clear that the extent to which
languageplays a role in ethnic identity, and the associationof moral or other
are sociopoliticalissues,and will
with linguistic characteristics,
characteristics
reflect the prevailing ideologiesof the communiry. Secondly,literary form and
convenrion vary from culture to culture, and this will influence the presentation
of linguistic variery and deviation.
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StephenColuin
\fhen we examine the presentation of linguistic variety in Old Comedy we
are naturally inclined to find a range of meanings similar to that which we
'we'
anyway?Modern
might expectto find in our own comic literature (who are
western literatures are by no means uniform on this point). In defenceof this
approach one might advance(i) the frequent (supposedlyuniversal)association
of out-group languagewith negative characteristics,and (ii) the link (whether
conceivedasgenetic or ideological)berweenancient Greek and modern western
culture. \7e need not spend too long on (i) in view of the caveatsraised
above,and especiallywhen we consider that even within the history of English
literature the implications of dialect and non-standard languagehave changed
from period to period: it is not clear,for example,that the northern dialect of
the students in Chaucer'sReeudsThle is a target of ridicule or censure;and in
D.H. Lawrencedialect may be a sign of spiritual integriry.The link in (ii) is
more interesting:it is undeniablethat aspectsof political thought and literary
'inherited'
from classicalantiquiry by the modern world,
convention havebeen
including perhapsthe notion of barbarismoswithwhichthe Greek and later the
Roman world sought to define itself in the faceof alien cultures.A nice example
of the projection of later attitudes to dialect and language on to the ancient
world is furnished by the lusciousopening sceneof Flauberr'sSalammbf, the
banquet of the army of Hamilcar:
cehiquesbruissantes
On entendait,h cbti du lourdpatois dorien,retentirlessyllabes
du
ioniennes
selteurtaientaux consonnes
commedescharsdebataille,et lesterminaisons
disert,hprescommes
descrisdechacal.
Sideby sidewith the heavyDorian patois,Celtic syllablescould be heardringing
and Ionian terminationscameup againstthe
out, clatteringlike battle-chariots,
harsh
of
the
desert,
as
the
cry of the jackal.2
consonants
'When
we consider, however, that the ethnic and linguistic jokes of Old
hardly
survived into the Middle period of that genre, partly owing
Comedy
to changed social and political circumstances,and partly no doubt because
of developments in literary taste, it becomes clear that modern intuitions
about the comic potential of foreigners and barbarians should be tested very
thoroughly against the availableevidence.This is particularly important in
the case of Greek dialect, firstly becauseattitudes towards the dialects seem
to have changed radically in the Hellenistic period (owing to the spread of
the koine), and secondly because,owing to the peculiar political and cultural
structureswhich underpinned them, the dialectshad no real equivalentsin the
Roman or medieval worlds.
II
The role of marked languagein the fragments of Old Comedy is often difficult
to evaluateowing to the loss in most casesof the dramatic context. There are
rwo problems in particular: (i) without the immediate context it is difficult to
286
The languageof non'Athenians in Old Comedy
seewhether a form which looks like Doric or Ionic indicatesthe presenceon
srageof a foreigner,or is (for example)paratragic;(ii) evenwhen a foreigner can
be identified with certainry without the larger dramatic context it is difficult
to see what sort of role the character is playing, and hence what effect the
linguistic marking is supposedto have.There is a further, practical worry: nonstandardlanguagesuch as dialect is vulnerable to scribal corruption, and this is
particularly seriousin the caseof fragments,which are typically short quotations
taken out of context (cf. Arnott in this volume, PP.2-3, and Page195I,103).
Seriouscrucesare noted without comment in the following discussion.
Given the parallels which Aristophanic and Menandrean drama provide,
a list of porenrial dramatic situations for the exploitation of non-standardAttic
might include the following:
(a) Barbarianson srage,speakingeither unmarked or barbarizedGreek;
(b) Slanderedpoliticians on stage,speakingunmarked or barbarizedGreek;
(c) Non-Attic Greeks on stage, speaking in dialect, or unmarked Attic, or
conceivablybarbarizedGreek;
(d) Slavesand rustics, speaking unmarked Greek, or dialect, or barbarized
Greek, or substandardGreek;
(e) 'Stock' figures such as the Doric-speaking doctor on stage.
