Dialects of the old Greek

In the Antiquité, the old Greek did not constitute the single, literary language and Normative that one currently studies when one reads in the text of the authors like Plato or Aristophane. This language, the Ionian-attic - language of Athens -, is indeed only one of many the Dialecte S Greek then present in the sphere hellénophone; they is however most prestigious and, especially, that which is the best known one for us. Its success is noted simply when it is known that the modern Greek in is resulting.

It is thus necessary to represent what one names Greek old like a whole of more or less intercompréhensibles dialects and more or less close relations, who necessarily did not exist at the same time and which, especially, did not have the same importance nor the same destiny within this linguistic family.

Disparities between the dialects

So certain dialects as that of Athens are very well-known for us, it is because of several factors which make mix cultural importance, literary, economic and political (to a lesser extent) then religious (especially with the appearance of the Christianisme) of the zone where the dialects in question were spoken. Thus, the Ionian-attic became the largely majority language of the texts literary and scientific Greek (from where its importance, still current, in the formation of erudite words by means of Radicaux Greeks) then, with Athenian hegemony and the conquests of Alexandre Large the, the Common language (the Koinè with the clean direction, “common Langue”), of the world hellenistic then Romain (so much so that the Romans of the easy classes, under the Empire, had themselves of the speech). From there, its expansion became irrepressible: language of communication, the Koinè is the Greek language by defect, that in which, finally, the Évangile S Christians are written, which devotes it like liturgical Langue (and allows him to largely influence languages of country sharing this religion, like the Latin ecclesiastical then, after the Great Schism of the East, languages of the orthodoxe church: Slavic Languages, Copte…). All these phenomena explain why currently Ionian-attic became synonymous with Greek and that it is this alternative which one studies in class: it is indeed that which one knows best and which one can, grammatically and lexicalement, to describe more in details, that which is also carrying a famous past.

Contrary, other dialects us are known only by rare inscriptions nonliterary (often very limited as for the Lexique, of the type “ X gave Y to Z ” or “ X made Y for Z ”), even some words insulated (in Glose S, the Greeks being often astonished that such word thinks in such manner in such dialect), are not generally studied that within the framework of the Philologie or Linguistique. It is the case of the éléen, the étolien or the cyrénéen, for example.

Between the two are dialects which could have known the destiny of the Ionian-attic, also used in literature, well-known and which one can very correctly describe as for grammar and with the lexicon. The importance which the Ionian-attic took them however more or less erased uses then memories. One can count with the row of such dialects the Ionian one, the wind one or the dorien.

Reasons of the dialectal parcelling out

The apparent absence of linguistic unit in Greece of before the Koinè is explained historically, culturally and naturally. Firstly, very early the Greeks established a dichotomy between the Doriens and the Achaens, the first correspondent with the “invaders” of the second wave of settlement, the same ones who made disappear the civilization mycénienne. This separation is found, mutatis-mutandis , in the linguistic field.

Moreover, Greece of before the hellenistic Period does not constitute a nation and if the feeling to belong to the same “race” (that one opposes to the rest of the world, the βάρϐαροι bárbaroi , “barbarians”, properly “those who make brrr brrr ”, “those which baragouinent”) exists indeed, this Greek “race” does not aim at a unit. In fact, the political model dominating is that of the πόλις pólis , the city; the feeling of independence can even be reinforced by the Greek mountainous relief, which insulates the various cities. The conquests of Alexandre Large the then Romains go however, by making language of Athens a Common language, to promote the use of only one dialect, the Ionian-attic, then become the koinè (then the medieval Greek and, from there, the modern Greek ). It is notable besides that currently the modern Greek is a unified language and that remain only of rare dialects, of which most famous is undoubtedly the Tsakonien (resulting from the dorien, which proves once more how much separation between Doriens and the Achaens remained long-lived).

