Greek Lexicography, Modern 147

Greek Lexicography, Modern

E Stathi, Berlin, Germany words into Ancient Greek and French. It included
ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. an appendix of loanwords that he believed should
have been expelled from the language. Despite the
dictionary’s conservative ideology, it was a consid-
The Beginnings erable achievement. It provided grammatical infor-
Until the 16th century and beyond, it was not consid- mation as well as collocations and examples of
ered worthwhile to make collections of the vocabu- words in use.
lary of contemporary Greek, which was regarded as In the years that followed, persistent controver-
an inferior form of the language. The first dictionaries sies about ‘‘the language question’’ brought lexicog-
of post-classical Greek were published outside Greece raphy to a standstill. For the next 100 years, only
and were bi- or multilingual. Dictionaries of this time bilingual dictionaries were compiled, and even these
served either practical needs or scholarly interests. covered only the Katharevousa vocabulary. An ex-
The first collection of vernacular Greek vocabulary ception was Stephanos Koumanoudis’s dictionary of
was Corona preciosa (Venice, 1527), a small hand- neologisms, SunagogZ  neon lexeon upoB ton logiBon
book for merchants in which Greek headwords were plasyeisoBn (1900), a collection of about 60 000
translated into Latin and Italian. The first dictionary words (ca. 1750–1900), with the date of each word’s
of the vernacular, Glossarium Graeco-Barbarum, first attestation.
published in 1610 by Ioannes Meursi (Jan van
Meurs) in Lyon, provided definitions of contempo-
rary terms in Latin and Ancient Greek. Simon Portius The 20th Century
published a trilingual dictionary of Modern Greek, Historical Dictionaries
Ancient Greek, and Latin (Paris, 1635). For the prac-
tical needs of Jesuit missionaries, the Jesuit monk The IstorikoBn LexikoBn tZ EllZnikZ  GloBssZ
Girolamo Germano published the Vocabulario ita- (Historical dictionary of the Greek language), com-
liano et greco (Rome, 1622), the first bilingual piled and published by the Academy of Athens, was
Greek-Italian dictionary. The Thesaurus of Gerasi- based on the idea of Georgios Hatzidakis in 1908 to
mos Vlachos (Venice, 1659) translated Modern create a dictionary of the whole Greek language:
Greek headwords into Latin, Italian, and French. Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, both standard and
The Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae Grae- dialects. When it became clear that this goal was
citatis, by Du Cange (Lyon, 1688), contained words unachievable, emphasis was laid on the language
(scholarly and vernacular) and examples from medie- from 1800 and especially the dialects. From 1933 to
val and contemporary written texts with definitions 1989, five volumes were published (reaching
in Ancient Greek and Latin. It is still regarded as a dawtulotoB ). Since 2003, the dialectal material has
major work of scholarship. been the only focus of the project.
During the 18th century, dictionaries were com- Dimitrios Dimitrakos’s Mega LexikoBn tZ
piled serving educational and commercial needs. The ellZnikZ gloBssZ (Comprehensive dictionary of
most important of these was Alessio da Somavera’s the Greek language) (nine volumes, 1936–1950)
Greek-Italian and Italian-Greek dictionary, Tesoro also had a diachronic focus, from Homer to the
della lingua greca-volgare ed italiana (Paris, 1709). 20th century. It is written in Katharevousa and is
This work, ahead of its time, contained a rich collec- based on existing dictionaries of Ancient Greek.
tion of contemporary vernacular words with lists of
synonyms in Greek and many collocations that Dictionaries of Mixed Type
showed the use of words in context.
The Pro a (Proia) (1933) was the first compendious
and systematic monolingual dictionary. It was a dic-
The 19th Century
tionary of both the official language of the time
In the period preceding the Greek War of Indepen- (Katharevousa) and the spoken and literary form
dence, dictionaries were compiled for educational (Demotic). The definitions are in Katharevousa, but
purposes, out of the publishers’ desire to promote many examples show Demotic usage. The LexikoBn
cultural identity. But the language covered was not tZ nea ellZnikZ (Dictionary of Modern Greek),
the vernacular. by Ioannis Stamatakos (three volumes, 1952–1955),
The first Greek scholar to compile and publish contained words mainly from Katharevousa. The
a dictionary inside Greece was Skarlatos Vyzantios. definitions were written in Katharevousa. It often
His dictionary (1835) translated Modern Greek gives Ancient Greek equivalents.
148 Greek Lexicography, Modern