If we can match the fragments against the above list it may be possible in
somecasesro userhe Aristophanic parallelsto fleshout the dramatic possibilities.
Although the titles of plays which have not survived give a good idea of the
fascination exertedby the foreign on Old Comedy, they do not necessarilygive
much indication of the potential for charactersspeakingnon-standard Greek in
the plays:titles such asHelots,Lydians,ThracianWomen,Laconiansetc. (Eupolis,
Plato, Nicochares, Eubulus) are obvious candidatesfor foreign characters,but
we need only consider the Aristophanic titles which actually contain extended
to
passagesin non-standard Greek (Acharnians,Qristrata, Thesmophoriazusae)
realizehow deceptivethe exerciseis likely to be.
(a) Barbarians
In the Aristophanic corpus two types of Barbarian speech have survived:
occasionalrepresentationof Barbarian language(i.e. gibberish, as at Acharnians
100),3and (morecommonly) barbarizedbut intelligibleAttic. No clearexamples
of barbariansspeaking barbarizedGreek have survived in the fragments of the
Rivals.This is not surprisingin view of the natureand purposeof the quotations
in which mosr comic fragments have survived: later writers interestedin Attic
terminology were unlikely to be interestedin quoting barbarizedGreek,whether
they were literary in inclination (Athenaeus) or grammatical (Apollonius
Dyscolus). That the humorous treatment of foreignersand their languagewas
as popular with the other comic playwrights as it was with Aristophanes is
indicated only obliquely in the fragments, by the preservation of occasional
'air'
in Philyllius fr.1.9.1' €l.retv to Be6u
glossessuch as the Phrygian BeSu
287
StephenColuin
orrlrqptovnpooerilopar ('I pray that I may breathedeep the healing air'): this
does not appear to be part of a rendering of barbarized Greek, but seemsto
involve useof a Phrygian glossto give a mystic (perhapsOrphic)a flavour to the
speechof an Attic-speaking character,who is no doubt being mocked for this
display of alazoneia(pretentiousness).
If plays with titles like Lydians and Thracian Women contained foreign
characters,it is worth reflecting that the roles played by charactersspeaking
barbarized Greek are unlikely to have been substantial (the longest extant
since short
example is the Scythian archer at the end of Thesmophoriazusae),
scenesextracting humour from barbaric Greek will have been more in keeping
with the spirit of Old Comedy (compareDover'sprinciple (1976187,238) of
one joke at a time) than extendedrepresentation.If such playswere named after
their choruses,the foreign characterizationis likely to have consistedof hoots,
ululations and unusual glossesrather than faulry phonology or morphology,
perhapslike a comic version of the chorus in Aeschylus'Persians.5
A fragment (83) from the Metics of Plato Comicus may contain a solecism
which Plato put into the mouth of a foreign character(a residentalien?),but
the absenceof context makes this no more than a guess.Apollonius Dyscolus
warns that one cannot use the nominative of epouto0 (i.e. epout6q instead
of eyrirout6g), adding that it is found in the Metics iooq €vero toO yel"oi.ou,
'perhaps
for the sakeof a joke'.
(b) Comic Slander
The practice of ascribing barbarian and/or servileorigins to one'spoetic victims
is alreadyevident in archaic song (e.g. Anacreon 388), and all the surviving
referencesto barbaric speechin the comic fragments come from this rype of
'real'
context rather than one involving
barbarians (the distinction is slightly
tricky in view of the Persian in the opening scene of Acharnians, who has
a rather fluid identiry). In Old Comedy the poetic victim is most often a leading
politician (cf. MacDowell 1993 and Sommerstein in this volume), and the
rwo most popular candidatesfor lampoon in the fragments are Cleophon and
Hyperbolus: it is worth noting that most of our information on the activiry
of Aristophanic rivals in this regard comes from scholia on passagesin the
Aristophanic corpus where these two politicians are under attack. At Frogs
679-83 the chorus singsof Cleophon
eQ'o0611
letl,eotv oprQrl,dl"orq
8ervdventBpepetat
@plria 1el,t6rrlv,
eni BdpBopov
e(opevqnetol"ov
lips the Thracianswallowshriekshorribly,perched
...upon whosedouble-speaking
1996,214).
on barbarianleafage(cf. Sommerstein
288
The languageof non-Atheniansin Old Comedy
A scholiast ad loc. tells us that Plato Comicus in his Cleophonportrayed
the politician'smother speakingbroken Greek to him (fr.61: popBcpi(ouoov
'Thrassa'.
