1

The Greek language through the centuries

A.L. Katonis
University of Thessaloniki, Greece*

Greek is among the Indo-European languages - as far as I know

- the one with the longest documentated history, and the second, if I
am not mistaken worldwide after Chinese. With "documentated
history" I mean the presence of written sources. In the case of Greek,
the first documents are two small pebble-like stones from about 1650
B.C., found near Olympia, showing names which can be compared with
names found in Homer.i Homer's age is the 8th c. B.C. So, we face
here a linguistic reality of about 800 years before Homer. The signs
found on the stones are the so called Linear B signs. Hittite, a very
archaic language of Asia Minor, has a greater antiquity: its first
attestations preceed Greek about a century or more but Hittite then,
disappeared by the end of the 1st millennium B.C. whereas Greek did
not. As to Sanskrit, its antiquity is similar. It may be traced back at
least to 2000 B.C. but it was brought to a written form much later.
Orality is still living in India in our epochii whereas this is not
happening in Greece any more.

Linguistically speaking, human language is a continuum. It's a

too difficult question to answer whether all the languages originate
from a common ancestor. Some scholars maintain this view.iii What we
encounter in history is a variety of languages belonging to different
groups or families. Typologically, Greek is inflectional, like Sanskrit,
Latin, Russian, German and others. Genealogically (i.e. with regard to
descendence), it belongs to the Indo-European languages. "Indo-
European" is a modern label, it was coined by Thomas Young in 1813iv,
indicating nothing more than that a large number of European
languages (but not all of them), and that a considerable number of the
languages of India (but not all of them) show systematic and repeating
similarities. The feature systematic is important: borrowings or loans
have always a chance character whereas elements coming from
common heritage are regular and principled.
Languages are being encountered at any given moment, so e.g.,
now, and also, say, 2000 years ago. But as we go back in time,
differences become smaller between any recognizable member of a
family. This feature, and many others, have lead to supposing a so-
called parental language, which for reasons whatever, split up and
resulted in the linguistic picture we know today. The "parental
language" is not to be understood as something given and as an
absolute entity: it also had its own linguistic past. Understandably, the
further we push back in time the darker the picture is. The split of the
parental language is, then, nothing more than creating a set of
dialectal variations, like those, say, of Modern Greek, which can be
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reduced to a common stock. In the case of Modern Greek, the common

stock is, with certain restrictions and exceptions, the Hellenistic Koine
(Κοινή), the "Common Language". The name clearly indicates that
there had been also local languages, i.e. dialects. One of the reasons
Koine came into being was exactly the appearance of Alexander the
Great. He both hired soldiers from different parts of the Greek world
who were forced to understand each other and, more importantly, he
united the Greek territory politically which was split up, until then, into
polis states.

The earliest certain testimonies of Greek are the so-called Linear

B tablets. Before passing these under survey, a brief discussion of the
Linear A script is perhaps not untimely. This script, located on Crete of
the 2nd millennium B.C., precedes Linear B. The respective language
or languages are with certainty not Greek although the script has not
yet been deciphered. There might Semitic, Pelasgian, and Anatolian
languages be reckoned with, and in the very best case, Greek may
have been just one among them, appearing perhaps in the late period
of Linear A but this is questioned. The script itself, according to the
theory of the archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, might be of pre-Indo-
European origin, coming from neolithic Central Europe. She calls this
system a "Sacred Script".v Neolithic indicates a very important period in
prehistory dating back roughly to 10 000 B.C. They sometimes speak
about a "neolithic revolution" in economy, mainly in agriculture. The
new needs, as is supposed, lead in Europe to the introduction of signs
in a way that might be regarded a script. Whether this script was really
pre-Indo-European as Gimbutas argues, is open to debate. There
existed on Ancient Crete also other writing systems like that of the
Phaistos-disk. The disk is on exhibition in the Heraklion
Archaeological Museum (Crete). It contains picture-like ideograms;
human heads among them are frequent. The heads wear diadems
which remind of upright stalks, called sedge crown, like the blades of
grass, woven into one, and worn as headgear. Such headgears were
recognized among the ancient Venetians (the Ἐνετοί in Greek
sources), and in Palestine. Clearly, a conquering expansion can be
assumed, using Crete, perhaps, as a bridge-head. Think of the bitter
fights of the Ancient Israelites against invading Philistines. The
conquerors were, very probably, people, speaking an Indo-European
language. The fact would fit into the picture we have of this rather
war-like population.
Linear B, equally datable to the second millennium, is definitely
Greek. It is called "linear" because the clay tablets used, contained
lines drawn on their surface and the syllabograms (such as ka, ki, ku,
ke, pa, pi, pu etc.) were engraved along the lines. Whatever we have is
due to fire catastrophes where the clay burned solid conserving the
content on its surface. The script continues Linear A, the signs being
adapted to the needs of Greek. The language of the tablets was
deciphered by the English engineer Michael Ventris, helped by the
linguist John Chadwick, in the early 50's of the last century, the results
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being published in the monumental volume Documents in Mycenaean