Subjacent unit of the Greek

This apparent disparity, which especially appears with the historian, should not however hide the fact that the Greek dialects remain overall intercompréhensibles when one is located in Synchronie (it is obvious that a dialect as antiquated as the mycénien of XIIIe century before our era would undoubtedly not have been included/understood not a speaker of the koinè of 1st of our era). In kind, the principal differences concern mainly the Phonétique (but the systems phonological S remain rather close: it is enough for example to know that a ᾱ /a ː/Ionian-attic is worth an Ionian η/ɛː/), a little less morphology, even less of the Lexique and almost not of the Syntaxe. One can thus speak about a real linguistic unit: the dialectal differences were to thus be regarded mainly as a problem of “accent”.

Moreover, as it will be seen, the “literary” dialects, those whom one used for the literature, knew a certain perenniality. A traditional tragedy of Sophocle, written mainly in Ionian-attic, has necessarily passages in “dorien” (or, rather, in what was felt like such, because it is a question of convention) and borrows sometimes from the Ionian one, primarily when she dissociates the epopee. The literary language, especially poetic, is composite with the direction where it is about an artistic speech (in German, Kunstsprache) obtained by a conscious creation. The example most clearly is that of the poetry of Homère: this one is lying in an artificial language which never was spoken, qualified Homeric Dialecte, and where the requirements of the meter and the needs for the form composition made cohabit a certain number of old elements (wind or same mycéniens) with elements much more recent (the base of the Homeric Dialecte is Ionian relatively antiquated). But it is also valid for lyric and iambic poetry, in particular the lyric choral society of Pindare and Bacchylide: the antiquated poets write a variegated language, conventional, which according to the kind avoids (lyric choral society) or cultivates (iambographes) the Ionian aspect, but never is really transposed to speak to them daily.

Lastly, so before -403 the Greek is written differently according to the place where he is spoken, by means of the epichoric Alphabets, after this date, in a spread out way, he comes from there to follow the Ionian model at the same time of Athens as assied the importance of the dialect Ionian-attic then of the koinè. The disappearance of the old consonants ( Digamma , Koppa , San ), however useful to certain dialects, is also revealing of a subjacent unit: enough quickly, the Greek was written everywhere in the same way.

Dialects

The “common Greek”

Thus one names the ancestor of all the Greek dialects, a restored and not attested language studied mainly in compared Linguistique and Phonétique history of the Greek, allowing to determine the étymon S of the historic sayings. In the facts, it is about a dialectal form of the Indo-European still having characteristics which will disappear for some thereafter. For example, one knows that in common Greek also existed a pair of consonants present in Indo-European and noted * for the sound one, * for the deaf person, of the Occlusive S labio-velarized (in accordance with the philological uses, the Astérisque indicates the not attested forms). These consonants evolved/moved differently according to the dialects, which explains apparent disparities: thus, in Ionian-attic, the word for “ox” is βοῦς boũs (cf Latin bove (m) , which gives our ox ) but in Mycénien, dialect much older, one finds for the same concept a radical qo- (for the mycénien, one notes by Q the // phoneme): the seniority of the mycénien term as well as the bringing together with others Indo-European Langues ( gau- in Sanskrit, kouz in Germanique (with passage of G to K according to the law of Grimm) from where English cow ) makes it possible to determine that these two consonants // and /b/ can only go up both with * of the common Greek and the Indo-European.

List dialects and distribution

  • group Arcado-cypriote:

    • Mycénien
    • Arcadien, Cypriot, Pamphylien
  • group Ionian-attic:
    • attic (Greek old)
      • Koinè (average common Greek)
        • Greek modern
        • Cypriot Yévanique
        • Greek
      • Pontique (spoken by the Pontiques)
      • Cappadocien
      • Ionian Romano-Greek
    • (of Asia, islander, of Eubée)
  • wind group (philistine, Lesbian, Thessalien)
  • Western group
    • Dorien (laconien, argien, Corinthian, etc)
    • éléen, étolien, Locrien, Phocidien
    • Former Macedonian (with features of the thessalien]]

Literary dialects

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