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rather a distant> synonym of facere as in Ad. 87; (it can perfectly well mean 'prepare, plan' in both these passages!)

Dr. Brotherton follows tradition in attributing Greek words in Plautus to the needs of translation and a desire to elevate the style to the same motives, in short, which introduced so much Greek into Ciceronian and later Latin. My attempt (Transactions of the American Philological Association 56. 5-25-1925) to prove that a large proportion of Plautus' Greek came from the slang of the Roman streets probably reached the author after this monograph had gone to the press, and so I may still hope to convince her. I must add, however, that I did not there undertake a complete discussion of Plautine Greek; perhaps sycophanta was taken over by the comic poets in the process of translation, although it is not impossible that it was current slang (of course in the form sucopanta). Techina and machina, on the other hand, although Dr. Brotherton (2) mentions them along with sycophanta, are shown by their form to have been naturalized at Rome before Plautus' time.

One reason why Plautus has been so often misunderstood is that many scholars are temperamentally unable to look at life from the comedian's point of view. Dr. Brotherton suffers from no such disability. Her style is as dignified as a scholarly treatise requires; but an occasional happy translation leads the reader to suspect that she could write in the Plautine manner if she chose.

E. H. STURTEVANT

Les Peuples Primitifs de l'Europe Méridionale. Recherches d'histoire et de linguistique. Pp. xii + 328. By EDOUARD PHILIPON. Paris: Leroux, 1925.

The author studies the less known ancient peoples of Southern Europe, and unites them into two groups: an eastern one, consisting of the Thracians, the Phrygians, and the Aegeans, who include the Carian Leleges, the Pelasgians of Greece, the Pelasgo-Tyrrhenians of Italy, and some minor tribes; and a western one, consisting of the Illyrians (with the Macedonians, the Veneti, and the Messapii), the Ligurians, and the Iberians. For him, these are all Indo-European, a view which he supports with a detailed phonology so far as the scanty linguistic remains, mostly place and personal names, permit. He traces the migrations of the various tribes, and gives a complete picture of the prehistory of the region.

But he accepts as historically valid the statements of the classical

authors with regard to the very earliest times. He takes too little account of the latinizing and hellenizing of proper names. He is not at home in dealing with phonology and morphology; for example, does not suspect that Italos, whom he accepts (p. 304) as eponymous hero of the Iberians in their conquest of Central Italy, ever had an initial w- in his name (Oscan víteliú on coins of the Italic Confederation would have set him aright). He shows no knowledge of the Hittite discoveries at Bhogaz-köi, nor of the Lydian inscriptions found at Sardis; his terminus ad quem is set by the récemment which he applies (p. 158, n. 1) to a section of Gröber's Grundriss d. rom. Philol. I2, which was completed in 1906. His work was therefore nineteen years old when it was issued from the press: a fact to be regretted, for it contains an immense amount of information which would be valuable if complete and up-to-date.

ROLAND G. KENT

NOTES AND PERSONALIA

Benjamin Ide Wheeler, a Signer of the Call which led to the foundation of the Linguistic Society of America, and a Foundation Member of the same, died at Vienna, Austria, on May 2, 1927, in his seventythird year.

He was born at Randolph, Massachusetts, on July 15, 1854, and received the degrees of A.B. and A.M. at Brown University in 1875 and 1878. He served as Instructor in Latin and Greek at Brown University, 1879-81, and then devoting himself to futher study earned the degree of Ph.D. at Heidelberg, Germany. He was Instructor in German at Harvard 1885-6, and then going to Cornell was successively Acting Professor of Classical Philology 1886-7, Professor of Comparative Philology 1887-8, and Professor of Greek and Comparative Philology 1888-99. In 1899 he accepted a call to the University of California as President, and in the twenty years during which he held that position he built up the institution both educationally and materially, and at the same time conducted the courses in Comparative Philology. In 1895-6 he was the annual Professor of Greek Literature at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. In 1909-10 he was Roosevelt Professor at the University of Berlin. Since 1919 he has been President Emeritus and Professor of Comparative Philology at the University of California. Of recent years his health has failed, and his sojourn abroad failed to bring about an improvement.

