Koinè - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

History

The Greek koinè developed like common Dialecte between the armies of Alexandre Large the. Whereas the Greek states combined under the authority of the Macedonia left to the conquest the known world, their new dialect, coldly formed, was spoken since the Egypt to the borders about the India. Although the elements of the Greek koinè took form during the end of the traditional Era, the Post-Traditional period of the Greeks dates from dead from Alexandre the Large one into 323 before J.C., when the cultures subjected to the Hellenic domination started in their turn to influence the language. The following period, called " Greek médiéval" , date of the foundation of Constantinople by Constantin I in 330. The post-traditional period of Greece thus refers to the creation and the evolution of the Greek koinè during all the Hellenic and Roman era of the Greek history, and this until the beginning of the Moyen-âge.

The term Koinè

The Κοινή term comes from the Greek and means “common”. This term previously was used for the former scholars to qualify several forms of the Greek speech. A school of scholars like Apollonius Dyscolus and Aelius Herodianus maintained the term of Koinè to refer to the Proto-Greek while others employ it to speak about any vernacular shape of the Greek, distinct from the literary language. When Koinè gradually became a language of well-read men, certain people then distinguished two forms: the Hellenic one like Post-Traditional literary form, and Koinè as the form of the popular speech. Others chose to bind the koinè to the dialect alexandrien (Περὶ τῆς Ἀλεξανδρέων διαλέκτου (what means “the dialect of Alexandria”, term often used by the modern Philologue S)).

Origins

The linguistic origins of the koinè are fuzzy since the first times. During the Hellenic age, the majority of the scientists thought that Koinè was the result of a mixture of the four principal Greek dialects, consequently named " ἡ ἐκ τῶν τεττάρων συνεστῶσα " (the composition of the Four). This optics was constant during the beginning of the 19th century by an Austrian linguist, P. Krestschmer, in its book Die Entstehung der Koine (1901), while the German Wilamowitz and the Linguiste French Antoine Meillet, basing on the elements attics of the koinè (the such σσ instead of the ττ and ρσ instead of ρρ; cf θάλασσα - θάλαττα, ἀρσενικός - ἀρρενικός), regarded the koinè as a form simplified of the ionic one. The final answer from now on accepted by the intellectuals of today was given by the Greek linguist G. NR. Hatzidakis, which proved that, in spite of the " composition of Quatre" , the stable core of the Greek koinè is resolutely attic. In other words, the Greek koinè can be seen like attic with a mixture of ionic elements, mainly, and also made up of other dialects. The influence, on the koinè, from the linguistic elements which are not origin attic can vary according to the area. In this respect, the idioms of the koinè spoken in the Ionian colonies about Minor Asia and Cyprus would have characteristics more marked than the others. The literary koinè of the Hellenic age resembles moreover so much the speech attic than it is often mentioned like Common Attic.

Sources of the koinè

The first scholars who studied the koinè, at the time alexandrine and contemporary, were philologists whose prototype of reflection was the language attic of the Classique period, and thus disapproved any other form of the Greek speech. The koinè thus was seen like unworthy of attention because too much deteriorated. The reconsideration of the historical and linguistic importance whose koinè was the object is initiated only at the beginning of the 19th century, where scientists of reputation directed a series of studies on the evolution of the koinè over all the Hellenic period and Roman which it recovered. The studied sources of the koinè were numerous and of an unequal reliability. More meaning were the inscriptions of the Post-Traditional period and the papyruses, because they had both authentic contents and could be directly studied. Other major sources were the Seventy, the Greek translation of Old and New Testament. The teaching of the latter aimed the popular layers indeed and employed for this reason the most widespread speech of the time. Other information could also be drawn from the scientists of the Attic during the same Hellenic and Roman periods. The latter, by concern of fighting the evolution of the language, had indeed published the work, enriched by examples, where they supposément compared the “correct” language attic and that of the koinè, considered to be “dissenting”. Phrynichus Arabius writes thus at the 2nd century after J. - C.:

Βασίλισσα οὐδείς τῶν Ἀρχαίων εἶπεν, ἀλλὰ βασίλεια ἢ βασιλίς .

" Basilissa (Queen) the Old ones do not employ it at all, prefer Basileia gold Basilis ".

Διωρία ἑσχάτως ἀδόκιμον, ἀντ' αυτοῦ δὲ προθεσμίαν ἐρεῖς .

" Dioria (time) is unsuitable, use in the place Prothesmia ".

Πάντοτε μὴ λέγε, ἀλλὰ ἑκάστοτε καὶ διὰ παντός .

"Known as step Pantote (always), but Hekastote and Dia pantos ".

Other sources can emanate from discoveries varied as from the inscriptions on the vases made by popular painters, often containing errors due to their imperfect knowledge of the language.

" Καλήμερον, ἦλθες; - Bono die, venisti? " (Beautiful day, you left?).

" Ἐὰν θέλεις, ἐλθὲ μεθ' ἡμῶν. - If screw, veni mecum." (If you want, come with me).

" Ποῦ; - Ubi? " (Where?).

" Πρὸς φίλον ἡμέτερον Λεύκιον. - AD amicum nostrum Lucium." (With our friend Lucius).

" Ἀρρωστεῖ. - Aegrotat." (It is sick).

Evolution since the old Greek

The study of all the sources symbolically covered by the koinè over six centuries reveals linguistic changes since the old Greek on the Phonologie, the morphology, the Syntaxe, the Vocabulaire and other elements of the Langage spoken. The majority of the new forms appear with a certain scarcity, then become gradually increasingly frequent until they are established completely. Following the linguistic changes of the koinè, the Greek gained such a resemblance to his medieval and modern successors that almost all the characteristics of the modern Greek can be recalled in the texts of the koinè which reached us. As the majority of the changes between the old and modern Greek were introduced by the koinè, the Greek koinè of today is largely comprehensible by the majority of the modern Greeks.

Phonology

The Greek koinè is one phonological transitional period: at the beginning, the language was practically identical to the traditional old Greek, while towards the end the language phonologiquement had more relationship with the modern Greek than the old Greek.

The three most significant changes during this period were the loss of the distinction of the long Voyelles, the substitution of the stress system of tone by the stress system of " stress" and the replacement of the majority of the Diphthong S by monophtongues.

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