A scholiaston Clouds
rrpoqoutov) and notes that she was called
the
same with the mother
much
did
in
Artopolides
552 saysthat Hermippus
Maricas in
the
pseudonym
of Hyperbolus, a politician who starred under
Eupolis'play of the samename (Lenaea,42I: seeSommersteinin this volume,
pp.440-2). Fragments from this play (..g. 193) indicate that Hyperbolus
himself did not in fact speak barbarized Greek: the playwrights seem to have
portrayed him as a cultural rather than a linguistic barbarian, qypical perhaps
of the new classof politician. Quintilian (1.10.18), after identi$'ing Maricas
explicitly with Hyperbolus, saysnihil se ex musicisscire nisi litteras confitetur
('he admirs thar he knows nothing of the liberal arts exceptfor the alphabet'),6
which suggeststhat the character was a coarseupstart similar to Cleon in
Knights. It is interesting here to compare a fragment (183) from Plato's play
Hyperbolus,quoted by the grammarian Herodian, who was interested in the
phonology:
trlv civeutoOy 1pfrotvdlqBdpBopov,
lll.rirov pdvtot ev'TnepB6l,rrl8tenatfe
l"eyrrlvoiJtroq'
o 6'ou yop qttirt(ev, 6 Moipot Qtl'ot,
"
"
al.l"'on6te pdv lpeiq 6t1tropr1vl"eyetv,
",
"
€Qoore 61tropr1vofiote6' eineiv 6eor
">
",
"
..
ol"(yov <"ol.tov d),eyev.
asfollows:
mockedthe droppingof g asbarbarous,
Platohoweverin hisHyperbolus
"He didnt speakAttic, ye Fates(Mo0oat (Muses)ci. Meineke),but whenever
he
had to saydiatamenhe saiddjetamen,and when he had to sayoligoshe cameout
wrtholios..." .
'barbarous'
appearsin the mouth of the grammarian,not
While the adjective
the playwright, it certainly looks as though a notion of attikismosis already at
work here in the lampoon of the politician. The barbarousor (to avoid begging
a question) marked Greek looks like a substandardsocial variety ('sociolect')
rather than an attempt to representthe idiosyncratic Greek of a foreigner (for
Now it should be clear
which compare the Scythian in Thesmophoriazusae).
that a dialect or sociolect is not judged with value terms such as pleasant,
'aesthetic'
grounds; our judgment on
harsh,vulgar, etc. on purely objectiveor
such matters is coloured by political, social and ideological factors. For the
ancient Athenians, for example, a Laconian accent will have triggered a range
basedon Athenian perceptionsof Laconian socieryand history
of associations
(anyone familiar with a range of Greek literature will realizethat by no means
all of the associationswill have been negative,and that Flaub ert'slourd patois basedperhapson belleipoquescorn for Spartancultural achievementin the face
of a romanticized view of Athens - is likely to have been closer to Athenian
attitudes towards Boeotian). \7e can have a h"ppy time speculatingwhy it was
289
.-
StephenColuin
a bad thing for a politician to speak the substandardAttic that Plato accuses
Hyperbolus of coming out with. For example,one of the very few referencesto
a socialvariery ofAttic occursin a fragment of an unknown play ofAristophanes
'the
(K-A 706 = 685 Kock) quoted by Sextus Empiricus:
grammarians say
that...the ancientAthenian idiom is different againfrom the modern one, and
the idiom of those who live in rural areasis different from that of city dwellers.