Greek in Oxford (1956). Soon after, Ventris died in a car accident. He
was then thirty-six years old. The name "Mycenaean" comes from the
most important centre of that epoch, Mycenae. Chronologically, this is
approximately the 14th c. to the 12th c. B.C. The texts are mostly
inventories, being economic in nature. A few words only can be used
to infer that poetry and other facets of spiritual life existed. The
presence of religion is, of course, more explicit. Understandably, a
long presence of Greeks preceded the first attestations of this script.
The immigrants, later known as "Greeks", are supposed to have arrived
in 2200 B.C. the latest.vi Some scholars put this date back to 2500 or
even higher. Mycenaean Greece was a centralized state which existed
until about the 12th century. It was a clash between the Mycenaean
State and Asia Minor (Troy), traditionally called the Trojan War and
dated to 1180 B.C., which brought the end both of Greece and the
Hittite Empire in Asia Minor. The so-called "Trojan War", depicted in
epic poetry, existed definitely but was not necessarily one clash as we
read it in Homer. There was no real winner in this great collision, and
until about Homer (8th c. B.C.) the so-called "Dark Ages" reigned over
Greece, with incursions and much violence. Troy was destroyed but the
Mycenaean world collapsed, too. From this period there are no literary
sources, though archaeology and art are not silent. Speaking about
Greek in antiquity we always have in mind dialects. However, since the
Linear B system shows no differences among the various centres of the
Mycenaean world we must infer that this was a kind of a written Koine
(a clear sign of the fact that the Mycenaean world was centralized)
whereas the language itself seems to have been a dialect the
immediate precursor of which as well as the continuation are not
known.
The next great period is Archaic or Homeric Greek, also called
Epic Greek. This section in Greek tradition is very important. Although
between the last Linear B texts around 1200 B.C. and the appearance
of Homer there is a gap of about 400 years it is certain that continuity
existed. In scholarhip for a long time, Greek literature and the history
of the language began with Homer but it was clear even then that the
Homeric traditon was a mixed one, both linguistically and culturally.
Linguistically, if we leave the dialectal varieties, which also existed,
aside, there are three layers in the epic language. First, there is the
linguistic variation of the epoch, i.e. the 8th c. B.C., the language used
by the poet and the world portrayed through this language. I would
remark incidentally, that the name "Homer" (Ὃμηρος) may not cover a
certain single person. It is very well known that epic poetry, just like in
India, was oral, with singers (ἀοιδοί) involved. The ἀοιδοί were
performers. This word is cognate with "ᾠδή" ('song'), hence English
ode. There were rhapsodists (ῥαψῳδοί), too. They added various
shorter songs together, they "sewed" them (ῥάπτω) in one which was
then a "ῥαψῳδία", a "rhapsody", meaning a chapter in an epic poem.
The two Homeric poems as we know them today may be attributed to
one, or better, several persons (poets) who had made a special and
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very high standard selection of the oral material handed down. A

