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Modern Greek
*** Shopping-Tip: Modern Greek
{{History of the Greek language}}
'''Modern Greek''' (Νεοελληνική, lit. Neo-Hellenic) is a dialect family that refers to the fifth stage of the evolution of the
Greek language (the first four being
Mycenean language Mycenean,
Ancient Greek, Post-Classical or
Hellenistic Greek and
Medieval Greek), and it includes every dialect and idiom of
Hellenic speech that exists in the world today. Modern Greek had started taking shape well into the
Middle Ages but for convenience linguists place its starting point at the
Fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD. During the middle ages and up until the rebirth of Greek nationalism in the 19th century, Modern Greek was widely known as '''Romaic''' (Ρωμαίικα), signifying the language spoken in the
Eastern Roman Empire. For a full description of the language see
Greek language.
Dialects
The main
dialects of Modern Greek are:
*'''Demotic Greek''' (Δημοτική): During the middle ages the vernacular language of the
Byzantine Empire Byzantines, notably in mainland
Greece,
Asia Minor and
Constantinople.
Demotic Greek is now the official language of the
Hellenic Republic (Greece), and is therefore also referred as the "Koine Modern Greek" (common modern Greek) or less strictly as "Modern Greek". Demotic Greek has various regional varieties, which are moderately different from each other and have a high degree of mutual intelligibility. They are divided into two main categories, Northern and Southern dialects.
:Examples of Northern dialects are Rumelian, Epirote, Thessalian, Macedonian, Thracian.
:The Southern category is divided into groups that include dialects from:
:#Megara, Aegina, Old Athens, Kimi and Mani
:#Peloponnese (except Mani), Cycladic isles and Crete, Ionian isles, Northern Epirus
:#Dodecanese and
Cypriot dialect Cyprus.
:Demotic Greek has officially been written in
Monotonic orthography monotonic Greek script since 1982.
*
Katharevousa (ΚαθαÏ?εÏ?ουσα): A semi-artificial
sociolect created in the 19th Century at the foundation of the modern Greek state, as a compromise between
Classical Greek and modern Demotic. It was the official language of modern Greece until 1976. Katharevousa is written in
Polytonic orthography polytonic Greek script.
*'''Tsakonic''' (Τσακωνική or
Tsakonian): Spoken today only by 10 villages around the city of
Sparta in the region of
Laconia in Southern
Peloponnese. Tsakonic evolved directly from Laconian (ancient Spartan) and therefore descends from the
Doric branch of the Greek language. It has no heritage from Hellenistic Koine and is significantly different from all its child dialects (such as
Demotic and
Pontic Greek language Pontic).
*'''Pontic''' (Ποντιακή, see
Pontic Greek): Originally spoken in the
Pontus region of Asia Minor until most of its speakers were displaced to mainland Greece during the great population exchange between Greece and Turkey that followed the Destruction of Smyrna. It hails from
Hellenistic Greek Hellenistic and
Medieval Greek Medieval Koine but preserves characteristics of
Ionic Greek Ionic since ancient colonisations.
*'''Cappadocian''' (Καππαδοκική or
Cappadocian Greek language Cappadocian): A dialect close to and of the same fate as Pontic. Hails directly from the Alexandrian and Byzantine tongues, and its speakers settled in mainland Greece during the great population exchanges.
*'''Southern Italian''' (Κατωιταλική or
Griko): Spoken by around 15 villages in the regions of
Calabria and
Apulia. The Southern Italian dialect is the last living trace of Hellenic elements in Southern Italy that once formed
Magna Graecia. It hails directly from the Dorian settlers who colonised the area from
Sparta and
Corinth in 700BC, and therefore hails from the Doric branch of ancient Greek. It has evolved independently from Hellenistic Koine, but was heavily infuenced from the
Medieval Greek which itself hails from the
Attic.Thus,Griko and Common Modern Greek are mutually intelligible to some extent,but the first shares many common characteristics with the Tsakonic (also in the Doric dialect branch).