Dictionaries of Standard Modern Greek Anna Anastassiadis-Syméonidis (2002) edited the

AntiBstrojo lexikoB tZ nea ellZnikZ  (Reverse dic-
In 1976 Demotic was established as the official lan-
tionary of Modern Greek), which contains 180 000
guage, and the need for new dictionaries became
lemmas.
urgent. The first serious attempt to publish a syn-
The Greek-English dictionary, compiled by
chronic dictionary of the modern language was the
Dimitrios Georgacas from the late 1960s to his
dictionary of Tegopoulos and Fytrakis (1989); it was a
death in 1990 was based exclusively on his archive,
list of contemporary words, though it omitted words
a corpus of Greek literary texts from the 19th and
that were no longer used but that were recorded in
other dictionaries. 20th centuries. It gives phonetic transcriptions, Eng-
lish definitions, examples with quotations from the
From the 1990s, Greek lexicography was enriched
literary corpus, and a historical and etymological
by compendious dictionaries. The LexikoB tZ Nea
part. Although only letter A was completed, the
EllZnikZ  GloB ssa (Dictionary of the Modern
dictionary is a major work of bilingual lexicography
Greek language), of Georgios Babiniotis appeared in
and scholarship.
1998 (second edition, 2002). This dictionary was
The Electronic Lexicography Department of the
conceived as a collection of cultural information and
Institute for Language and Speech Processing in
provides a lot more information than is typical for
dictionaries. It is a prescriptive dictionary (cf. the Athens has developed monolingual and multilingual
electronic dictionaries for educational purposes,
subtitle, With comments on the correct usage of
and electronic dictionaries of Greek Sign Language.
words), with comments on the differences between
near-synonyms, cognates, homonyms, orthographic
variants, etc. It also presents extensive etymological Other Types of Dictionaries
information going back to Indo-European.
The AntiBstrojon lexikoBn tZ nea ellZnikZ  (Re-
Scholars of the University of Thessaloniki, known
verse dictionary of Modern Greek), by Georgios
for their demoticist ideology, have made a major
Kourmoulis (1967), was the first reverse dictionary
contribution to Greek lexicography. One of the first
of Greek. It covers both Katharevousa and demotic.
dictionaries was Nikolaos Andriotis’s EtumologikoB
The AntilexikoBn Z OnomastikoBn tZ neoellZnikZ 
lexikoB tZ koinZ  neoellZnikZ  (Etymological dic-
gloB ssa of Theologos Vostantzoglou (1967), with
tionary of common Modern Greek) (1951, 1983),
60 000 words, is an onomasiological dictionary
which focused from the beginning on standard Mod-
modeled on Roget’s Thesaurus. Special dictionaries
ern Greek only and is one of the most authoritative
include the slang dictionary LexikoB tZ piatsa , by
sources. Emmanouel Kriaras’s LexikoB tZ suB gwronZ
E. Zachos (1981).
ellZnikZ  dZmotikZ  gloBssa (Dictionary of the con-
Many glossaries and dictionaries exist for Greek
temporary Demotic language) (1995) was a serious
dialects, of which two publications of the dialectal
lexicographic treatment of standard Modern Greek,
studies in the Academy are Anastasios Karanastasis’s
and his monumental Dictionary of medieval vulgar
IstorikoBn lexikoBn ton idiomaton tZ Kato ItaliBa
Greek literature, 1100–1669, covered popular litera-
(Historical dictionary of the Greek dialects of south-
ture (written in the vernacular) of the late Byzantine
ern Italy) (five volumes, 1986–1992), and Athanasios
and the early post-Byzantine period. The project con-
Kostakis’s LexikoB tZ tsakonikZ  dialektou (Dic-
tinues, and an abridged version has already been
tionary of the Tsakonian dialect) (three volumes,
prepared.
1987).
The LexikoB tZ KoinZ  NeoellZnikZ  (Dictionary
of the common Modern Greek language) (1998)
of the Institute of Modern Greek Studies (INS), in See also: Greek, Ancient; Greek Lexicography, Classical;
Thessaloniki, is a scholarly descriptive dictionary of Greek, Modern; Identity and Language; Lexicography:
the modern language ‘‘as spoken by the average Overview; Thesauruses; Vernacular.
Greek of today, as written in modern Greek prose
and in the daily and periodical press, as heard on Bibliography
radio and television.’’ (Introduction, p. ia’) Based on
Babiniotis G (1998). ‘Lexikografiko epimetro.’ In Lexiko
modern lexicographic and linguistic principles, it pro-
tis Neas Ellinikis Glossas. Athens: Kentro Lexikologias.
vides morphological information and paradigms, syn-
Georgacas D J & Georgacas B (1990). ‘The Lexicogra-
tactic information, and many examples for senses and phy of Byzantine and modern Greek.’ In Hausmann F J
collocations. Its etymologies are authoritative. It was et al. (eds.) Dictionaries: an international encyclopedia
the first monolingual Greek dictionary to include of lexicography. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter.
phonetic transcriptions. 1705–1713.
 Greek, Ancient 149

