Greek dialects

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Ancient Greek, in Classical Antiquity before the development of the Koine as the lingua franca of Hellenism, was divided into several dialects. Likewise, Modern Greek is divided into several dialects, most of them deriving from the Koine.

Contents

1 Antiquity 1.1 Northwestern, Southeastern 1.2 Western, Central, Eastern 1.3 Western, Thessalian, Boiotic, Eastern 2 Post-Hellenistic 3 See also 4 External links

Antiquity

The earliest known dialect is the Mycenaean language, the language spoken by the first hellenic settlers of the Greek mainland in the 2nd millennium BC.

The classical distribution of dialects was brought about by the migrations of the early Iron Age Greek Dark Ages 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.

The Dorian invasion spread Doric Greek the coast of the Pelopennesus, for example of Sparta, Crete and the southernmost parts of the west coast of Asia Minor. Doric was standard for Greek lyric poetry, such as Pindar.

Aeolic was spoken chiefly in the islands of the Aegean Sea and the west coast of Asia Minor north of Smyrna.

Ionic was mostly spoken along the west coast of Asia Minor, including Smyrna and the area to the south of it. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were written in a kind of literary Ionic with some loan words from the other dialects. Ionic, therefore, became the primary literary language of ancient Greece. 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 Koine.

The dialects of Classical Antiquity are grouped slightly differently by various authorities. Pamphylian is a marginal dialect of Asia Minor and usually left uncategorized. Note that Mycenaean was only deciphered in 1952, and is therefore missing from the earlier schemes presented here.

Northwestern, Southeastern

Ernst Risch, Museum Helveticum (1955):

• Northern Greek
  • Doric/NW Greek
  • Aeolic
  • Pamphylian?
• Southern Greek
  • Ionian-Arcadian-Cyprian-Mycenean

Alfred Heubeck:

• Northwestern group
  • Doric/NW Greek
  • Aeolic?
• Southeastern group
  • Ionian-Attic
  • Arcadocypriot

Western, Central, Eastern

A. Thumb, E. Kieckers, Handbuch der griechischen Dialekte (1932):

• Western Greek
  • Doric dialects
  • dialect of Achaia
  • dialect of Elis
  • North-Western Greek
• Central Greek
  • Aeolic
    • Boiotic
    • Thessalic
    • Lesbian
  • Arcadocyprian
• Eastern Greek
  • Ionisch
  • Attic
• Pamphylian

W. Porzig, Die Gliederung des indogermanischen Sprachgebiets (1954):

• Western Greek
  • North-Western Greek
  • Doric
• Aeolic
• Eastern Greek
  • Ionian-Attic
  • Arcadocyprian

Western, Thessalian, Boiotic, Eastern

C.D. Buck, The Greek Dialects (1973):

• Western Greek
  • North-Western Greek
  • Doric
• Eastern Greek
  • Ionian-Attic
  • Lesbian
  • Arcadocyprian
• Thessalian
• Boiotic
• Pamphylian

Post-Hellenistic

• Attic Greek
  • Koine
    • Byzantine Greek language
      • Modern Greek
        • Dhimotiki
        • Katharevousa
      • Yevanic Greek
      • Cypriot Greek
      • Griko (possibly with Doric elements)
  • Pontic Greek
  • Cappadocian Greek
  • Romano-Greek
• Doric Greek
  • Tsakonian Greek

Tsakonian is the only modern Greek dialect that is not descended from Attic or the Koine.

See also

• History of the Greek language

External links

• http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/idg/grie/grdial.htm
• http://www.friesian.com/archon.htm
• Ethnologue report on Greek languages (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90065)

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