Koine Greek

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Template:History of the Greek language

Koine Greek (Template:Polytonic) is an ancient Greek dialect which marks the second stage in the history of the Greek language. Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Common, or New Testament Greek. Koine Greek is not only important to the history of the Greeks for being their first common dialect and main ancestor of Demotic Greek, but is also significant for its impact on Western Civilization, for being one of the first "international" forms of speech (lingua franca) - after Aramaic, which had before been the primary contact language of the eastern Mediterranean -, and for being the original language of the New Testament of the Christian Bible as well as the medium for the teaching and spreading of Christianity. Koine Greek was unofficially a first or second language in the Roman Empire.

Contents

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History

Koine Greek started taking shape as a common Greek dialect within the armies of Alexander the Great. As the allied Greek states under the leadership of Macedon, conquered and colonised the known world, their newly formed common dialect was spoken from Egypt to the fringes of India. Even though Koine Greek was shaped during the late Classic Era, the symbolic starting point of the second period of the Greek language (known as Post-Classic) is set at the death of Alexander the Great and the beginning of the Hellenistic era in 323 BC. The closing of Post-Classic Greek and the passage into the third period of the Greek language, which is known as Medieval Greek, is symbolically assigned at the foundation of Constantinople by Constantine the Great in 330 AD. In that respect, the Post-Classic period of Greek refers to the creation and evolution of Koine Greek throughout the entire Hellenistic and Roman eras of Greek history until the start of the Middle Ages.

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The term Koine

Koine (Template:Polytonic), which is Greek for "Common", is a term that had been previously applied by ancient scholars to several forms of Greek speech. A school of scholars such as Apollonius Dyscolus and Aelius Herodianus maintained the term Koine to refer to the Proto-Greek language, while others would use it to refer to any vernacular form of Greek speech which deferred to the literary language. When Koine gradually became a language of literature, some people distinguished it in two forms: Hellenic (Greek), as the literary Post-Classic form, and Koine (common), as the spoken popular form. Others chose to refer to Koine as the Alexandrian dialect ("Template:Polytonic"), meaning the dialect spread by Alexander the Great (a term often used by modern Classicists).

Some modern linguists use koine as a substantive meaning any local dialect or language that becomes commonly used in a wider area, after it has lost its very specific local characteristics.

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Roots

The linguistic roots of the Common Greek dialect had been unclear since ancient times. During the Hellenistic age, most scholars thought of Koine as the result of the mixture of the four main Ancient Greek dialects, "Template:Polytonic" (the composition of the Four). This view was supported in the early 19th century by Austrian linguist P. Kretschmer in his book "Die Entstehung der Koine" (1901), while the German scholar Wilamowitz and the French linguist Antoine Meillet, based on the intense Attic-Ionic elements of Koine - such as Template:Polytonic instead of Template:Polytonic (Template:Polytonic) - considered Koine to be a simplified form of Ionic. The final answer that is academically accepted today was given by the Greek linguist G. N. Hatzidakis, who proved that, despite the "composition of the Four", the "stable nucleus" of Koine Greek is Attic. In other words, Koine Greek can be regarded as the result of the admixture of the three Ancient Greek dialects and Attic. The degree of importance of the non-Attic linguistic elements on Koine can vary depending on the region of the Hellenistic World. In that respect, the idioms of Koine spoken in the Ionian colonies of Asia Minor and Cyprus would have more intense Ionic characteristics than others. The literary Koine of the Hellenistic age resembles Attic in such a degree that it is often mentioned as Common Attic.

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Sources of Koine

The first scholars who studied Koine, both in Alexandrian and contemporary times, were classicists whose prototype had been the literary Attic language of the Classic period, and would frown upon on any other kind of Hellenic speech. Koine Greek was therefore considered a decayed form of Greek that was not worthy of attention. The reconsideration on the historical and linguistic importance of Koine Greek began only in the early nineteenth century, where renowned scholars conducted series of studies on the evolution of Koine throughout the entire Hellenistic and Roman period that it covered. The sources used on the studies of Koine have been numerous and of unequal reliability. The most significant ones, are the inscriptions of the Post-Classic periods and the papyri, for being two kinds of texts that have authentic content and can be studied directly. Other significant sources are the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and the New Testament. The teaching of the Testaments was aimed at the most common people, and for that reason they're using the most popular language of the era. Information can also be drained from some Atticist scholars of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, who, in order to fight the evolution of the language, published works which compared the supposedly "correct" Attic against the "wrong" Koine by citing examples. For example Phrynichus Arabius during the second century AD wrote:

  • Template:Polytonic.
    • "Basilissa (Queen), none of the Ancients said, but Basileia or Basilis".

