_Lycian Inscriptions_ (Vol. iv., p. 383.).--As to the double language in
Homer of the gods and men, Heyne and others have thought (ad _Il._ A.
403.) that the one was the old language, the other the modern. See
Clarke ib., who thinks one was the learned name, the other the vulgar:
but gives a scholion of the former opinion. The passages are as follow:
_Il._ Gods. Men.
[Greek: Alpha] 403. Briareus AEgaeon.
[Greek: Beta] 813. Tomb of Myrine Batiea.
[Greek: Xi] 291. Chalcis Cymindis.
[Greek: Upsilon] 74. Xanthus Scamander.
All these words, except one, are plain Greek,--and that one is a word of
men. It is impossible, therefore, that the gods' language could have
been the antiquated Greek language.
In the _Odyssey_ ([Greek: Kappa] 305.) Mercury says that a certain plant
is called _Moly_ by the gods, and that it is very difficult for men to
find. The answer to the question, What do men call it? therefore would
probably have been, that they have no name for it at all. It is an odd
word, not easy to derive, and ending in _u_; which Aristotle says is the
ending of only five words in Greek, and one of those, [Greek: asty], was
obsolete as an appellative in Aristotle's time.
Ichor, though applied in Homer to the gods, he does not say was a word
of the gods; and as it is used in Hippocrates, it is more probably a
dialectic than an antiquated word. Its termination, however is rare; and
in another instance, [Greek: tekmor], was obsolete in Aristotle's time
(_Rhet. init._).
As to the Lycian language, the alphabet is said, in the appendix to
Fellows, to resemble partly the Greek, partly the Zend, and one or two
letters the Etruscan. The language is said (ib. 430.) to resemble the
Zend more than any other known language; but to differ too much to be
considered as a dialect of Zend, and must rank as a separate language.
I would observe, that one of the peculiarities mentioned, as compared
with all the Indo-Germanic languages--namely, the having no consonant at
the end of the masculine or feminine accusative--existed in the old
Latin, as in the Scipionic tombs, "optimo viro, omne Loucana."
Sir Edmund Head, in the _Classical Museum_, No. II., considers the
people to be the Solymi of Homer.