person involved was a "homēros". Strangely enough, the word
"homēros " means 'hostage', in the later phases of the language, and
also in Modern Greek, but homēros, etymologically must mean, 'the
one who puts together', 'the compiler'. We detect here the prefix
ὁμ(οῦ) ('together')vii and the verb ἀραρίσκω ('compile', 'construct') with
its root ar-/ēr-. We encounter the same root in the words ἅρμα
('carriage'), ἁρμονία ('harmony'; i.e. 'fitting together') and other. Still
today, the words αρμόζω and εφαρμόζω exist, the second meaning
'to apply', 'to fit'. The second layer is the Mycenaean one: the events,
wars, conflicts, clashes, nomeclatures, and everyday life of the
Mycenaean world. The destruction of Troy, as we have seen, was a
major undertaking of this early Greek state, traditionally, under the
leadership of king Agamemnon, helped by several other local kings
and heroes like Achilles (a semi-god according to mythology) and
Odysseus. There is, e.g., a wonderful description of the shield of
Achilles made by the smith god Hephaistos. The representations on
the shield, as it has been argued, show the whole Homeric world in
miniature. Above the humans stand the gods with their interests and
conflicts, interacting with, and exerting influence on the humans. The
topics of the two poems are well known: the Trojan War (Iliad) and the
adventures and homecoming of Odysseus, the greatest among the the
surviving heroes (Odyssey). The two epics were regarded in antiquity
as an encyclopedia for the Greco-Roman world. The Homeric language
influenced more or less all the poets and writers. Even in Roman times
Homer was cited by heart. The third layer is prehistoric or Indo-
European. It must be emphasized that in this remote prehistoric level
of which we don't have contemporary written records, yet poetry and
literature existed. The production of pieces of art, and especially that
of poetry was even institutionalized. If you think of the etymological
meaning of "poet" (ποιητής in Greek), you may be convinced: the word
means nothing more than 'a maker'; a maker of a special arrangement
of spoken words, i.e. a poem. The word is a derivative of the verb
ποιέω/ποιῶ meaning 'to make', 'to produce'. The material which
belongs to the third layer is remnants of a so called formulaic
language, i.e. formulas, expressions (and φόρμουλες or "κάψουλες" in
the respective Modern Greek scholarship). There is a quite rich
presence of formulas in Homer. These are expressions to which we
find parallels from Ancient Irish to Sanskrit; which, of course, cannot
be borrowings. I would cite just two examples. 1, a wonderful
expression in Greek is περιπλομένων ἐνιαυτῶν (Odyssey I 16,
Hesiodus Theog. 184 ) literally 'the years turning/going round', i.e. 'as
time [or: years] pass by'). This is an adverbial phrase, an absolute
genitive (genitivus absolutus or γενικὴ ἀπόλυτος in Greek). The first
word is based on the verb πέλομαι ('turn round', later: 'to exist'); the
second one means 'year'. The phrase is found in Latin poetry as
volventibus annis (Virgil, Aen. I 234, Ov. Met. V 565) meaning exactly
the same thing. The Latin phrase is an absolute ablative (ablativus
absolutus), a use of case which corresponds to Greek absolute
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genitive. The verb here is volvō 3, ('to turn [or: 'to make to turn']
round'); and annus means 'year'. From Latin annus derives, e.g.,
English annual ('yearly'). The Latin formula might, after all, be a
translation from Greek since in Latin literature almost everything stood
under Greek influence. But the expression is found also in Sanskrit
poetry, and this cannot be a borrowing on either side, and is also very
unlikely to be a translation. The word here, indicating the turning or
revolving is cakra. Cakra has several meanings in later Sanskrit but the
basic meaning is 'wheel', involving the same semantics: that of turning
round, revolving, time is revolving. The Sanskrit word is an
etymological cognate of Greek kyklos (κύκλος) ('wheel') which
ultimately gave English "cycle". Cf. also Sanskrit carati ('he moves'). 2,
the other one is a poetic device: when there are enumerations
whatever, then, in a row, there are three of them - three cities e.g. -
and the last one receives an epithet. E.g.: "Argos and Sparta and the
broad-wayed Mycenae" (Iliad, IV 52). This is less familiar in Indo-Aryan
but is quite frequent in Homer, and Latin epic poetry, e.g. in Ovid's
Metamorphoses. The device could be called "the Behaghel formula"
(after the German O. Behaghel who first described it systematically) or
"the third scheme". I would like to cite a very nice example from
Modern Greek folk-poetry, proving, at the same time, the inner
coherence of the Greek language and oral tradition. This is the song of
Vlachopoulo recalling to mind the fights for freedom throughout
history: "Ὁ Κωσταντίνος ὁ μικρὸς (epithet) κ᾽ ὁ Ἀλέξης ὁ
ἀντρειωμένος (epithet), | καὶ τὸ μικρὸ (epithet) Βλαχόπουλο, ὁ
καστροπολεμίτης (epithet)". In translation: "Constantinos the little and
Alexis the gallant | and the little Vlachopoulo, the raider of citadels".viii
The basic structure is the same but the scheme is an extended one.
There are two lines instead of one, conceived as a unit; each noun has
an epithet, and, accordingly, the third noun has an epithet more. The
result is an enhanced effect, which, perhaps, corresponds to the
emotions a historical context evokes.
The next period belongs to the the well known, rich and admired
classical tradition. It is impossible to speak about this in detail. The
names are revered and numerous. There is the so-called Tragic Triad
in drama, there are the historians like Herodotus, philosophers, poets,
and many more. As to language, this is a demanding, well elaborated
section in the literary tradition. This is what we call, in general,
"Ancient Greek", and first of all, the Attic prose of the 5th-4th c. B.C. I
would remark that if someone wants to learn Ancient Greek, then after
having mastered the basics, the best way is to begin to read the Attic
historian Xenophon, and typically, his Apomnemoneumata (or
Memorabilia Socratis), or, perhaps, the Anabasis. The topic of the first
is the life, the teaching and the execution of Socrates, teacher of Plato,
and perhaps the first systematic thinker in Greece. Xenophon's
language is well balanced, demanding but not too difficult. In any
case, much easier than the complicated, idiosyncratic, over-
demanding language of Thucydides. As to philosophy, it is generally
known that Plato was not only a thinker but also a master of language.
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His pupil, Aristoteles, unlike his teacher, offers a somewhat clumsy

