Greek languages

The Greek languages (Hellenic: Ελληνικές ɣλώσσες) are a subfamily of closely related Indo-European languages, which include both ancient extinct variants and also extinct literary languages (classical Greek and Hellenistic Greek), as well like the modern survivors; among them, the official language of Greece: the Δημοτική ɣλώσσα or modern dimotikí Greek.

Hellenic branch of Indo-European

History

At the beginning of the second millennium B.C. C. the first waves of Indo-European-speaking invaders reached the Greek peninsula, the Peloponnese and the adjacent islands, settling in that region. Herodotus calls them Ἀχαιοί ( akhaioi, Achaei in Latin), distinguishing them from the autochthonous Pelasgians, about which he states the following:

In ancient times there were two races living in Greece: the Pelasgos, who never left their original home and the Hellens (Greeks) who frequently emigrated... What tongue the pelasgos were talking about, I can't say exactly. What can be said of them, who still survive, is that their tongue is not Greek. If that is true of the Pelasga race, the static nation must have learned the Greek at the same time they were helenized.

Herodote: The Nine Books of History (1, 57)

The language of the Acaios seems to be the basis that gave rise to the Ionian dialect, but little is known about the Pelasgians except that they had to be absorbed by the former and that their language was not Indo-European, which is reflected in the consonant group -nth- and -ss- which abounds in place names and plant names, such as Korinthos, Zakinthos, akantha, etc.

The Bronze Age civilization, known as the Mycenaean, lasted from 1500 to 1100 B.C. C. and during that period the language was written in the Linear B syllabary, which in turn was based on another non-Indo-European Cretan model called Linear A. In the 11th century BC. C. the Mycenaean civilization was disturbed by the Doric invasions in western Greece, followed by a redistribution of the population and a dispersion of the dialects, leaving Linear B to be used.

In the 9th-8th centuries B.C. C. the Homeric poems were written in the Ionic dialect in a new writing based on the Phoenician alphabet and with five specific signs for the vowels and which would be called the Greek alphabet. Thus the creation of a literary norm modeled on two of history's greatest poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey, was accompanied by one of the most effective writing systems ever.

The Ionian dialect mixed with the Attic of Athens giving rise to one of the most culturally creative periods that have ever existed: classical Greece, a period that was the cradle of Western culture with authors such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Sappho, Anacreon, Pindar, Menander, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon. This language is what is known by the name of Κλασική Ελληνική (classical Greek).

Towards the end of the first millennium BC. a modified form of Attic Greek emerged as 'the common speech' or Ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος (hē koinḗ diálĕktŏs), a language that survived for a thousand years as the language of the Hellenistic period, being the basis of Greek modern. Apart from Greek, a language that has around 16 million speakers [as of 2006], there are two other noteworthy Hellenic variants spoken today. Pontic is a dialect of Attic Greek brought to Greece during the 1920s and 1930s by emigrants from the Black Sea shores, inhabited by Greeks since the Alexandrian period. It is estimated that it has about 200,000 speakers in Greece itself (especially in the suburbs of Athens and Piraeus), in addition to 120,000 in western Georgia and 320,000 more spread across various countries. Pontic and Standard Greek (Ελληνική ɣλώσσα or Ελληνικά) are not mutually intelligible. Tsakonian is a Hellenic variety derived from the ancient Doric dialect, spoken in the eastern Peloponnese (Kastanitas, Sitena, Prastos, Karakovonve, Leonidi, Pramatefti, Sapounakeida, Tyros) by no more than 300 people, mostly shepherds; nor is it possible to understand it with modern Greek. The Hellenic languages are classified according to the following general scheme (language groupings are in bold; the main territories in which these languages are spoken are included in parentheses):

• Asian branch
  • Greek (Greece, Cyprus)
  • Penthouse (Greece, Georgia)
• Draric branch
  • Tsaconio (Greece)

Kinship of Greek to other Indo-European languages

The Greek languages form a group of Indo-European languages. The language most closely related to the Greek languages is Old Macedonian, the language of the former Kingdom of Macedonia, which generally shows phonetic developments that coincide with Greek. Today many linguists consider Old Macedonian to be a Greek language or a dialect of Ancient Greek. On the other hand, the relationship of Old Macedonian to a language close to Proto-Greek is still disputed. Cladistic methods based both on lexical comparison and on morphological and phonetic innovations suggest that within the Indo-European family this set of languages is most closely related to Armenian and probably other poorly attested Paleo-Balkanic languages. A relationship of the Greco-Armenian group to the Indo-Iranian languages has also been suggested.

