The Ancient Greek language includes the forms
of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient
world from around the 9th century BCE to the
6th century CE. It is often roughly divided
into the Archaic period (9th to 6th centuries
BCE), Classical period (5th and 4th centuries
BCE), and Hellenistic period (Koine Greek,
3rd century BCE to the 4th century CE).
It is antedated in the second millennium BCE
by Mycenaean Greek and succeeded by medieval
Greek.
Koine is regarded as a separate historical
stage of its own, although in its earliest
form it closely resembled Attic Greek and
in its latest form it approaches Medieval
Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of
the classic and earlier periods included several
regional dialects.
Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and
of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights,
and philosophers. It has contributed many
words to English vocabulary and has been a
standard subject of study in educational institutions
of the Western world since the Renaissance.
This article primarily contains information
about the Epic and Classical periods of the
language.
== Dialects ==
Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language,
divided into many dialects. The main dialect
groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot,
and Doric, many of them with several subdivisions.
Some dialects are found in standardized literary
forms used in literature, while others are
attested only in inscriptions.
There are also several historical forms. Homeric
Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek
(derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic)
used in the epic poems, the "Iliad" and "Odyssey",
and in later poems by other authors. Homeric
Greek had significant differences in grammar
and pronunciation from Classical Attic and
other Classical-era dialects.
=== History ===
The origins, early form and development of
the Hellenic language family are not well
understood because of a lack of contemporaneous
evidence. Several theories exist about what
Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between
the divergence of early Greek-like speech
from the common Proto-Indo-European language
and the Classical period. They have the same
general outline, but differ in some of the
detail. The only attested dialect from this
period is Mycenaean Greek, but its relationship
to the historical dialects and the historical
circumstances of the times imply that the
overall groups already existed in some form.
Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period
dialect groups developed not later than 1120
BCE, at the time of the Dorian invasion(s)—and
that their first appearances as precise alphabetic
writing began in the 8th century BCE. The
invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the
invaders had some cultural relationship to
the historical Dorians. The invasion is known
to have displaced population to the later
Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves
as descendants of the population displaced
by or contending with the Dorians.
The Greeks of this period believed there were
three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians,
Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians),
each with their own defining and distinctive
dialects. Allowing for their oversight of
Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and
Cypriot, far from the center of Greek scholarship,
this division of people and language is quite
similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic
investigation.
One standard formulation for the dialects
is:
West vs. non-west Greek is the strongest marked
and earliest division, with non-west in subsets
of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic
vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot
vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-west is called
East Greek.
Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely
from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age.
Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest
Greek influence, and can in some respects
be considered a transitional dialect. Thessalian
likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence,
though to a lesser degree.
Pamphylian Greek, spoken in a small area on
the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little
preserved in inscriptions, may be either a
fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean
Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek
native influence.
Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above
had further subdivisions, generally equivalent
to a city-state and its surrounding territory,
or to an island. Doric notably had several
intermediate divisions as well, into Island
Doric (including Cretan Doric), Southern Peloponnesus
Doric (including Laconian, the dialect of
Sparta), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including
Corinthian).
The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek.
All the groups were represented by colonies
beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies
generally developed local characteristics,
often under the influence of settlers or neighbors
speaking different Greek dialects.
The dialects outside the Ionic group are known
mainly from inscriptions, notable exceptions
being:
fragments of the works of the poet Sappho
from the island of Lesbos, in Aeolian, and
the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar and
other lyric poets, usually in Doric.After
the conquests of Alexander the Great in the
late 4th century BCE, a new international
dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed,
largely based on Attic Greek, but with influence
from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced
most of the older dialects, although Doric
dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language,
which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta.
Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations
into most verbs of Demotic Greek. By about
the 6th century CE, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized
into Medieval Greek.