"
Concerning which Aristophanesthe comic poet says: [his] languageis the
normal dialect of the city - not the fancy high-society accent, nor uneducated,
rustic talk"':
...roi. ou1 q outrl;.revt6v roro trlv oypotriov, 11ouq 6e tdv ev ciotet
l,eyetAproroQdvqq'
6totptB6vtov.noporoi o KopLKoq
IXOPOI?]
6td]"ertov61ovtop€onvno].eoq
otit' ooteiov uno0ql.ut6pov
o'iir'ovel"eu0epov
unoypotrorspov.
Since, then, we appear to have evidence for a popular awarenessof rustic
language we might suppose that Hyperbolus' speech is mocked by Plato for
featureswhich recalled the language of the Attic countryside. This seemsan
unlikely assumption.The evidencefrom Old Comedy points to a vision of
the Attic countryside which was, on the whole, regardedas a repository of
positive ideological values: although the Acharnians can be stiff-necked and
quick-tempered,it is their gullibility that inclines them to support the foreign
policy of a sleazypopulist in the ekklesia rather than a shared sleazinesswith
its roots in the countryside (after all, the urban massesare inclined to make
the same mistake, but this lends itself more easily to the plot of Knights or
The featuresof Hyperbolus'speechpicked out for comment are ones
Wasps).
'sloppy'
speech,since they appearto be the result of an
which could count as
attempt to minimize the effort of articulation: the pronunciation of 8rrltrrlprlv
and o),iyov which Plato attacksmay have been approximately'd(i)slomer'7 and
'oli(y/y)on'.
'low
It seemsmore likely that Hyperbolus' substandardis a
urban'
'international'
Attic
rather than a rural variery of Attic: perhaps the nascent
of the ciry which was also attacked by the Old Oligarch (ps.-Xen.Ath. Pol. 2.
7-8, perhapswritten c.425 nc8) and which culminated in the koin1. If this is
true, it is worth remarking that a rype of Greek which is likely to have been
heard quite commonly on the streetsof Athens and Piraeuseis characterized
by the playwrights (at least implicitly, and perhaps explicitly) as barbarous a character with a Thracian mother revealshis low background by his low
morals, his deficient paideia, and his substandardGreek.l0
The category of slandered politicians, then, involves a double senseof
'barbarous':
the first and most obvious is the common accusation (by no
means restricted to comedy) that non-citizen blood in a particular public
figure disqualified him for political office or public influence. The second
290
The languageof non-Atheniansin Old Comedy
senseintroduces the notion that a particular figure comes from a low social
background and is therefore not fit to be a member of the ruling classdue to
lack of an appropriate education and (if this can be distinguished) the inherent
criminaliry of his milieu. For this ideacompareDemosthenes'tauntsat Aeschines
in the De Corona(Demostheneshad a liberal education,while Aeschinesworked
asa second-rateactor,etc.). Demostheneshimself,coming from a'good' family,
was nor open to this line of abuse,but was the target of accusationsthat he had
barbarianfamily connectionsfor variouscontorted reasons.r'
It is worth remarking, finally, that there are no fragmentsin which a slandered
with a non-Attic dialectof Greek:they areeither no-good
politician is associated
Atheniansor barbarians.
(c) Non-Athenian Greehs
The depiction of non-Athenian Greeksin the comic fragmentsis particularly
difficult to analyse,since as a result of the absenceof dramatic context we
generallyhave no idea of who is speakingthe fragmentary lines that have been
preserved.It is the presenceof dialectwhich alertsus to the presenceof a foreign
speaker,and this leadsto a dangerof circulariry.Neither is it possibleto tell from
fragments whether any of the comic playwrights introduced non-Athenians
speakingperfectAttic, nor whether they everpresentedsuchcharactersspeaking
Greek marked not with dialect forms but with barbarisms(such as epoutdq
in (a) above).Thus, for example,a fragment of Eupolis (341, unknown pl"y)
preservesthe line pn rpnxuq io0r ('Don't be difficult') where the Ionic form
rpnxuq might lead us to think that an Ionic characterhas been introduced. On
the other hand, the form is found at Peace1086 in pseudo-Epicdiction as part
of a parody of oracles.The most significantsnatchesof dialectare lines or short
'choral'
Doric does turn up in Old
in Doric and Boeotian.Although
passages
if
Comedy (in the parodosof Clouds,for example), one has more than a single
word it is generallymuch easierthan in the caseof Ionic to be sure that one is
dealingwith representeddialect rather than a lfterarylparodicform.
