Kitap 12
10.27
Still I should find this attitude less intolerable if it were only the Greeks that insisted on it. For Latin eloquence, although in my opinion it closely resembles the Greek as far as invention, arrangement, judgement and the like are concerned, and may indeed be regarded as its disciple, cannot aspire to imitate it in point of elocution. For, in the first place, it is harsher in sound, since our alphabet does not contain the most euphonious of the Greek letters, one a vowel and the other a consonant, φ alio γ . than which there are none that fall more sweetly on the ear, and which we are forced to borrow whenever we use Greek words.
10.28
The result of such borrowing is, for some reason or other, the immediate accession to our language of a certain liveliness and charm. Take, for example, words such as sephyri and zophori: Friezes. if they were spelt according to the Latin alphabet, they would produce a heavy and barbarous sound. For we replace these letters by others of a harsh and unpleasant character, F and U; zefuri and zofori. from which Greece is happily immune.
