Ancient Greek dialects

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Distribution of Greek dialects in Greece in the classical period.[1]

Western group: Central group: Eastern group:

  Doric proper   Aeolic   Attic
  Northwest Doric   Arcado-Cypriot   Ionic
  Achaean Doric

Distribution of Greek dialects in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy and Sicily) in the classical period.

Western group: Eastern group:
  Doric proper   Attic-Ionic
  Northwest Doric
  Achaean Doric
Ancient Greek in classical antiquity, before the development of the
common Koine Greek of the Hellenistic period, was divided into
several varieties.
Most of these varieties are known only from inscriptions, but a few of them,
principally Aeolic, Doric, and Ionic, are also represented in the literary canon
alongside the dominant Attic form of literary Greek.
Likewise, Modern Greek is divided into several dialects, most derived from
Koine Greek.

Contents

 1Provenance
 2Literature
 3Classification
o 3.1Ancient classification
o 3.2Modern classification
 4Phonology
o 4.1Hiatus
o 4.2Ā
o 4.3Ablaut
 5Post-Hellenistic
 6Notes
 7References
 8Further reading
o 8.1Overviews
o 8.2Inscriptions

Provenance[edit]
 The earliest known Greek dialect is Mycenaean
Greek, the South/Eastern Greek variety attested
from the Linear B tablets produced by
the Mycenaean civilization of the Late Bronze
Age in the late 2nd millennium BC. The classical
distribution of dialects was brought about by the
migrations of the early Iron Age[note 1] after the
collapse of the Mycenaean civilization. Some
speakers of Mycenaean were displaced
to Cyprus while others remained inland in Arcadia,
giving rise to the Arcadocypriot dialect. This is the
only dialect with a known Bronze-Age precedent.
The other dialects must have preceded their
attested forms but the relationship of the
precedents to Mycenaean remains to be
discovered.
 Aeolic was spoken in three subdialects: one,
Lesbian, on the island of Lesbos and the west
coast of Asia Minor north of Smyrna. The other
 two, Boeotian and Thessalian, were spoken in the
northeast of the Greek mainland (in Boeotia and
Thessalia).
 The Dorian invasion spread Doric Greek from a
probable location in northwestern Greece to the
coast of the Peloponnesus; for example, to Sparta,
to Crete and to the southernmost parts of the west
coast of Asia Minor. Northwest Greek is
sometimes classified as a separate dialect, and is
sometimes subsumed under Doric. Macedonian is
regarded by some scholars as another Greek
dialect, possibly related to Doric or NW Greek.[2][3][4][5][6]
[7]

 Ionic was mostly spoken along the west coast of

Asia Minor, including Smyrna and the area to the
south of it, but also
in Euboea. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were written
in Homeric Greek (or Epic Greek), an early East
Greek blending Ionic and Aeolic features. Attic
Greek, a sub- or sister-dialect of Ionic, was for
centuries the language of Athens. Because Attic
was adopted in Macedon before the conquests
of Alexander the Great and the subsequent rise of
Hellenism, it became the "standard" dialect that
evolved into the Koiné.

