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. Ancient Greek refers to the first stage in the history of the Greek language, which normally applies on two ancient periods of Greek history: Archaic and Classic Greece. ... Classical antiquity is a broad and perhaps misleading term for a long period of European, Middle East and North African history, that begins roughly with the earliest recorded Greek poetry of Homer (7th century BC), and continues through the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Western Roman Empire... The Greek language (Greek Ελληνικά, IPA // – Hellenic) is an Indo-European language with a documented history of some 3,000 years. ... Lingua franca, literally Frankish language in Italian, was originally a mixed language consisting largely of Italian plus a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic and used for communication throughout the Middle East. ... The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area. ... Modern Greek (Νεοελληνική) is a dialect family that refers to the fifth stage of the evolution of the Greek language (the first four being Mycenean, Ancient Greek, Post-Classical or Hellenistic Greek and Medieval Greek), and it includes every dialect and idiom of Hellenic speech that exists in the world today. ...

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. Map of Bronze Age Greece as described in Homers Iliad Mycenaean is the most ancient known form of the Greek language, spoken in Mycenae and on Crete in the 16th to 11th centuries BC, before the Dorian invasion. ... This article or section should include material from Greeks According to Thucydides, Hellenes were the people of Hellas. ... (3rd millennium BC – 2nd millennium BC – 1st millennium BC – other millennia) Events Second dynasty of Babylon First Bantu migrations from west Africa The Cushites drive the original inhabitants from Ethiopia, and establish trade relations with Egypt. ...

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. Iron Age Axe found on Gotland This article is about the archaeological period known as the Iron Age, for the mythological Iron Age see Iron Age (mythology). ... The Greek Dark Ages (ca. ... This article is about the Greek archaeological site. ... Arcadia or Arkadía (Greek Αρκαδία) is a region of Greece in the Peloponnesus. ... Arcadocypriot was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia and Cyprus. ...

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. This article or section should be merged with Dorian The Dorian invasion is one of the theories advanced to explain the decline of the Mycenaean civilization in ancient Greece. ... Doric Greek is an ancient dialect of the Greek language. ... Sparta (Grk. ... Greece and Crete Crete, sometimes spelled Krete (Greek Κρήτη / Kriti) is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest in the Mediterranean Sea. ... Anatolia (Greek: ανατολη anatole, rising of the sun or East; compare Orient and Levant, by popular etymology Turkish Anadolu to ana mother and dolu filled), also called by the Latin name of Asia Minor, is a region of Southwest Asia which corresponds today to the Asian portion of Turkey. ... Pindar (or Pindarus) (522 BC – 443 BC), the greatest lyric poet of ancient Greece, was born at Cynoscephalae, a village in Thebes. ...

Aeolic was spoken chiefly in the islands of the Aegean Sea and the west coast of Asia Minor north of Smyrna. Linguists use the term Aeolic to describe a set of rather archaic Greek sub_dialects, spoken mainly in Boeotia (a region in Central Greece), in Lesbos (an island close to Asia Minor) and in other Greek colonies. ... the Aegean Sea The Aegean sea as seen from the island of Santorini The Aegean Sea (Greek: Αιγαίον Πέλαγος, Aigaion Pelagos; Turkish: Ege Denizi) is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, located between the Greek peninsula and Anatolia (Asia Minor, now part of Turkey). ... For other meanings of Smyrna, see Smyrna (disambiguation). ...

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. Ionic Greek was a sub-dialect of the so called Attic-Ionic dialectal group of the ancient Greek language, which was itself a member of the Greek branch of Indoeuropean language family. ... Bust of Homer in the British Museum For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). ... The Iliad (Greek Ἰλιάς, Ilias) tells part of the story of the Trojan War and is, along with the Odyssey, one of the two major Greek epic poems traditionally attributed to Homer, a blind Ionian poet. ... The Odyssey (Greek Ὀδυσσεία) is the second of the two great Greek epic poems ascribed to Homer, the first of which is the Iliad. ... Attic Greek is the ancient dialect of the Greek language that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. ... The Acropolis in central Athens, one of the most important landmarks in world history. ... Macedon (or Macedonia from Greek Μακεδονία) in Classical Antiquity was the ancient Greek state of Macedonia, bordering with the Greek state of Epirus on the west and with Thrace on the East. ... Alexander the Great fighting the Persian king Darius (Pompei mosaic, from a 3rd century BC original Greek painting, now lost). ... The Greek language (Greek Ελληνικά, IPA // – Hellenic) is an Indo-European language with a documented history of some 3,000 years. ...