Other sources can be based on random findings such as inscriptions on vases written by popular painters, mistakes made by Atticists due to their imperfect knowledge of pure Attic, or even some surviving Greco-Latin glossaries of the Roman period [1], e.g:

Finally, a very important source of information on the ancient Koine Greek is the Modern Greek language with all its dialects and its Koine form and idioms, which have preserved most of the ancient language's oral linguistic details that the written tradition has lost. For example the Pontic and Kappadocian dialects preserved the ancient pronunciation of Template:Polytonic etc), while the Tsakonic preserved the long α instead of η (Template:Polytonic etc) and the other local characteristics of Laconic. Idioms from the Southern part of the Greek-speaking regions (Dodecanese, Cyprus etc), preserve the pronunciation of the double similar consonants (Template:Polytonic), while others pronounce in many words υ as ου or preserve ancient double forms (Template:Polytonic etc). Linguistic phenomena like the above imply that those characteristics survived within Koine, which in turn had countless idiomatic variations in the Greek-speaking world.

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Evolution from Ancient Greek

The study of all sources from the six centuries that are symbolically covered by Koine reveals linguistic changes from Ancient Greek on phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary and other elements of the spoken language. Most new forms start off as rare and gradually become more frequent until they are established. From the linguistic changes that took place in Koine, Greek gained such a resemblance with its Medieval and Modern successors that almost all characteristics of Modern Greek can be traced in the surviving texts of Koine. As most of the changes between Modern and Ancient Greek were introducted with Koine, today Modern and Koine Greek are almost mutually intelligible.

Evolution in phonology:

  • The ancient distinction between long and short vowels was gradually lost, and from the 2nd century BC all vowels were isochronic.
  • Since the 2nd century BC, the means of accenting words changed from pitch to stress, meaning that the accented syllable is not pronounced in a musical tone but louder and/or stronger.
  • Long diphthongs, which in older times were written with a subscript of Template:Polytonic after a long vowel, stopped being pronounced and written in popular texts.
  • The diphthongs αι, ει, οι, and υι became single vowels. In this manner 'αι', which had already been converted by the Boetians into a long ε since the 4th century BC and written η (e.g. Template:Polytonic), became in Koine, too, first a long ε and then short. The diphthong 'ει' had already merged with ι in the 5th century BC in regions such as Argos or in the 4th c. BC in Corinth (e.g. Template:Polytonic), and it acquired this pronunciation also in Koine. The diphthongs 'οι' and 'υι' acquired the pronunciation of the modern French 'U' ([[[Template:IPA]]] in IPA), which lasted until the 10th century AD. The diphthong 'ου' had already acquired the pronunciation of Latin 'U' since the 6th century BC and preserved it in modern times.
  • The diphthongs αυ and ευ came to be pronounced [av] and [ev] (via [aβ], [eβ]), but are partly assimilated to [af], [ef] before the voiceless consonants θ, κ, ξ, π, σ, τ, φ, χ, and ψ.
  • Simple vowels have preserved their ancient pronunciations, except η which is pronounced as ι, and υ, which retained the pronunciation [[[Template:IPA]]] of modern French 'U' only until the 10th c. AD, and was later also pronounced as ι. With those changes in phonology there were common spelling mistakes between υ and οι, while the sound of ι was multiplied (iotacism).
  • The consonants also preserved their ancient pronunciations to a great extent, except β, γ, δ, φ, θ, χ and ζ. Β, Γ, Δ (Beta, Gamma, Delta), which were originally pronounced as b, g, d, acquired the sound of v, gh, and dh ([v] (via β), Template:IPA in IPA) that they still have today, except when preceded by a nasal consonant (μ, ν); in that case, they retain their ancient sounds (e.g. Template:Polytonic). The latter three (Φ, Θ, Χ), which were initially pronounced as aspirates (Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA respectively), developed into the fricatives Template:IPA (via Template:IPA), Template:IPA, and Template:IPA. Finally the letter Ζ, which is still categorised as a double consonant with ξ and ψ, because it was initially pronounced as σδ (sd), later acquired the sound of Z as it appears in Modern English and Greek.
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Koine Greek in the Old Testament