*'''
Yevanic'''
Demotic as Koine (Standard) Modern Greek
'''Koine Modern Greek''' (Κοινή Νεοελληνική) refers to the
idiom of
Demotic that was chosen as the official language of the
Hellenic Republic and
Cyprus. In English it is usually referred to as Standard Modern Greek. In its pure form it is spoken mainly in the urban parts of Greece, while its various idioms are the
vernacular language of most rural Greece and the Greek
Diaspora throughout the world. Koine Modern Greek evolves from the Southern
Demotic idioms, mainly the ones of
Peloponnese.
In short, Koine Modern Greek is the natural continuation of
Koine Greek, an ancient Greek dialect (known also as the "Alexandrian language") which came into existence after the conquests of
Alexander the Great and the
Hellenization of the known world. Hellenistic Koine had assimilated many elements from various different Greek dialects (such as
Ionic dialect Ionic,
Doric and
Aeolic) but its nucleus had always been
Attic Greek Attic (the dialect of
Athens). Hellenistic Koine had been spoken in several different forms in the region of Greece and the Greek speaking world during the entire
Hellenistic,
Ancient Rome Roman and
Byzantine Empire Byzantine periods, until it took the shape of Demotic in the middle ages.
After Greece gained independence from the
Ottoman Empire, the same dual-language status of the late
Byzantine Empire was readapted. The vernacular speech was
Demotic (a term similar to "popular") and the official state dialect was
Katharevousa ("purified"). Demotic was the language of daily use, and the latter was an archaic form (closer to Attic), used for official documents, literature, newscasting and other formal purposes. In 1976 Katharevousa was replaced by Demotic as the official language of the Greek state.
During its long history the Greek language had assimilated some foreign vocabulary and loan words from various languages such as
Latin,
Italian language Italian, and
Turkish language Turkish, great part of which, was inevitably cleansed after its long-lasting co-existence with Katharevousa.
Evolution from Ancient to Modern Greek
Due to the long
history of the Greek language it is hard to point out specific linguistic differences between distant periods such as "ancient" and "modern" Greek. For example the pronunciation of Beta, Gamma and Delta is commonly regarded as an important phonetic difference between Ancient and Modern periods, even though it has pre-existed since the 5th century BC in non-Attic dialects (such as
Boeotian). The only way to analyse the evolution of
Greek language Greek until modern times, is to view the language as a whole by examining all its four periods (whose chronological boundaries are symbolic).
The development from Ancient Greek to Modern Greek has affected
phonology,
morphology (linguistics) morphology and
vocabulary.
The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic period, and included:
*development of the
voiceless aspirated stop consonants —
theta (letter) theta,
phi (letter) phi and
chi (letter) chi — to voiceless
fricatives
*development of the
voiced stop consonants —
delta (letter) delta,
beta (letter) beta and
gamma (letter) gamma — to voiced
fricatives
*simplification of the system of
vowels and
diphthongs (especially
iotacism).
The phonological changes were not reflected in the
orthography.
The morphological changes affected both
nouns and
verbs. Some of the changes to the verbs are parallel to those that affected the
Romance languages as they developed from
Vulgar Latin — for instance the loss of certain historic
tense forms and their replacement by new constructions — but the changes to the nouns have been less far-reaching. Greek has never experienced the wholesale loss of word-endings that has for instance made
Spanish language Spanish,
French language French and
Italian language Italian separate languages from Latin.
References
{{Wikibooks}}
*ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΕΙΟ ΠΑΝΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΙΟ ΘΕΣΣΑΛΟΝΙΚΗΣ, ΙΝΣΤΙΤΟΥΤΟ ΝΕΟΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΣΠΟΥΔΩΝ, Νικόλαος Π. Ανδριωτης - Ιστορία της Ελληνικης γλωσσας. (Nikolaos P. Andriotis, ''History of the Greek language'')
*Mario Vitti, Histoire de la littérature grecque moderne.
Category: Hellenic languages and dialects
ca:Grec modern
fr:Grec moderne
el:Ελληνική Γλώσσα
la:Neograeca
sv:Nygrekiska
tr:Modern Yunanca
nl:Modern Grieks
de:Neugriechisch
*** Shopping-Tip: Modern Greek