Kazazis J N (ed.) (2003). The lexicography of Ancient, Relevant Website

Medieval and Modern Greek literature. Thessaloniki:
Ministry of National Education and Religious Affairs [Link] – Dictionaries edited by the INS
and Centre for the Greek Language. in Thessaloniki are accessible online at this website.

Greek, Ancient
A Teffeteller, Concordia University, us with an invaluable source of information regard-
Montreal, Canada ing the development of Greek from Proto-Indo-
ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. European. Although the Linear B syllabary does not
mark all contrasts (e.g., one series of signs represents
both [l] and [r], and there is no differentiation of
External History [k], [kh], and [g]; of [p] and [ph]; or of [t] and [th],
although both voicing and aspiration were phonemic
Attested from the 14th century B.C., Greek has in the language), the script does provide a series of
continued in an unbroken line of development down signs for the labiovelars (PIE *kw, *gw, *gwh), which
to the present day, the ‘ancient’ period coming to a by the time of alphabetic Greek in the 8th century B.C.
close around 300 A.D. with the end of Hellenistic had developed into the phonologically conditioned
Greek. In the 1700 years from the Mycenaean period series of stops [p, b, ph/t, d, th/k, g, kh].
to the koinē and beyond, the language underwent
significant changes in phonology, morphology, syn- ‘Historical’ Dialects
tax, and lexicon. A member of the Indo-European
family of languages, Greek has particular affinities The dialectal status of Mycenaean is disputed. We
with Indo-Iranian; its connections with Latin, once know that it was not the only variety of Greek spoken
thought to be so close, in fact largely reflect cultural in the second millennium because it shows innova-
interaction, rather than subgrouping features. tions not shared by all of the later-attested dialects,
We do not know when the language entered Greek such as assibilation of –t before -i); debate continues
lands, but it was in use on the mainland and on Crete as to whether it should be grouped unqualifiedly with
in the second half of the second millennium B.C. Dur- any of the so-called historical dialects attested in the
ing the first millennium, it was spoken, in one form or first millennium (and, with the exception of Cypriot,
another, on the Greek mainland; the Aegean islands, written in an alphabetic script), although its affinities
including Crete, Cyprus, and Rhodes; in parts of Asia with Arcado-Cypriot are clear. The dialects are
Minor; and in southern Italy and northern Africa. grouped as follows: Attic-Ionic (in Attica and its
From earliest times, Greek existed as a collection of chief city Athens, the Ionic islands of the Aegean,
dialects, with Attic, the dialect of Athens, eventually and parts of Asia Minor), Aeolic (including Boiotian,
dominating and serving as the foundation for the Thessalian, and Lesbian), Doric (or West Greek, in
Hellenistic koinē and its further development into the Peloponnese, the Doric islands of the Aegean,
later stages of the language. and parts of Asia Minor), Northwest Greek (on the
northern mainland), and Arcado-Cypriot (in Arcadia
and Cyprus). The old view, supported by the testi-
Dialects mony of the ancient Greeks themselves, that the
dialects entered Greece in three successive waves –
Mycenaean Attic-Ionic, Aeolic with Arcado-Cypriot, and Doric
Mycenaean Greek was written in a syllabic script on with Northwest Greek – has recently been challenged
clay tablets used for record keeping in the Bronze Age by a model that locates the dialectal differentiation
centers on the Greek mainland and on the island of in Greece itself during the course of the second
Crete. Deciphered only in 1952, these documents, millennium.
although they contain no literature (which presum-
‘Literary’ Dialects
ably at this time was still maintained exclusively in
an oral tradition) and (owing to the nature of their Certain dialects or conventionalized forms of them
contents) offer only limited evidence particularly were associated with certain genres of literature.
of syntax and verb morphology, nevertheless provide Thus, regardless of the native dialect of a given