Doric dialect can be divided into rwo categories:Laconian and the rest.As
a superpowerdialect it is clear why Laconian should have a high profile in
comedy: of the other Doric dialectstoo little remainsfor us to be able to tell
how sharply they were distinguishedfrom eachother and from Laconian.The
longest fragment, fr.4, comesfrom Epilycus' Coraliscus:
nottav ront6',oi6, o6irat.
ev Apurl"ototvt nop' Anel,l,crt
Boporeqnol"l.oirciptot
rai 8orpoq
tot ;rol.oobuq...
I reckonI'll go to the Kopislfestival].In Apollo'splaceat Amyclaethereareplentyof
anda broththat'sreallygood...
andwheatenloaves,
barley-cakes,
In this short passagewe are able to seethat it is not lexical items alone that
29r
StephenColuin
characterizethe dialect. The phonology is in line with Laconian, and also the
syntax (in nop' Andl.l.ro,where an accusativereplacesa dative). It is striking that
the rendering of dialect featuresin these lines (as in other, shorter fragments)
appearsto be at the same level of accuracyas Aristophanes' fairly convincing
rendering of Laconian in Lysistrata.l2There are other fragments of Doric where
it is impossible to guesswhich dialect is being represented(e.g. one line of
Philyllius' Cities, fr. 10); while a line from Apollophanes' CretAns(fr.7) may
have been spokenby one of the eponymousislanders.
Athenaeus quotes a three-line fragment (fr. 11) from Eubulus' Antiope
(c.380?) which is clearly uttered by a Boeotian. Enough survives for us to
be able to tell that the Boeotian dialect is renderedrather lesspreciselythan
the Laconian of the fragments,which reflectsthe situation in Aristophanes'
Acharnians quite closely (Aristophanes'Boeotian is not rendered as accurately
as his Laconian or his Megarian).This may be becauseBoeotian had a greater
proportion of peculiar featuresthan other dialectsto an Attic-speaker,t'which
would have been inconvenient and unnecessaryto representon the stage:the
playwrights merely had to pick out a convincing number of salient features
to identify the dialect to the audience. A well-known passagefrom Strattis'
PhoenicianWomen (fr.49) seemsto attack the Thebans for the peculiarities
of their dialect:
n6l"tq,
luviet' ou66v,ndoa OrlBoirrlv
ou6i:vnot'cil.),'.o'i np6tc pevtrqvoqnfov
ontr0ottl,av,rilgl,eyouo',ovopti(ete...
Firstof all,
nothing,all you peopleof Thebes,nothingwhatsoever!
You understand
a
cuttlefish
opitthotila...
theysaythat you call
continuesin this vein for eight lines,highlighting the phonological,
The passage
morphological and (ashere) lexical differencesbetweenAttic and Boeotian.
The evidencefrom the fragments suggeststhat Aristophanes' use of dialect
on rhe stagewas not unusual. The playwrights seem to have known enough
about the other Greek dialectsto representthem convincingly, from which we
can draw some conclusions:(i) we are not dealing with an artificial literary
'rustic'
dialect found in some English
dialect (such as the comic west-country
from a literary tradition; (ii)
inherited
merely
literature)which the playrvrights
there is no evidencefor confusion beween literary Doric and real Laconian; and
(iii) so far as we can tell, the humour extractablefrom putting foreign Greeks
on the sragewas not basedon dialect pastiche (i.e. inaccurateor barbarizing
representationof dialect,or substandardAttic).