=== Related languages or dialects ===
Ancient Macedonian was an Indo-European language
at least closely related to Greek, but its
exact relationship is unclear because of insufficient
data: possibly a dialect of Greek; a sibling
language to Greek; or a close cousin to Greek,
and perhaps related to some extent, to Thracian
and Phrygian languages. The Macedonian dialect
(or language) appears to have been supplanted
by Attic Greek in the Hellenistic period.
Recent epigraphic discoveries in the Greek
region of Macedonia, such as the Pella curse
tablet, suggest that ancient Macedonian might
have been a variety of North Western Ancient
Greek.
== Phonology ==
=== Differences from Proto-Indo-European ===
Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European
and other Indo-European languages in certain
ways. In phonotactics, Ancient Greek words
could end only in a vowel or /n s r/; final
stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared
with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive).
Ancient Greek of the classical period also
differed in phonemic inventory:
PIE *s became /h/ at the beginning of a word
(debuccalization): Latin sex, English six,
Ancient Greek ἕξ /héks/.
PIE *s was elided between vowels after an
intermediate step of debuccalization: Sanskrit
janasas, Latin generis (where s > r by rhotacism),
Greek *genesos > *genehos > Ancient Greek
γένεος (/géneos/), Attic γένους
(/génoːs/) "of a kind".
PIE *y /j/ became /h/ (debuccalization) or
/(d)z/ (fortition): Sanskrit yas, Ancient
Greek ὅς /hós/ "who" (relative pronoun);
Latin iugum, English yoke, Ancient Greek ζυγός
/zygós/.
PIE *w, which occurred in Mycenaean and some
non-Attic dialects, was lost: early Doric
ϝέργον /wérgon/, English work, Attic
Greek ἔργον /érgon/.
PIE and Mycenaean labiovelars changed to plain
stops (labials, dentals, and velars) in the
later Greek dialects: for instance, PIE *kʷ
became /p/ or /t/ in Attic: Attic Greek ποῦ
/pôː/ "where?", Latin quō; Attic Greek
τίς /tís/, Latin quis "who?".
PIE "voiced aspirated" stops *bʰ dʰ ǵʰ
gʰ gʷʰ were devoiced and became the aspirated
stops φ θ χ /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ in Ancient Greek.
=== Phonemic inventory ===
The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very
different from that of Modern Greek. Ancient
Greek had long and short vowels; many diphthongs;
double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless,
and aspirated stops; and a pitch accent. In
Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are
short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced
distinctly are pronounced as /i/ (iotacism).
Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs
have become fricatives, and the pitch accent
has changed to a stress accent. Many of the
changes took place in the Koine Greek period.
The writing system of Modern Greek, however,
does not reflect all pronunciation changes.
The examples below represent Attic Greek in
the 5th century BCE. Ancient pronunciation
cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but
Greek from the period is well documented,
and there is little disagreement among linguists
as to the general nature of the sounds that
the letters represent.
==== Consonants ====
[ŋ] occurred as an allophone of /n/ that
was used before velars and as an allophone
of /ɡ/ before nasals. /r/ was probably voiceless
when word-initial (written ῥ). /s/ was assimilated
to [z] before voiced consonants.
==== Vowels ====
/oː/ raised to [uː], probably by the 4th
century BCE.
== Morphology ==
Greek, like all of the older Indo-European
languages, is highly inflected. It is highly
archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European
forms. In Ancient Greek, nouns (including
proper nouns) have five cases (nominative,
genitive, dative, accusative, and vocative),
three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter),
and three numbers (singular, dual, and plural).
Verbs have four moods (indicative, imperative,
subjunctive, and optative) and three voices
(active, middle, and passive), as well as
three persons (first, second, and third) and
various other forms. Verbs are conjugated
through seven combinations of tenses and aspect
(generally simply called "tenses"): the present,
future, and imperfect are imperfective in
aspect; the aorist (perfective aspect); a
present perfect, pluperfect and future perfect.
Most tenses display all four moods and three
voices, although there is no future subjunctive
or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect
subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives
and participles correspond to the finite combinations
of tense, aspect, and voice.