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. Classical antiquity is a broad and perhaps misleading term for a long period of European, Middle East and North African history, that begins roughly with the earliest recorded Greek poetry of Homer (7th century BC), and continues through the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Western Roman Empire... Pamphylia, in ancient geography, was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus. ... Anatolia (Greek: ανατολη anatole, rising of the sun or East; compare Orient and Levant, by popular etymology Turkish Anadolu to ana mother and dolu filled), also called by the Latin name of Asia Minor, is a region of Southwest Asia which corresponds today to the Asian portion of Turkey. ... 1952 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Northwestern, Southeastern

Ernst Risch, Museum Helveticum (1955): 1955 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

• 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): 1932 is a leap year starting on a Friday. ...

• 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): This article is about the modern Greek district Achaea. ... Elis, or Eleia (Greek, Modern: Ήλιδα Ilida, Ancient/Katharevousa: Ήλις, also Ilis, Doric: Άλις) is an ancient district within the modern prefecture of Ilia. ... Thessaly (Θεσσαλια; modern Greek Thessalía) is one of the 13 peripheries of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 prefectures. ... Pamphylia, in ancient geography, was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus. ... 1954 was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

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

Western, Thessalian, Boiotic, Eastern

C.D. Buck, The Greek Dialects (1973): 1973 was a common year starting on Monday. ...

• 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. The Greek language (Greek Ελληνικά, IPA // – Hellenic) is an Indo-European language with a documented history of some 3,000 years. ... Modern Greek (Νεοελληνική) is a dialect family that refers to the fifth stage of the evolution of the Greek language (the first four being Mycenean, Ancient Greek, Post-Classical or Hellenistic Greek and Medieval Greek), and it includes every dialect and idiom of Hellenic speech that exists in the world today. ... Modern Greek (Νεοελληνική) is a dialect family that refers to the fifth stage of the evolution of the Greek language (the first four being Mycenean, Ancient Greek, Post-Classical or Hellenistic Greek and Medieval Greek), and it includes every dialect and idiom of Hellenic speech that exists in the world today. ... Katharevousa (Greek Καθαρεύουσα, IPA //) is a form of the Greek language, created during the early 19th century by Adamantios Korais (1748-1833). ... Yevanic, otherwise known as Yevanika, Romaniote and Judeo-Greek, was the language of the Romaniotes, the group of Greek Jews whose existence in Greece is documented since the 4th century BCE. Its linguistic lineage stems from Attic Greek and the Hellenistic Koine (Κοινή Ελληνική) and includes Hebrew elements as well. ... The Cypriot dialect of Greek is spoken by more than half a million people in Cyprus and several hundred thousands abroad. ... Location map of the Griko-speaking areas in Salento and Calabria Griko, sometimes spelled Grico, is a Modern Greek dialect which is spoken by people in the Magna Graecia region in southern Italy and Sicily, and it is otherwise known as the Grecanic language. ... Pontic Greek is a Greek language which was originally spoken on the shores of the Black Sea (Pontus). Pontics linguistic lineage stems from Attic Greek, and contains influences from Byzantine Greek, Turkish influence and some Persian and Caucasian borrowings. ... Cappadocian (SIL: CPG; ISO 639-2: ine), also known as Cappadocian Greek or Asia Minor Greek is a Greek-Turkish mixed language, formerly spoken in Cappadocia (Central Turkey). ... Tsakonian is a Greek language spoken in the Tsakonian region of the Peloponnese, Greece. ...

See also

• History of the Greek language

The History of the Greek language Origins There are many theories about the origins 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