language. His style, as one of my professors expressed himself, is
"scratchy". We admire him for what he writes but not for how he
writes. We will forgive this. He was the greatest thinker, and if tradition
is correct, he did not publish his views sytematically. What we have is
just sketches. Aristoteles had a quite prominent pupil: Alexander the
Great. As to the language of Herodotus, this is, indeed, not too
difficult, but Herodotus writes in the Ionian dialect. It would be better
to get acquainted first with the Attic prose, and then to have a piece of
Herodotus, and later on, to proceed to others. One life would not be
enough to master this period, so I prefer to pass to the next one, the
Hellenistic times.
The time-span given to this period traditionally, is perhaps too
wide: roughly from the 3rd c. B.C. to about 600 A.D.ix After Alexander
the Great, a syncretism began. The linguistic variety is the so-called
Koine, the Common Language. This is the second one in Greek
linguistic history after the Mycenaean written koine, the language of
the Linear B. The present writer tried to show in his dissertation that
the Ancient Greek dialects did not melt away so early and so quickly as
is usually suggested. A more careful analysis of this linguistic period
would be necessary. Indeed, the so-called Tsakonian dialect on the
Eastern Peloponnese spoken until this day, is obviously a direct
descendant of the old Doric dialect. The term "Hellenistic Age" was
coined by the German historian J.G. Droysen in the 19th c. This period
still produced very important contributions to every facet of daily and
scholarly life. It should be borne in mind that this is the time for both
upcoming Christianity and, in the West, for Rome and Italy. It was this
period when Alexandrine philology began (we owe them the good
tradition of the Homeric texts), and it was also in this period when
several writings, important for India, were born. During Hellenism,
Greek and Roman culture coalesced, and this is why every classicist
underlines that Greek and Roman culture is one and indivisible.
Interestingly, the Romans, conquerors of a great part of the world,
most readily admitted their cultural inferiority and learned a lot from
the Greeks. Plautus even remarks - obviously with irony - that he
translated a Greek comedy "into a barbarian language" (i.e. into Latin).x
The Greeks in turn, continued the Roman imperial tradition: when
Rome fell in 473 A.D., as seen from Constantinople, "the Second
Rome", only the western part of the empire was lost but not the whole
Roman world. For a short time, then, Justinian (527-565) was able to
restore the whole empire. Justinian, the greatest emperor of the
Eastern Roman Empire, erected the Hagia Sophia, still the most
important architectural monument in Istambul (Turkey). This church
survived six severe earthquakes, the last one in 1999, without being
damaged. It is useful to remark that the transition between Ancient
and Medieval Greece and Greek may be be put between Diocletian and
Constantine the Great, rougly between 235 - 324 A.D. From this time
we speak about Byzantine or Medieval Greece (and Byzantine or
Medieval Greek), even if the Greeks continued to call themselves
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"Romans". This usage lead to the now somewhat vernacular and