(d) Slaues,rustics,mechanics
Although many slavesin Athens were foreign (either Greek or barbarian), and
slaves'names such as Thratta ('Thracian girl') turn up in comedy, it does not
seem to have been part of the convention of the comic stage to characteize
292
The languageof non-Atheniansin Old Comedy
slaves'language as foreign.la This is perhaps best explained in terms of their
dramatic role: their foreign-nessis not important for the comic drama, and is
not emphasizedlinguistically. An obvious exception is the Scythian archer in
who speaksbarbarizedGreek the reasonfor this is perhaps
ThesmophoriAzusae,
connected with the unusual behaviour permitted to this body of public slaves
(such as certain powers of corporal restraint over citizens). It seemsalso to
emphasizehis stupidiry and to help in the reconciliation of the two estranged
citizen groups (Euripides'team and the women). It is tempting to seea reference
to the linguistic difficulry causedby a householdslaveof foreign origin infr.74 of
Pherecrate
s' Corianna,quoted by Athenaeusto illustrate the name of a fig:
A:
o).1"'ioXri8oqpol np6el"etdv rueQrrlyp€vov.
[roi pet'o].iyo6e'l
our iolti8og oioetg;tdv pel.otvdv;pcvOdvetq;
ereivotqBopBopotq
[?B:] ev toiq Moptov8uvoiq
y'6rpac,
rol,o0ot taq pel.oivoqio1d6oq.'5
Fetchme someof the toastedfigs![anda little furtheron] \fon't you fetchthe figs?
Among thosebarbarianMariandynithey call
The blackones!Do you understand?
figs'pipkins'.
blackened
The last rwo lines (perhapsspoken by a second parry) look like an explanation
of the slave'sinaction in terms of a failure to understand the Greek, but since
the slave'sown words are not preserved (if there were any) it is difficult to
comment on the linguistic characterization:as the passagestands it looks
like a comic version of the scenebetween Clytmemnestra and Cassandrain
Aeschylus'Agamemnon.The abuseof stupid and incompetent slavesis in any
casea perfectly normal ingredient of Old Comedy.
The absenceof any convincing parallelin Old Comedy to the rustic English
'Pyramus
and Thisbe' scenein Midsummer Nighti Dream was
of Shakespearet
touched on under (b) above:apart from the specialcaseof sleazypoliticians,it
was not in the interest of the playwrights to focus attention on the low linguistic
habits of a particularpart of the citizenpopulation (the foppish Ionicismsof the
jeunesse
dorde,td perportq...tov t0 puprp('the young men who hang out in the
perfume shops',Knighx I375-81) were a safetarget). It would be interesting
'Piraeus
Greek'
to know if metics could be characterizedwith a low variery of
similar to the politicians,but the evidenceis lacking.
(e) 'Stock'figuressuclt as tlte Doric-speakingdoctor on stage
Stock figures such as the foreign doctor are particularly associatedwith the
later development of comedy in the fourth century, the best-known surviving
example being in Menander's Aspis 439-64. However, the gap between the
foreign doctors that we hear were typical of early Doric farce (Athenaeus 14.
62ld) and the later stock figures of Middle and New Comedy is filled by an
instance from Crates, who, according to Aristotle (Poetics1449b5-9) was the
293
;
StephenColuin
'plots
of a generaland non-personal
first of the Attic comediansto move towards
narure' (sincedoctors were notorious for fraud and incompetence,it may be
that the dialect markers pointed not only to professionalbut also to moral
character).Fragment46 of Crates(from an unknown play) is a line in medical
Doric: ol,),o otniov notrBo),6 tot roi rr) ),r1qonooldoro ('...but I shall apply
my cup, and lanceit too if you like'). We havealsoa likely Ionic-speakingdoctor
(or impostor) in a fragment of Ameipsias' Sling (Sphendone,fr.17) quoted by
Athenaeus:l.oyov ropci(oqni0t tdv Ool.tioorov('Stir in the hare of the seaand
drink'), where the markersof Ionic arethe word l.cy6q (the object ofAthenaeus'
commenr) and the -oo- in Ool"cioorov.These two examples illustrate that
already in the fifth century dialect could be used to identify a stock character,
which is not a situation one might have guessedon the basisof Aristophanes'
surviving work, where the prevailing iopBrrq i6eo (the comedy of invective,
or lampoon) is such that specific individuals only are presentedspeakingin
dialect, and the dialect indicatesprovenancerather than professionor moral
character(of course,Thebans may be hated and consideredstupid, but this
does not mean that any hateful or stupid characteris for that reason given
of medical Doric or Ionic
aTheban accent).If we had a more extendedpassage
it might be possibleto tell whether the dialect is intended as a representation
of a real epichoric dialect (Coan, for example),orwhether it is merely'generic'
Doric/Ionic, basedon a mish-mashof dialect features.