=== Augment ===
The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually,
at least) a prefix /e-/, called the augment.
This was probably originally a separate word,
meaning something like "then", added because
tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning.
The augment is added to the indicative of
the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but
not to any of the other forms of the aorist
(no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect
exist).
The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic
and quantitative. The syllabic augment is
added to stems beginning with consonants,
and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with
r, however, add er). The quantitative augment
is added to stems beginning with vowels, and
involves lengthening the vowel:
a, ā, e, ē → ē
i, ī → ī
o, ō → ō
u, ū → ū
ai → ēi
ei → ēi or ei
oi → ōi
au → ēu or au
eu → ēu or eu
ou → ouSome verbs augment irregularly; the
most common variation is e → ei. The irregularity
can be explained diachronically by the loss
of s between vowels.
In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the
augment is placed not at the start of the
word, but between the preposition and the
original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω
(I attack) goes to προσέβαλoν in
the aorist. However compound verbs consisting
of a prefix that is not a preposition retain
the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ
goes to ηὐτομόλησα in the aorist.
Following Homer's practice, the augment is
sometimes not made in poetry, especially epic
poetry.
The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication;
see below.
=== Reduplication ===
Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect,
and future perfect reduplicate the initial
syllable of the verb stem. (Note that a few
irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate,
whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.)
The three types of reduplication are:
Syllabic reduplication: Most verbs beginning
with a single consonant, or a cluster of a
stop with a sonorant, add a syllable consisting
of the initial consonant followed by e. An
aspirated consonant, however, reduplicates
in its unaspirated equivalent: Grassmann's
law.
Augment: Verbs beginning with a vowel, as
well as those beginning with a cluster other
than those indicated previously (and occasionally
for a few other verbs) reduplicate in the
same fashion as the augment. This remains
in all forms of the perfect, not just the
indicative.
Attic reduplication: Some verbs beginning
with an a, e or o, followed by a sonorant
(or occasionally d or g), reduplicate by adding
a syllable consisting of the initial vowel
and following consonant, and lengthening the
following vowel. Hence er → erēr, an → anēn,
ol → olōl, ed → edēd. This is not actually
specific to Attic Greek, despite its name,
but it was generalized in Attic. This originally
involved reduplicating a cluster consisting
of a laryngeal and sonorant, hence h₃l → h₃leh₃l
→ olōl with normal Greek development of
laryngeals. (Forms with a stop were analogous.)Irregular
duplication can be understood diachronically.
For example, lambanō (root lab) has the perfect
stem eilēpha (not *lelēpha) because it was
originally slambanō, with perfect seslēpha,
becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening.
Reduplication is also visible in the present
tense stems of certain verbs. These stems
add a syllable consisting of the root's initial
consonant followed by i. A nasal stop appears
after the reduplication in some verbs.
== Writing system ==
The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek
writing (circa 1450 BCE) are in the syllabic
script Linear B. Beginning in the 8th century
BCE, however, the Greek alphabet became standard,
albeit with some variation among dialects.
Early texts are written in boustrophedon style,
but left-to-right became standard during the
classic period. Modern editions of Ancient
Greek texts are usually written with accents
and breathing marks, interword spacing, modern
punctuation, and sometimes mixed case, but
these were all introduced later.