Languages

Ethnic-linguistic origin of the Greeks of Magna Greece. Northwest Greeks Hang on. Dorics Jonics

A schematic list of known Greek and Macedonian language varieties is as follows:

• Ancient and modern Greek languages
  • Greek Panphyllium (†)
  • Mycenic Greek (†)
  • Póntico-capadocio
  • Greco-Italian Varieties
    • Grecocalabrés
    • Grecosalentino
  • Yevánico (Israel)
  • Varieties of the Northwest and Draric
    • Locrio (†)
    • Tsaconio
  • Varieties of wind (†)
  • Arcado-chipriotas varieties (†)
  • Former Macedonian (†)
  • Ion-Athic Varieties
    • Ionical Greek (†)
      • Homerical Greek (†)
    • Arctic Greek (†)
    • Classical Greek (†)
    • Medieval or Byzantine Greek (†)
    • Greek hellenistic or koiné (†)
      • Greek Cypriot
      • Modern Greek
        • Greek cretense
      • Greek katharvousa
      • Demotic Greek

Ancient languages

Extension of ancient Greek dialects
1-4: wind
5: jonic and 6: attic
7-14: Doric
15-18: north-west
19-21: arcado-chipriota

The ancient Greek languages (Αρχαιοελληνικές διάλεκτοι) were spoken not only in ancient peninsular Greece, but also in the colonies, giving rise to the different variants that we know of, in the classical and immediate pre-classical period we have the following distribution of varieties:

• Northwest and Doric Greek (15-18) and (7-14). It encompassed the northwest of Greece, mainly much of the Epiro, Molosia and Macedonia, as well as the Peloponnesian peninsula, the southern part of the coast of Asia Minor, the islands of Crete and Rhodes and much of the Magna Greece.
• Arcadio-chipriota (19-21): Speaking in Arcadia and the island of Cyprus. Not to confuse with the Cypriot dialect, which is mainly an evolution of the hellenistic koiné.
• Wind (1-4). It was spoken on the north side of the coast of Asia Minor, on the island of Lesbos, Tesalia and Beocia.
• Ionical-attic. Dialectal group consisting of:
  • Iron (5). It was spoken in Eubea, on the islands of the Aegean Sea and in Jonia (the coastal region of Anatolia that includes the famous cities of Esmirna, Ephesus and Mileto. This dialect is the basis of the language of Homer, Hesiod and Herodotus.
  • Attic (6). Speaking in Athens and the peninsula of the Atica.

The Greek that is often studied as a model of the language of antiquity is the one that corresponds to the Attic or classical Greek dialect (Αττική Ελληνική or Κλασική Ελληνική), since it literally surpassed all other dialects, mainly in the fifth centuries B.C. c.

Lexical comparison

The numerals in different Greek varieties are:

GLOSA	Mycenic Greek	Attic		Wind			Arcádico	Draric	PROTO- HELÉNIC
		Classical Greek	Greek modern	Beocio	Lesbian	Tesalio		Crete
'1'	e.me	heīs	Ena					Hens	♪hens
'2'	du.wo	duō	♪	duo/ diou	duo	Two.		duo	♪ duwō
'3'	ti.ri	Treīs	triad	tris	tris	Three.	treis	trées	*treīs
'4'	qe.to.ro	teattares	teasera	pettars	perssures	pessares	teasseres	teators	♪
'5'	pe.qe	Perpetent	♪	Pempe	pémpe	Pempe		Perpetent	*pénkwe
'6'	we	heks	Eksi	eks		eksei		wéks	*hweks
'7'		heptá	eftá					ettá	*heptá
'8'		Oktō	oχ	Okay.	okto		Okay.	otto	*oktō
'9'	e.ne.wo	neat	eáá		.		nerd		♪ ennéwa
'10'		déka	ðéka				déko		*déka