Literature[edit]
See also: Category:Ancient Greek writers by dialect
Ancient Greek literature is written in literary dialects that developed from
particular regional or archaic dialects. Ancient Greek authors did not necessarily
write in their native dialect, but rather chose a dialect that was suitable or
traditional for the type of literature they were writing (see belles-lettres).[8][9] All
dialects have poetry written in them, but only Attic and Ionic have full works of
prose attested.
Homeric Greek is used in the first epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, and
the Homeric Hymns, traditionally attributed to Homer and written in dactylic
hexameter. Homeric is a literary dialect with elements of Ionic, Aeolic and
Arcadocypriot. Hesiod uses a similar dialect, and later writers imitate Homer in
their epics, such as Apollonius
Rhodius in Argonautica and Nonnus in Dionysiaca.[10] Homer influenced other
types of poetry as well.
Ionic proper is first used in Archilochus of Paros. This dialect includes also the
earliest Greek prose, that of Heraclitus and Ionic
philosophers, Hecataeus and logographers, Herodotus, Democritus,
and Hippocrates. Elegiac poetry originated in Ionia and always continued to be
written in Ionic.[11][12]
Doric is the conventional dialect of choral lyric poetry, which includes the
Laconian Alcman, the Theban Pindar and the choral songs of Attic tragedy
(stasima). Several lyric and epigrammatic poets wrote in this dialect, such
as Ibycus of Rhegium and Leonidas of Tarentum. The following authors wrote in
Doric, preserved in fragments: Epicharmus comic poet and writers of South
Italian Comedy (phlyax play), Mithaecus food writer and Archimedes.
Aeolic is an exclusively poetic lyric dialect, represented
by Sappho and Alcaeus for Lesbian (Aeolic) and Corinna of Tanagra for
Boeotian.
Thessalic (Aeolic), Northwest Doric, Arcado-Cypriot and Pamphylian never
became literary dialects and are only known from inscriptions, and to some
extent by the comical parodies of Aristophanes and lexicographers.
Attic proper was used by the Attic
orators, Lysias, Isocrates, Aeschines and Demosthenes, the
philosophers Plato and Aristotle and the historian Xenophon. Thucydides wrote
in Old Attic. The tragic playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides wrote
in an artificial poetic language,[13] and the comic playwright Aristophanes wrote in
a language with vernacular elements.

Classification[edit]
Ancient classification[edit]
The ancients classified the language into three gene or four dialects: Ionic
proper, Ionic (Attic), Aeolic, Doric and later a fifth one, Koine.[14][15] Grammarians
focus mainly on the literary dialects and isolated words. Historians may classify
dialects on mythological/historical reasons rather than linguistic knowledge.
According to Strabo, "Ionic is the same as Attic and Aeolic the same as Doric -
Outside the Isthmus, all Greeks were Aeolians except the Athenians, the
Megarians and the Dorians who live about Parnassus - In the Peloponnese,
Achaeans were also Aeolians but only Eleans and Arcadians continued to
speak Aeolic".[16] However, for most ancients, Aeolic was synonymous with
literary Lesbic.[17] Stephanus of Byzantium characterized Boeotian as Aeolic and
Aetolian as Doric.[18] Remarkable is the ignorance of sources, except
lexicographers, on Arcadian, Cypriot and Pamphylian.
Finally, unlike Modern Greek[19] and English, Ancient Greek common terms for
human speech ( 'glôssa',[20] 'dialektos',[21] 'phônê'[22] and the suffix '-isti' ) may be
attributed interchangeably to both a dialect and a language. However, the plural
'dialektoi' is used when dialects and peculiar words are compared and listed by
the grammarians under the terms 'lexeis'[23] or 'glôssai'.[24]
Modern classification[edit]
The dialects of Classical Antiquity are grouped slightly differently by various
authorities. Pamphylian is a marginal dialect of Asia Minor and is sometimes left
uncategorized. Mycenaean was deciphered only in 1952 and so is missing from
the earlier schemes presented here:
Alfred Heubeck:
Northwestern, Ernst Risch, Museum
Southeastern Helveticum (1955):  Northwestern group
o Doric/North-Western
 Northern Greek
 o Doric/North-
Western Greek Greek
o Aeolic o Aeolic?
o Pamphylian? o Ancient Macedonian?
 Southern Greek  Southeastern group
o Ionic- o Ionic-Attic
Arcadian-Cypriot- o Arcadocypriot
Mycenaean
A. Thumb, E. Kieckers,
Handbuch der griechischen
Dialekte (1932):