..
..','.**-.-..@
Fig.7(b).
Fig.7(a).
294
The languageof non-Athenians in Old Comedy
m
The fragments confirm that there was in Old Comedy enormous scope for
marking up languagefor various dramatic effects.This is a feature shared by
modern comic and light-hearted drama, perhapsby coincidence,or perhaps
becausethe humorous manipulation of languageis universallyfound in such
'W'hatever
contexts.
the truth of this, it is worth noting some of the specificways
in which linguistic jokes in Old Comedy work, for this seemsto be very closely
tied to particular culturesand political circumstances.
The inadequatecommand of Greek by foreignerswas clearly considered
a legitimate source of mirth by the Greeks, as by many moderns, despite
Fig.7(a). The New York Goose Play
Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Callx-krater by the trporley
Painter,painted in Thrasc.400 ec. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 24.97.104.
Height 30.6cm.
(b) Policeman on the Beat?
Detail of the New York Goose Play.
An old man standsin the middle, naked (i.e. wearing a padded body-stockingwith comic
phallos) and on tip-toe, with his arms stretchedabovehis head. He saysKATEAHIAN'He
OTOXEIPE,
has bound my hands up', and looks apprehensivelytowards a younger,
uncouth-looking man on the left. He too is naked, holds a stout stick, and is saying
NOPAPETTEBAO. On the right an aged woman on a stage-likestructure extends her
'I
arm and saysEfC)IAPI-EEO, will hand <him> over'. In front of her lie a deadgoose,
two(?) kids in a basket,and a mantle. At the extreme left standsa smaller figure, labelled
TPAfOIAOI, whose stiff posesuggestsa statue;a comic mask floats in space.
It is generallyagreedthat the old man must have stolen the objects on the right, and
'The
that he is about to be beaten by the younger man as a punishment for his theft.
'has
man with the stick', saysBeazley,
disorderedhair and a rough face;and what he says
is not Greek. He has alwaysbeen recognizedto be a barbarian, a foreign policeman or
the like.' It is not clear why he is naked: perhaps his clothes (including the mantle) are
'The
among the stolen goods.
senselof NOPAPETTEBAO] is dark', Beazleycontinues.
'Characters
in Aristophanesmay speak (1) dialect Greek, or (2) pidgin Greek, or (3)
a foreign language,or (4) make noisesthat sound like a foreign language.This seemsto
be either (3) or (4).' In that case,this scenefrom an unknown play by a contemporary
of Aristophanesforms a fascinatingvisual complement to the literary evidencediscussed
by StephenColvin in this chapter.
But the old man'shands are not tied, and Beazleyseeshim as the victim of a binding
spell, a hatadesis(defixio): he is literally spell-bound. Could NOPAPETTEBAO be the
words of the magic spell?If so, the man with the big stick need not be a barbarian.
'The
"Phlyax-Vase"'
BeazleyJ.D.
New York
, AJA 56 (1952) 193-5 with pl. 32.
Gigante M. Rintone e il teatroin Magna Grecia,Naples l97I,7I-4.
Thplin O. ComicAngels,Oxford 1993,20,30-2,62; bibliographyat ll2-3 (the mo
items listed aboveare the most helpful); plate 10.2
295
StephenColuin
evidence that the Greeks themselveswere lazy at learning foreign tongues
(Momigliano 1975, ch.1). There is also evidencethat villains (politicians)
could be associatedwith substandardGreek. The implication that a speaker
of this substandardGreek lacks an appropriate Hellenic paideia may point to
its associationwith a low socio-economicbackground;such charactersare also
rourinely given barbarous family connections.Apart from this special case,
however,we do not find much evidencefor the comic spotlight being turned
on linguistic differencesberweenthe various socialclassesin the citizen body or
even berween citizens and slaves.The small amount of dialect which survives
suggeststhat dialect alone was not used to attack: other Greeks might be
hated for various reasons,but the fairly careful depiction of non-Attic dialects
indicatesthat they do not seemto have been representedasspeakinginadequate
or substandardforms of Greek. This is in sharp distinction with many modern
western literatures, where before the nineteenth century dialect was routinely
treated as a substandardvariery of the standard language.
