This volume provides linguistic background to the ancient authors and commentary on both epigraphic and literary dialect texts. By means of dialectally and chronologically arranged texts, translated and provided with running commentary, Gary Miller compares early authors against epigraphic records to facilitate an understanding of Homer, choral lyric, and authors from different dialect areas.

Epic is dialectally mixed but Ionic at its core. The proper dialect for elegy was Ionic, even when composed by Tyrtaeus in Sparta or Theognis in Megara, both Doric areas. Choral lyric poets represent the major dialect areas: Aeolic (Sappho, Alcaeus), Ionic (Anacreon, Archilochus, Simonides), and Doric (Alcman, Ibycus, Stesichorus, Pindar). Most distinctive are the Aeolic poets. The rest may have a preference for their own dialect (some more than others) but in their Lesbian veneer and mixture of Doric and Ionic forms are to some extent dialectally indistinguishable. All of the ancient authors use a literary language that is artificial from the point of view of any individual dialect. Homer has the most forms that occur in no actual dialect. In this volume, by means of dialectally and chronologically arranged illustrative texts, translated and provided with running commentary, some of the early Greek authors are compared against epigraphic records, where available, from the same period and locality in order to provide an appreciation of: the internal history of the Ancient Greek language and its dialects; the evolution of the multilectal, artificial poetic language that characterizes the main genres of the most ancient Greek literature, especially Homer / epic, with notes on choral lyric and even the literary language of the prose historian Herodotus; the formulaic properties of ancient poetry, especially epic genres; the development of more complex meters, colometric structure, and poetic conventions; and the basis for decisions about text editing and the selection of a manuscript alternant or emendation that was plausibly used by a given author.

Fascinated with the heritage of ancient Greece, early modern intellectuals cultivated a deep interest in its language, the primary gateway to this long-lost culture, rehabilitated during the Renaissance. Inspired by the humanist battle cry “To the sources!” scholars took a detailed look at the Greek source texts in the original language and its different dialects. In so doing, they saw themselves confronted with major linguistic questions: Is there any order in this immense diversity? Can the Ancient Greek dialects be classified into larger groups? Is there a hierarchy among the dialects? Which dialect is the oldest? Where should problematic varieties such as Homeric and Biblical Greek be placed? How are the differences between the Greek dialects to be described, charted, and explained? What is the connection between the diversity of the Greek tongue and the Greek homeland? And, last but not least, are Greek dialects similar to the dialects of the vernacular tongues? Why (not)? This book discusses and analyzes the often surprising and sometimes contradictory early modern answers to these questions.

A new collective volume with over twenty important studies on less well-studied dialects of ancient Greek, particularly of the northern regions. The book covers geographically a broad area of the classical Greek world ranging from Central Greece to the overseas Greek colonies of Thrace and the Black Sea. Particular emphasis is placed on the epichoric varieties of areas on the northern fringe of the classical Greek world, including Thessaly, Epirus and Macedonia. Recent advances in research are taken into consideration in providing state-of-the art accounts of these understudied dialects, but also of more well-known dialects like Lesbian. In addition, other papers address special intriguing topics in these, but also in other dialects, such as Thessalian, Lesbian and Ionic, or focus on important multi-dialectal corpora such as the oracular tablets from Dodona. Finally, a number of studies examine broader topics like the supraregional Doric koinai or the concept of dialect continuum, or even explore the possibility of an ancient Balkansprachbund, which included Greek too. This new reference work covers a gap in current research and will be indispensable for people interested in Greek dialectology and ancient Greek in general.

A comprehensive account of the language of Ancient Greek civilization in a single volume, with contributions from leading international scholars covering the historical, geographical, sociolinguistic, and literary perspectives of the language. A collection of 36 original essays by a team of international scholars Treats the survival and transmission of Ancient Greek Includes discussions on phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics

Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers, Second Edition reveals the trajectory of the Greek language from the Mycenaean period of the second millennium BC to the current day. Offers a complete linguistic treatment of the history of the Greek language Updated second edition features increased coverage of the ancient evidence, as well as the roots and development of diglossia Includes maps that clearly illustrate the distribution of ancient dialects and the geographical spread of Greek in the early Middle Ages

Traces the history of the Greek language from the immediately postclassical or Hellenistic period to the present day. In particular, the historical roots of modern Greek internal bilingualism are traced. First published by Hutchinson in 1969, the work has been substantially revised and updated.