== Sample texts ==
The beginning of Homer's Iliad exemplifies
the Archaic period of Ancient Greek (see Homeric
Greek for more details):
The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies
Attic Greek from the Classical period of Ancient
Greek:
Ὅτι μὲν ὑμεῖς, ὦ ἄνδρες
Ἀθηναῖοι, πεπόνθατε ὑπὸ
τῶν ἐμῶν κατηγόρων, οὐκ
οἶδα· ἐγὼ δ' οὖν καὶ αὐτὸς
ὑπ' αὐτῶν ὀλίγου ἐμαυτοῦ
ἐπελαθόμην, οὕτω πιθανῶς
ἔλεγον. Καίτοι ἀληθές
γε ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν οὐδὲν
εἰρήκασιν.Using the IPA:
[hóti men hyːmêːs | ɔ̂ː ándres atʰɛːnaî̯i̯oi
| pepóntʰate | hypo tɔ̂ːn emɔ̂ːŋ
katɛːɡórɔːn | uːk oî̯da ‖ éɡɔː
dûːŋ kai̯ au̯tos | hyp au̯tɔ̂ːn olíɡuː
emau̯tûː | epelatʰómɛːn | hǔːtɔː
pitʰanɔ̂ːs éleɡon ‖ kaí̯toi̯ alɛːtʰéz
ɡe | hɔːs épos eːpêːn | uːden eːrɛ̌ːkaːsin
‖]Transliterated into the Latin alphabet
using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme:
Hóti mèn hūmeîs, ô ándres Athēnaîoi,
pepónthate hupò tôn emôn katēgórōn,
ouk oîda: egṑ d' oûn kaì autòs hup'
autōn olígou emautoû epelathómēn, hoútō
pithanôs élegon. Kaítoi alēthés ge hōs
épos eipeîn oudèn eirḗkāsin.Translated
into English:
How you, men of Athens, are feeling under
the power of my accusers, I do not know: actually,
even I myself almost forgot who I was because
of them, they spoke so persuasively. And yet,
loosely speaking, nothing they have said is
true.
== Modern use ==
The study of Ancient Greek in European countries
in addition to Latin occupied an important
place in the syllabus from the Renaissance
until the beginning of the 20th century. Ancient
Greek is still taught as a compulsory or optional
subject especially at traditional or elite
schools throughout Europe, such as public
schools and grammar schools in the United
Kingdom. It is compulsory in the Liceo classico
in Italy, in the gymnasium in the Netherlands,
in some classes in Austria, in Croatia in
klasična gimnazija, in Classical Studies
in ASO in Belgium and it is optional in the
Humanistisches Gymnasium in Germany (usually
as a third language after Latin and English,
from the age of 14 to 18). In 2006/07, 15,000
pupils studied Ancient Greek in Germany according
to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany,
and 280,000 pupils studied it in Italy. It
is a compulsory subject alongside Latin in
the Humanities branch of Spanish Bachillerato.
Ancient Greek is also taught at most major
universities worldwide, often combined with
Latin as part of Classics. It will also be
taught in state primary schools in the UK,
to boost children's language skills, and will
be offered as a foreign language to pupils
in all primary schools from 2014 as part of
a major drive to boost education standards,
together with Latin, Mandarin, French, German,
Spanish, and Italian. Ancient Greek is also
taught as a compulsory subject in all Gymnasiums
and Lyceums in Greece.Modern authors rarely
write in Ancient Greek, though Jan Křesadlo
wrote some poetry and prose in the language,
and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
and some volumes of Asterix have been translated
into Ancient Greek. Ὀνόματα Kεχιασμένα
(Onomata Kechiasmena) is the first magazine
of crosswords and puzzles in Ancient Greek.
Its first issue appeared in April 2015 as
an annex to Hebdomada Aenigmatum. Alfred Rahlfs
included a preface, a short history of the
Septuagint text, and other front matter translated
into Ancient Greek in his 1935 edition of
the Septuagint; Robert Hanhart also included
the introductory remarks to the 2006 revised
Rahlfs–Hanhart edition in the language as
well.Ancient Greek is also used by organizations
and individuals, mainly Greek, who wish to
denote their respect, admiration or preference
for the use of this language. This use is
sometimes considered graphical, nationalistic
or funny. In any case, the fact that modern
Greeks can still wholly or partly understand
texts written in non-archaic forms of ancient
Greek shows the affinity of modern Greek language
to its ancestral predecessor.An isolated community
near Trabzon, Turkey, an area where Pontic
Greek is spoken, has been found to speak a
variety of Greek that has parallels, both
structurally and in its vocabulary, to Ancient
Greek not present in other varieties. As few
as 5,000 people speak the dialect, and linguists
believe that it is the closest living language
to Ancient Greek.Ancient Greek is often used
in the coinage of modern technical terms in
the European languages: see English words
of Greek origin. Latinized forms of Ancient
Greek roots are used in many of the scientific
names of species and in scientific terminology.