Acknowledgement
I am gratefulto David Harveyfor manyhelpfulcommentson this Paper'
Notes
'
Films1990.
Ji- HensonProductions/Lorimer
2 Thesecharacteristic
wereusingincluded,
terminationswhich the Ionianmercenaries
in -tr6g and the abstractnounsin -otq which beganto
the adjectives
presumably,
invadethe old Attic languagein the fifth century(for the comic potentialcf. Knights
r375-8r).
3 There havebeen attemptsto make senseof this passage(seee.g. Dover 1963,7-8 =
'gibberish
made from Persiannoises'
1987,289-90).It seemsto me most likely that it is
('West1968, 6). Seealsothe discussionby Morenilla-tlens 1989.
a Cf. the conrext of the fragment: Clement of Alexandria Strom. 5.46.3-6, printed
in K-A ad loc.
5 Frogs 1028-9 with Sommersteinad loc. (1996, 247), Hall 1989, 83-4 and Hall
1996,23,152-3 with the quotation from Cavafr facing the title-page.Cf. Ar. Babylonians
fr.81 K-A = 79 Kock fr nou roto oroilouq rerpd(ovtct tt popBoptoti,'standing in
formation they'll screamsomething foreign - a referenceto a similarly constituted chorus,
and Ar. Danaidesfr.267 K-A = 253 Kock.
6 A similar boast is made by the sausage-seller
at Knighrs 188-9.
7 Cf. 'Woody Allent worry in Annie Hall that one of his colleaguesis saying 'Jew eat
'D[id]'
you eat yet?' (United Artists 1977, dir.'Woody Allen).
yet?'insteadof
s The date is controversial:see the literature cited by Mattingly 1997, who himself
arguesfor a later date (414).
o ..g.for ol,ioq seeThreatte1980,440 andTeodorsson
1974,266.
10 See Cassio 1981 and Brixhe 1988 for the connection between low-prestigeAttic
and the rype of mistake attributed to foreigners.At Clouds 876 Socratesimplies that
296
The language of non-Athenians in Old Comedy
Hyperbolus was launched into public life as the result of a sophistic education which
remedied his deficient education and disagreeablelinguistic habits.
" Demostheneson Aeschines:18 (deCorona)258-52,265; Aeschines
on Demosthenes:
3 (In Ctes.)L7I-3.
12 Dialect evidencecan be checkedin the standardhandbooks,such asThumb-Kieckers
1932, or Bliimel 1982. There is a brief discussionof Aristophanic accuracyin Colvin
1995,with a fuller accountin Colvin 1999; seealsoHarvey 1994, Svi.
13 See Coleman 1963 for a statisticalanalysisof shared featuresamong the Greek
dialects.
'a The scholia at Knights 17 see td Opdtte as a barbarism characteristicof a slave
(Opette ydp BopBcptrdq to Ocppeiv. Bappapi(et 6e rig 6o0l"o9). Opetre looks like
slang(so Sommerstein1981,145 ad loc.), but is more likely part of a low socialregister
than a barbarian idiom.
'5 People complain about the languageof their servants,but may in fact prefer
a distinction to exist;seePlato Laws777cd and Aristotle Pol. 1330a25_.8on the unwisdom
of having slaveswho speak the same dialect as their masters,and cf. George Orwell's
'Dont
"I
expatriate businessmanin colonial Burma:
talk like that, damn you find it
"Please,
very difficult!" Have you swalloweda dictionary?
master,can't keeping ice cool" .We
that's how you ought to talk.
shall have to sack this fellow if he gets to talk English
too well.' (BurmeseDays ch. ii, New York 1934).
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