 Western Greek
o Doric dialects
o dialect of
Achaea
W. Porzig, Die Gliederung des
o dialect of Elis indogermanischen Sprachgebiets (1954):
o North-
Western Greek  Western Greek
Western,  Central Greek o North-Western Greek
Central, o Aeolic o Doric
Eastern  Boiot
 Aeolic
ic
 Eastern Greek
 Thess
alic o Ionic-Attic
 Lesbi o Arcadocypriot
c
o Arcadocyprio
t
 Eastern Greek
o Ionic
o Attic
 Pamphylian
East Greek C.D. Buck, The Greek Dialects (1955):[note 2]
West Greek 
o The Attic-Ionic Group
 Attic
 Ionic
 East Ionic
 Central Ionic
 West Ionic or Euboean
o The Arcadocypriot Group
 Arcadian
 Cypriot
 Pamphylian
o The Aeolic Group
 Lesbian
 Thessalian
 Boeotian
 West Greek
 o The North-West Greek Group
 Phocian (including Delphian)
 Locrian
 Elean
 The Northwest Greek koine
o The Doric Group
 Laconian and Heraclean
 Messenian
 Megarian
 Corinthian
 Argolic
 Rhodian
 Coan
 Theran and Cyrenaean
 Cretan
 Sicilian Doric

Phonology[edit]
The Ancient Greek dialects differed mainly in vowels.
Hiatus[edit]
Loss of intervocalic s and consonantal i and w from Proto-Greek brought two
vowels together in hiatus, a circumstance often called a "collision of vowels". [note
3]
 Over time, Greek speakers would change pronunciation to avoid such a
collision, and the way that vowels changed determined the dialect.
For example, the word for the "god of the sea" (regardless of the culture and
language from which it came) was in some prehistoric
form *poseidāwōn (genitive *poseidāwonos). Loss of the intervocalic
*w left poseidāōn, which is found in both Mycenaean and Homeric dialects.
Ionic Greek changed the *a to an e (poseideōn), while Attic Greek contracted it
to poseidōn. It changed differently in other dialects:[citation needed]

 Corinthian: potedāwoni > potedāni and potedān
 Boeotian: poteidāoni
 Cretan, Rhodian and Delphian: poteidān
 Lesbian: poseidān
 Arcadian: posoidānos
 Laconian: pohoidān
The changes appear designed to place one vowel phoneme instead of two, a
process called "contraction", if a third phoneme is created, and "hyphaeresis"
("taking away") if one phoneme is dropped and the other kept. Sometimes, the
two phonemes are kept, sometimes modified, as in the Ionic poseideōn.
Ā[edit]
A vowel shift differentiating the Ionic and Attic dialects from the rest was the
shift of ā (ᾱ) to ē (η). In Ionic, the change occurred in all positions, but in Attic, it
occurred almost everywhere except after e, i, and r (ε, ι, ρ). Homeric
Greek shows the Ionic rather than the Attic version of the vowel shift for the
most part. Doric and Aeolic show the original forms with ā (ᾱ).[25]

 Attic and Ionic mḗtēr (μήτηρ); Doric mā́ tēr (μᾱ́τηρ)

"mother"[26] (compare Latin māter)
 Attic neāníās (νεᾱνίᾱς); Ionic neēníēs (νεηνίης)
"young man"[27]
Ablaut[edit]
Another principle of vocalic dialectization follows the Indo-European
ablaut series or vowel grades. The Proto-Indo-European language could
interchange e (e-grade) with o (o-grade) or use neither (zero-grade). Similarly,
Greek inherited the series, for example, ei, oi, i, which are e-, o- and zero-
grades of the diphthong respectively. They could appear in different verb forms
– present leípō (λείπω) "I leave", perfect léloipa (λέλοιπα) "I have
left", aorist élipon (ἔλιπον) "I left" – or be used as the basis of dialectization:
Attic deíknȳmi (δείκνῡμι) "I point out" but Cretan díknūmi (δίκνῡμι).