outdated terminology putting the Greeks "Romii", "Romiosini", and the
language "romeïki".
The Byzantine Period can be reckoned with, conformably to the
somewhat floating periodization, perhaps, from the 6th. c. A.D. to
1453. Culturally, this period remains important, although gradually,
from the 11th. c., when there was a major deafeat brought by the
Seljuks in 1071 at the Armenian town Manzikert, a decline began.
Some time after this defeat, when the Turks began to establish various
small states in Asia Minor, Greece lost herself as it has been remarked,
and keeps trying, until this day, to rediscover her real self.
Linguistically, the Byzantine State was grecophone, the administration
being lead, partly, in Latin, so the language of the army. The
contribution of the Byzantine historians is of major importance,
importance for India included. The name of Cosmas Indicopleustes
means even "Cosmas the India-Traveller". The language of these
historians, with some exceptions, is an unconvincing atticizing one,
often with grammatical errors. It is clear that under the surface
another language was spoken that was rarely brought to written form.
Such a rare example is the work of Theodoros Prodromos from the
12th c. in which clear signs of Modern Greek can be observed. When
Constantinople fell in 1453 there had been for a long time no
Byzantine State any more, there were just the capital, and some more
cities like Trebizond (Trapezunt) existing. This was a major
catastrophe not only for the Greek world but also for the scholarship
and the classics. More than the half of the classical heritage was lost. It
is enough to remark that Aischylus wrote about 90 plays of which we
know seven, and that we know the unique poetic work of Sappho
through some bitterly short fragments. The following centuries were
both the darkest period in Greek history ever and the birth of a new
consciousness: that of Modern Greece and Modern Greek. It took
almost 400 years until a tiny independent Greek state could be created
in the 1830's.
The Modern Greek period is the last in this survey. Language, as
I underlined initially, is a continuum. It was certainly not so that
creating a new state brought also a different language. There was,
however, a rather long-lasting and laborious language reform,
retrograde in several respects. The basic idea was that the language
spoken had to be "purified" - hence the term "katharevusa", the
"purifying language". Unhappily, "purifying" did not mean only
eliminating unwanted foreign, mainly Turkish elements, but also
everday or vernacular ones. There were attempts to bring Ancient
Greek into daily communication as much as possible. This was the
"Katharevusa" - "Dhimotiki" (Vernacular) controversy the seeds of
which originated in the 18th c. "Greek enlightenment". The bitter
clashes of this controversy ended just a few decades ago.xi
The language of actual Greece is not the Dhimotiki proper any
more whereas Katharevusa was abandoned long ago. As a fact,
Katharevusa has fertilized the common language. Today in Greece, the
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name "Kini" (i.e. Koine) is still being used indicating the Common
Language as opposed to any dialect or lingo (special language). This
Kini or Standard Modern Greek (SMG) is typically the language an
educated person in the Greek capital speaks. The principal linguist in
Greece today, who also uses a carefully formulated and demanding
language, is Georgios Babiniotis, the former Director of the University
of Athens, now in retirement, also the author of a very good one-
language dictionary of Standard Modern Greek. In the beginning of the
third millennium, we are able to declair that SMG, in which
unfortunately no leading scholarship or culture is produced in our
days, is an increasingly demanding, increasingly carefully shaped
medium, capable more and more, to respond to modern requirements,
its scholarly register being open to assume elements of Ancient Greek
wheras modern literature and poetry still preserve many vernacular
elements. I think the language is ready; it's now the turn of scholarship
and science to take action.

