_Modern Greek Names of Places_ (Vol. iv., p. 470.; Vol. v., pp. 14.
209.).--Your correspondent L. H. J. T. says, at p. 209.:--
"That with the utmost deference to SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT, he must
deny that Cos, Athens, or Constantinople have been called by the
Greeks Stanco, Satines, or Stamboul. These corruptions have been
made by Turks, Venetians, and Englishmen."
This mode of expression would imply that the opinion which he corrects
was held by me, whereas I have stated (Vol. v., p. 14.), even more
explicitly than he, that--
"The barbarism in question is to be charged less upon the modern
Greeks themselves, than upon the European nations, Sclavonians,
Normans, and Venetians, and, later still, the Turks; who seized
upon their country on the dismemberment of the Roman empire. The
Greeks themselves, no doubt, continued to spell their proper names
correctly; but their invaders, ignorant of their orthography, and
even of their letters, were forced to write the names of places in
characters of their own, guided solely by the sound."