He was recipient of honorary degrees from many institutions, including an honorary Ph.D. from the University of Athens, and a member of many learned societies in this country and abroad. He was the author of a number of volumes on classical antiquity and on education, and editor of the department of philology for Johnson's Cyclopaedia and for Macmillan's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology. But among those who are interested in linguistic studies he will be better known as the author of Der griechische Nominalaccent (1885), and of Analogy and the Scope of its Application in Language (1887), two works which have remained standard in their field, achieving permanent recognition by scholars of all countries. Had Dr. Wheeler not been called away from pure scholarship into the field of academic administration, he would undoubtedly have won other laurels for American scholarship.

Hermann Collitz, a Signer of the Call that led to the formation of the Linguistic Society of America, and the first President of the same, retired from active teaching in June of the present year. As Professor of Germanic Philology at the John Hopkins University, he has for twenty years been an inspiring center of advanced studies in the Germanic field; and before that time he had for twenty-one years held a similar position at Bryn Mawr College. His scholarly activities are not limited to the Germanic field, as all will appreciate who heard his keen comments on the papers read at the Chicago meeting in 1925. IndoEuropeanists see in his publication of the Palatal Law one of the turning points of their science. Students of the languages of ancient India and of Greece have profited especially by his work; and in this connection may be recalled the fact that he is, jointly with F. Bechtel of Halle, editor of the monumental Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften.

The second annual list of awards made by the Committee on Aid to Research, of the American Council of Learned Societies, thanks to a subvention of five thousand dollars per year from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, was announced on April 7, 1927. These grants, limited to a maximum of three hundred dollars for any single project, are designed to facilitate the work of mature scholars, accomplished in scientific methods of investigation and engaged in constructive projects of research. Among the awards were two to members of the Linguistic Society of America:

Professor George M. Bolling, of Ohio State University:

To aid in a study of Homer interpolations.

Professor Robert J. Kellogg, Ottawa University, Ottawa, Kansas:

To aid in a study of the Indo-European affinities of Hittite. Applications for awards under the subvention for 1928 should be made not later than January 31, 1928. Circulars containing information for prospective applicants may be obtained from the chairman of the Committee on Aid to Research, Dean G. S. Ford, University of Minnesota, or from the Secretary of the American Council of Learned Societies, Professor E. C. Armstrong, Princeton University.

Erwin Allen Esper is leaving the University of Illinois, to go to the University of Washington at Seattle, as Associate Professor of Psychology.

Urban T. Holmes, of the University of North Carolina, has been promoted from an Associate Professorship to a Professorship of French.

Edgar Howard Sturtevant, of Yale University, has been made Professor of Linguistics and Comparative Philology in that institution. He thus becomes the successor to Hanns Oertel, who left Yale about fifteen years ago, and is now Professor of Oriental Languages at the University of Marburg, Germany.

James R. Ware has returned from two years' study in Paris as American Field Service Fellow in Oriental Languages, and has gone to the University of Washington as Instructor in Classical Languages.

In the second three months of 1927, the following new members were received into the Linguistic Society of America:

Mrs. W. F. Albright (Ruth Norton), Box 333, Jerusalem, Palestine. Mr. D. Sutherland Davidson, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. (Anthropology)

Dr. Wren Jones Grinstead, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. (Education)

Prof. Philip K. Hitti, 14 Wilton St., Princeton, N. J. (Semitic Lit., Princeton Univ.)

Prof. Oliver M. Johnston, Box 1132, Stanford University, Calif. (Romanic Langs.)

Prof. Emeritus Henry R. Lang, Box 176 Yale Sta., New Haven, Conn. (Romance Langs. and Lits., Yale Univ.)

Mr. Fang-Kuei Li, 5630 Ingleside Av., Chicago, Ill.

Prof. Ida Kruse McFarlane, 1473 Gilpin St., Denver, Colo. (Eng. Lit., Univ. of Denver)

Mr. Milman Parry, American University Union, 173 Boulevard St.Germain, Paris, France.

Prof. Camille E. Werling, Univ. of Denver, Denver, Colo. (Romance Langs.)

George Melville Bolling, Professor of Greek at the Ohio State University, has, by the payment of the proper sum into the treasury, become a Life Member of the Linguistic Society.

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