Post-Hellenistic[edit]
Main article: Varieties of Modern Greek
The ancient Greek dialects were a result of isolation and poor communication
between communities living in broken terrain. All general Greek historians point
out the influence of terrain on the development of the city-states. Often, the
development of languages dialectization results in the dissimilation of daughter
languages. That phase did not occur in Greek; instead the dialects were
replaced by Standard Greek.
Increasing population and communication brought speakers more closely in
touch and united them under the same authorities. Attic Greek became the
literary language everywhere. Buck says: [28]
"… long after Attic had become the norm of
literary prose, each state employed its own
dialect, both in private and public monuments of
internal concern, and in those of a more…
interstate character, such as… treaties…."
In the last few centuries BC, regional dialects
replaced local ones: Northwest Greek koine, Doric
koine and Attic koine. The last came to replace the
others in common speech in the first few centuries
AD. After the division of the Roman Empire the
earliest Modern Greek prevailed, although a
version of Attic Greek was still exclusively taught in
schools and served as the official language of the
state until the early 20th century.[29] The dialect
distribution was then as follows:

 Attic Greek
o Koiné
  Byzantine Greek language
 Modern Greek
 Demotic Greek
 Katharevousa
 Yevanic
 Cypriot Greek
 Cretan Greek
 Southern Italian Greek
(Griko and Calabrian/Bovesian),
retaining some Doric elements
 Pontic Greek, retaining some Ionic
elements
 Cappadocian Greek
 Romano-Greek
 Doric Greek
o Doric Koiné
 Tsakonian
According to some scholars, Tsakonian is the only
modern Greek dialect that descends from Doric,
albeit with some influence from the Koine.[30] Others
include the Southern Italian dialects in this group,
though perhaps they should rather be regarded as
descended from the local Doric-influenced variant
of the Koine.[31]

Notes[edit]
1. ^ Sometimes called the Greek Dark Ages because
writing disappeared from Greece until the adaptation of
the Phoenician alphabet.
2. ^ First published in 1928, it was revised and expanded
by Buck and republished in 1955, the year of his death.
Of the new edition Buck said (Preface): this is virtually a
new book." There have been other impressions, but no
further changes to the text. The 1955 edition was at the
time and to some degree still is the standard text on the
subject in the United States. This part of the table is
based on the Introduction to the 1955 edition. An
example of a modern use of this classification can be
found at columbia.edu as Richard C. Carrier's The
Major Greek Dialects Archived October 6, 2006, at
the Wayback Machine.
3. ^ Two vowels together are not to be confused with
a diphthong, which is two vowel sounds within the same
syllable, often spelled with two letters. Greek
diphthongs were typically inherited from Proto-Indo-
European.