The Deuterocanonical books are a series of texts that were not part of the Jewish Tanakh (scripture) and were later included in the Old Testament by the Eastern Christianity, and also recognized by Catholics. It cannot be said for certain whether the surviving Greek text is a translation, as no Hebrew text have ever been found. The First Book of the Maccabees, which starts the Deuterocanon, was written in the 1st or 2nd century BC by an unknown Jewish author. It is a very informative source on Greek Koine as most writers and scholars at the time used Attic for their literary work. The first of the sample texts below is from its first ten verses.

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Sample texts

Note: The phonetic transcriptions aim to represent an intermediate stage during the evolution of Greek phonology from Ancient to Hellenistic.

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The First Book of the Maccabees

  1. Template:Polytonic
    Template:IPA˜
    And so it happened, after Alexander (son) of Philip the Macedonian, he came out of the land of Cethim, and smote Darius ruler of Persians and Medes, and reigned in his stead as the ruler of Greece.
  2. Template:Polytonic
    Template:IPA
    And he waged many wars, conquered strongholds and slew Kings of the Earth.
  3. Template:Polytonic
    Template:IPA
    And he went to the edges of the Earth and received the spoils of many nations, and the Earth went quiet before him, and his heart was risen and lifted up.
  4. Template:Polytonic
    Template:IPA
    And he gathered strength and power, and he conquered countries of nations and tyrants, and they all became his subjects.
  5. Template:Polytonic
    Template:IPA
    And after all of these, he fell down upon his bed, and he knew that he was meant to die.
  6. Template:Polytonic
    Template:IPA
    And he summoned his noble servants that were brought up with him in youth, and he divided his Kingdom between them while he was still alive.
  7. Template:Polytonic
    Template:IPA
    And Alexander ruled for twelve years, and he died.
  8. Template:Polytonic
    Template:IPA
    And his servants ruled in his stead, each in his own place.
  9. Template:Polytonic
    Template:IPA
    And they all took crowned themselves after his death, and so did their sons after them for many years, and evils were increased on the earth.
  10. Template:Polytonic
    Template:IPA
    And out of them came an evil offspring, Antiochus the Illustrious, son of King Antiochus, who had been a hostage in Rome, and ruled in the hundred and thirty-seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks.
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The Lord's Prayer (Matt. 6:9-13)

Template:Polytonic
'Our Father, the [One] in the heavens, let Your name be regarded as holy.'
Template:Polytonic
'Let Your kingdom come; let Your will be done, as in heaven, [so] also on the earth.'
Template:Polytonic
'Give us today the bread sufficient for the day.'
Template:Polytonic
'And forgive us our debts [fig., sins], in the same way as _we _ also forgive our debtors [fig., the ones having sinned against us].'
Template:Polytonic
'And do not lead us into temptation, _but_ deliver us from evil [or, from the evil [one]].'
Template:Polytonic
'Because Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory into the ages [fig., forever]!'
Template:Polytonic
'So be it'<ref>Translation from www.e-sword.net.</ref>

Transcription in Post-Classic pronunciation as used by the Greek Orthodox Church:

Pater imon, o en tis ouranis, aghiasthito to onoma sou;
eltheto i basilia sou; ghenithito to thelima sou, os en ourano, ke epi tis ghis;
ton arton imon ton epiousion dos imin simeron;
ke afes imin ta ofilimata imon, os ke imis afiemen tis ofiletes imon;
ke mi isenengis imas is pirasmon, ala rise imas apo tou ponirou.
Oti sou estin i basilia, ke i dunamis, ke i doksa is tous eonas;
amin.
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The Nicene Creed

Template:Polytonic


English translation (from the Book of Common Prayer)

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible:

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by Whom all things were made: Who for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man: And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried: And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures: And ascended into Heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father: And he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead: Whose Kingdom will have no end:

And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father [and the Son] Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, Who spake by the Prophets.

And I believe in One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins. And I look for the Resurrection of the Dead: And the Life of the world to come. Amen.


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References

  • Abel, F.-M. Grammaire du grec biblique
  • Andriotis, Nikolaos P. History of the Greek languageast:Koiné

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