== See also ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Adams, Matthew. "The Introduction of Greek
into English Schools." Greece and Rome 61.1:
102-13, 2014.
Allan, Rutger J. "Changing the Topic: Topic
Position in Ancient Greek Word Order." Mnemosyne:
Bibliotheca Classica Batava 67.2: 181-213,
2014.
Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek
(Oxford University Press). [A series of textbooks
on Ancient Greek published for school use.]
Bakker, Egbert J., ed. A Companion to the
Ancient Greek Language. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell,
2010.
Beekes, Robert S. P. Etymological Dictionary
of Greek. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill,
2010.
Chantraine, Pierre. Dictionnaire étymologique
de la langue grecque, new and updated edn.,
edited by Jean Taillardat, Olivier Masson,
& Jean-Louis Perpillou. 3 vols. Paris: Klincksieck,
2009 (1st edn. 1968-1980).
Christidis, Anastasios-Phoibos, ed. A History
of Ancient Greek: from the Beginnings to Late
Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2007.
Easterling, P and Handley, C. Greek Scripts:
An Illustrated Introduction. London: Society
for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 2001.
ISBN 0-902984-17-9
Fortson, Benjamin W. Indo-European Language
and Culture: An Introduction. 2d ed. Oxford:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Hansen, Hardy and Quinn, Gerald M. (1992)
Greek: An Intensive Course, Fordham University
Press
Horrocks, Geoffrey. Greek: A History of the
Language and its Speakers. 2d ed. Oxford:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Janko, Richard. "The Origins and Evolution
of the Epic Diction." In The Iliad: A Commentary.
Vol. 4, Books 13–16. Edited by Richard Janko,
8–19. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press,
1992.
Jeffery, Lilian Hamilton. The Local Scripts
of Archaic Greece: Revised Edition with a
Supplement by A. W. Johnston. Oxford: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1990.
Morpurgo Davies, Anna, and Yves Duhoux, eds.
A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts
and their World. Vol. 1. Louvain, Belgium:
Peeters, 2008.
Swiggers, Pierre and Alfons Wouters. "Description
of the Constituent Elements of the (Greek)
Language." In Brill’s Companion to Ancient
Greek Scholarship. Edited by Franco Montanari
and Stephanos Matthaios, 757–797. Leiden
: Brill, 2015.
== External links ==
Classical Greek Lessons (free online through
the Linguistics Research Center at UT Austin)
Online Greek resources – Dictionaries, grammar,
virtual libraries, fonts, etc.
Alpheios – Combines LSJ, Autenrieth, Smyth's
grammar and inflection tables in a browser
add-on for use on any web site
Ancient Greek basic lexicon at the Global
Lexicostatistical Database
Ancient Greek Swadesh list of basic vocabulary
words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh list appendix)
"Greek Language". Encyclopædia Britannica
(11th ed.). 1911.
Slavonic – online editor for Ancient Greek
=== Grammar learning ===
A more extensive grammar of the Ancient Greek
language written by J. Rietveld
Recitation of classics books
Perseus Greek dictionaries
Greek-Language.com – Information on the
history of the Greek language, application
of modern Linguistics to the study of Greek,
and tools for learning Greek
Free Lessons in Ancient Greek, Bilingual Libraries,
Forum
A critical survey of websites devoted to Ancient
Greek
Ancient Greek Tutorials – Berkeley Language
Center of the University of California
A Digital Tutorial For Ancient Greek Based
on White's First Greek Book
New Testament Greek
Acropolis World News – A summary of the
latest world news in Ancient Greek, Juan Coderch,
University of St Andrews
=== Classical texts ===
Perseus – Greek and Roman Materials
Ancient Greek Texts