References[edit]
1. ^ Roger D. Woodard (2008), "Greek dialects", in: The
Ancient Languages of Europe, ed. R. D. Woodard,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 51.
2. ^ Masson, Olivier (2003) [1996]. "[Ancient] Macedonian
language". In Hornblower, S.; Spawforth A. (eds.). The
Oxford Classical Dictionary  (revised 3rd ed.). USA:
Oxford University Press. pp. 905–906. ISBN 0-19-
860641-9.
3. ^ Hammond, N.G.L  (1993) [1989].  The Macedonian
State. Origins, Institutions and History  (reprint ed.).
USA: Oxford University Press.  ISBN  0-19-814927-1.
4. ^ Meier-Brügger, Michael; Fritz, Matthias;  Mayrhofer,
Manfred(2003).  Indo-European Linguistics. Walter de
Gruyter. p. 28.  ISBN  978-3-11-017433-5.
5. ^ Roisman, Worthington, 2010, "A Companion to
Ancient Macedonia", Chapter 5: Johannes Engels,
"Macedonians and Greeks", p. 95: "This (i.e. Pella
curse tablet) has been judged to be the most important
ancient testimony to substantiate that Macedonian was
a north-western Greek and mainly a Doric dialect".
6. ^ "[W]e may tentatively conclude that Macedonian is a
dialect related to North-West Greek.", Olivier Masson,
French linguist, “Oxford Classical Dictionary:
Macedonian Language”, 1996.
7. ^ Masson & Dubois 2000, p. 292: "..."Macedonian
Language" de l'Oxford Classical Dictionary, 1996, p.
906: "Macedonian may be seen as a Greek dialect,
characterized by its marginal position and by local
pronunciation (like Βερενίκα for Φερενίκα etc.)."
8. ^ Greek mythology and poetics By Gregory Nagy. Page
51] ISBN 978-0-8014-8048-5 (1992)
9. ^ Sihler, Andrew Littleton (1995).  New Comparative
Grammar of Greek and Latin. New York, Oxford:
Oxford University Press. pp. 10–12. ISBN 0-19-
508345-8.
10. ^ Homer and the epic: a shortened version of The
songs of Homer By Geoffrey Stephen Kirk Page 76
(1965)
11. ^ A History of Greek Literature: From the Earliest
Period to the Death of Demosthenes by Frank Byron
Jevons (1894) Page 112
12. ^ A History of Classical Greek Literature: Volume 2.
The Prose Writers (Paperback) by John Pentland
Mahaffy Page 194 ISBN 1-4021-7041-6
13. ^ Helen By Euripides, William Allan Page 43 ISBN 0-
521-54541-2(2008)
14. ^ New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity: Volume
5, Linguistic Essays With Cumulative Indexes to Vols.
1-5 Page 30 ISBN 0-8028-4517-7 (2001)
15. ^ History Of The Language Sciences By Sylvain
Auroux Page 440ISBN 3-11-016736-0 (2000)
16. ^ Strabo 8.1.2 14.5.26
17. ^ Mendez Dosuna, The Aeolic dialects
18. ^ Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnika s.v. Ionia
19. ^ glossa: language, dialektos: dialect, foní : voice
20. ^ LSJ glôssa Archived December 2, 2009, at
the Wayback Machine
 21. ^ LSJ:dialektos Archived December 2, 2009, at
the Wayback Machine
22. ^ LSJ phônê Archived December 2, 2009, at
the Wayback Machine
23. ^ LSJ lexis Archived December 2, 2009, at
the Wayback Machine
24. ^ Ataktoi Glôssai (Disorderly Words) by Philitas of Cos
25. ^ Smyth, Greek Grammar, paragraph 30 on CCEL:
vowel change involving ē, ā
26. ^ μήτηρ
27. ^ νεᾱνίας
28. ^ Greek Dialects[page  needed]
29. ^ Mackridge, Peter. (2009). Language and national
identity in Greece, 1766-1976. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.  ISBN  978-0-19-921442-
6.  OCLC 244417437.
30. ^ Medieval and modern Greek By Robert
Browning Page 124ISBN 0-521-29978-0 (1983)
31. ^ Browning, ibid.

Further reading[edit]
Library resources about
Ancient Greek dialects

Online books
Resources in your
library
Resources in other
libraries

 Bakker, Egbert J., ed. 2010. A companion to

the Ancient Greek language. Oxford: Wiley-
Blackwell.
 Christidis, Anastasios-Phoivos, ed. 2007. A
history of Ancient Greek: From the beginnings
to Late Antiquity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
 Colvin, Stephen C. 2007. A historical Greek
reader: Mycenaean to the koiné. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
 Horrocks, Geoffrey. 2010. Greek: A history of
the language and its speakers. 2nd ed. Oxford:
Wiley-Blackwell.
 Palmer, Leonard R. 1980. The Greek
language. London: Faber & Faber.
Overviews[edit]
  Griechische Dialekte und ihre Verteilung, Titus
site, in German. List, map, table of features.
 Dialects of Greek, Kelley L. Ross. Map and
brief description.
 Excerpts from Margalit Finkelburg, "Greeks and
Pre-Greeks: Aegean Prehistory and Greek
Heroic Tradition"  (PDF).  (162  KiB). One of the
topics is the origin of the dialects.
Inscriptions[edit]

 Searchable Greek Inscriptions. A considerable

corpus of ancient Greek inscriptions in various
dialects published by The Packard Humanities
Institute.
 Inscriptions Listed by Region, Centre for the
Study of Ancient Documents site.
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