References

Andriotis, N.P.
2005 Ν.Π. Ανδριώτης, Ιστορία της ελληνικής γλώσσας.
(Τέσσερις μελέτες). Θεσσαλονίκη: Αριστοτέλειο
Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης, ΙΝΣ (©1995)
Bartoněk, A.
2003 Handbuch des mykenischen Griechisch. Heidelberg:
Winter
Christidis, A.-F. (ed.)
2007 A History of Ancient Greek. From the Beginnings to
Late Antiquity. Cambridge: University Press
Gimbutas, Marija
1991 The Civilization of the Goddess. San Francisco:
HarperSanFracisco
Hamerton-Kelly, G. (ed)
1987 Violent Origins [...]. Stanford, California: Stanford
University Press
Kakridis, J.Th.
1971 Homer Revisited. Lund: Gleerup
Mallory, J.P.
1992 In Search of the Indo-Europeans. Language,
Archaeology, Myth. London: Thames & Hudson
(©1989)
Sakellariou, M.
1980 Les proto-grecs. Athens: Ekdotikè Athenon
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*
This is an expanded version of a lecture at the Jawaharlal Nehru
University, School of Language, Literatures and Cultural Studies, New
Delhi, given on the 19th November 2008.
i
Cf. e.g. Bartoněk 2003: 70.
ii
Cf. Fr. Staal in: Hamerton-Kelly 1987: 225.
iii
Cf. e.g. the surveys by S.L. Tsohatzidis and K. Kotsakis in: Christidis
2007: 93 ff., 105 ff.
iv
Mallory 1992: 14.
v
Gimbutas 1991: 307-321.
vi
This is the communis opinio, shared, among others, by the historian
Michael Sakellariou (cf. 1980: 31.50-51.71 ff.).
vii
The word still exists in Modern Greek dialects. I met it in A.
Papadiamandis' novel "The Murderess" (Ἡ φόνισσα, written in 1904) in
Chapter 15, where the writer uses the dialect of his native island
Skiathos: "Τόμ᾽ σ᾽ ἀγροίκησα, ταμὰμ σὲ προσήφερα", i.e. 'As soon as
I saw you I knew who there was'. It is this " Τόμ᾽ " which interests us:
the prefix ὁμ(οῦ) with the definite article τὸ in front of it.
viii
Kakridis 1971: 126.
ix
Andriotis may be sound reckoning the medieval period from 330
A.D. to 1453 (2005: 71). In this case, Koine ends with 330 A.D. when
Constantinople (former Byzantion), instead of Rome, became the
capital of the Roman Empire.
x
"Demophilus scripsit, Maccus vortit barbare", i.e. 'Demophilus wrote
it: Maccus translated it into a foreign [lit. "Barbarian"] tongue' (Asinaria
or the Comedy of Asses, Prologus 11; Plautus I, LCL, P. Nixon, 1916,
pp. 126-127).
xi
See a short review of this question in the posthumously published
Andriotis volume (2005: 145-159).