Academic literature on the topic 'Greek language Doric Greek dialect'

AbstractScholars and editors of Hellenistic epigram have often discounted the authenticity of dialectal variance attested in the manuscript tradition, either privileging the dialectal variant that conforms to the predominant dialect in the epigram or even choosing to change attested dialect forms to produce a uniform coloring. This article argues that the addresses to earth at lines 2 and 10 of Leonidas of Tarentum Anth. Pal. 7.440 = Gow/Page, HE 11 were originally Doric. I show that there are paleographic as well as literary grounds for the reading. In particular, the presence of Doric forms at these two points in the epigram evoke the language of tragic lament. The findings of this article have potentially significant implications for the editing of dialectal mixture in the Greek Anthology.

The Ancient Greek dialect of Pamphylia shows extensive influence from the nearby Anatolian languages. Evidence from the linguistics of Greek and Anatolian, sociolinguistics, and the historical and archaeological record suggest that this influence is due to Anatolian speakers learning Greek as a second language as adults in such large numbers that aspects of their L2 Greek became fixed as a part of the main Pamphylian dialect. For this linguistic development to occur and persist, Pamphylia must initially have been settled by a small number of Greeks, and remained isolated from the broader Greek-speaking community while prevailing cultural attitudes favored a combined Greek-Anatolian culture.

Cypriot Greek is the dialect of Modern Greek spoken on the island of Cyprus by approximately 650,000 people and also by the substantial immigrant communities of Cypriots in the UK, North America, Australia, South Africa and elsewhere. Due to lengthy isolation, Cypriot Greek is so distinct from Standard Greek as to be often unintelligible to speakers of the Standard. Greek Cypriot speakers, on the other hand, have considerably less difficulty understanding Greeks, since Standard Greek is the official language of Cyprus, and as such it is the medium of education and the language of the Cypriot media. However, in every day situations Cypriot Greek is the only variety used among Cypriots. Cypriot Greek is not homogeneous but exhibits considerable geographical variation (Newton 1972). The variety described here is that used by educated speakers, particularly the inhabitants of the capital, Nicosia. Although influenced by increasing contact with Standard Greek, Cypriot Greek retains most of its phonological and phonetic characteristics virtually intact. There is no established orthography for Cypriot Greek; however, certain, rather variable, conventions have emerged, based on Greek historical orthography but also including novel combinations of letters in order to represent sounds that do not exist in the Standard (e.g. σι for [∫]); a version of these conventions has been adopted here for the sample text. The transcription is based on the speech of an educated male speaker from Nicosia in his mid-thirties, who read the text twice at normal speed and in an informal manner, he also assisted in rendering the text from Standard to Cypriot Greek.

Abstract For the first time, we provide a comprehensive and annotated list of 74 certain, likely, and possible Greek loanwords in Samaritan Aramaic, paying due attention to the variegated distribution of the loans in the different textual genres and chronological stages of the dialect. Greek loanwords in Jewish and Christian Palestinian Aramaic as well as Rabbinic Hebrew are compared throughout. The study provides insights into the contact situation of Greek and Samaritan Aramaic in Late Antique Palestine. An appendix contains short discussions of 22 additional lexical items for which a Greek etymon has been proposed erroneously.

Social magic always manages to produce discontinuity out of continuity.Social dialect, which can be defined negatively as dialect associated with variables other than geographic region, was hardly recognized as a linguistic category until the twentieth century. Although it has been recognized since antiquity that groups at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder speak differently from the elite, non-elite idioms did not merit serious investigation since they were regarded merely as corrupt or decadent approximations to the prestige variety. There is evidence that the Greeks also recognized gender as a variable in linguistic production. Age occasionally figures in discourse about language, but the association is vaguer since it was tangled up with the idea that earlier generations spoke a better or more authentic form of Greek.

This paper aims to investigate the norms governing the translation of fiction from English into Greek by critically examining two Greek translations of Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations. One is by Pavlina Pampoudi (Patakis, 2016) and the other, is by Thanasis Zavalos (Minoas, 2017). Particular attention is paid to dialect translation and special emphasis is placed on the language used by one of the novel’s prominent characters, namely, Abel Magwitch. In particular, twenty instances of Abel Magwitch’s dialect are chosen in an effort to provide an in-depth analysis of the dialect-translation strategies employed as well as possible reasons governing such choices. It is argued that both translators favour standardisation in their target texts, thus eliminating any language variants present in the source text. The conclusion argues that societal factors as well as the commissioning policies of publishing houses influence to a great extent the translators’ behaviour, and consequently, the dialect-translation strategies adopted. Hence, greater emphasis on the extra-linguistic, sociological context is necessary for a thorough consideration of the complexities of English-Greek dialect translation of fiction.

Introduction. A language is the fundamental characteristic of a nation’s identity. It can unite the members of an ethic team and set them apart from the members of other ethnic teams. Aim. In this current review, the study presents the evolution of the Greek language from the ancient times, all the way up to today. Methodology. The study’s material consists of articles related to the topic, found in Greek and International και databases, the Google Scholar, and the Hellenic Academic Libraries (HEAL-Link). Results. The Greek language has been used since the third millennia B.C.. During the ancient times, it was the most widely used language in the Mediterranean Sea and South Europe. Until the fifth century B.C., the Greek language was a total of dialects. The Attica Dialect stood out from this dialectical mosaic. Then came the Hellenistic Common, which became the hegemonic language, the lingua franca of the "universe". The Hellenistic Common evolved to the Middle Ages Greek, and later the New Greek (fifth century A.D. - today). Besides, the creation of the New Greek state resulted to the gradual formation of the New Common, which will become the modern New Greek Common, under the effect of the scholar language. Conclusion. The Greek language keeps borrowing and assimilating words from other languages today, just like it did in the past, remaining unbroken for forty centuries.

This paper, located in the traditions of Interactional Sociolinguistics (Gumperz 1982) and Social Constructionism (Berger and Luckmann 1966), explores code-switching and identity practices amongst British-born Greek-Cypriots. The speakers, members of a Greek-Cypriot youth organization, are fluent in English and (with varying levels of fluency) speak the Greek-Cypriot Dialect. Qualitative analyses of recordings of natural speech during youth community meetings and a social event show how a new ‘third space’ becomes reified through code-switching practices. By skillfully manipulating languages and styles, speakers draw on Greek-Cypriot cultural resources to accomplish two inter-related things. First, by displaying knowledge of familiar Greek-Cypriot cultural frames, they establish themselves as different from mainstream British society and establish solidarity as an in-group. Secondly, by using these frames in non-serious contexts, and at times mocking cultural attitudes and stereotypes, they challenge and re-appropriate their inherited Greek-Cypriot identity, thereby constructing the identity of British-born Greek-Cypriot youth.

The aim of this longitudinal study was to examine the contribution of phonological, morphological and dialect awareness to the prediction of reading and spelling in a Greek bi-dialectal setting. The target group (N=404) consisted of children, aged 6 to 9 years at the start of the project, who learn literacy in Cyprus, where a dialect is spoken in certain contexts but where Standard Modern Greek is also widely used. At present there are few studies with Greek Cypriot children on how phonological, morphological and dialect awareness relates to reading and spelling. Because there are no standardised measures of phonological, morphological and dialect awareness with Greek Cypriot children, measures of these factors were developed during the pilot study and their internal consistency was assessed. With the larger sample the measures were validated by examining their construct validity. The first wave of data collection showed that morphological and dialect awareness make unique contribution to the prediction of reading and spelling in Greek. The second wave of data collection showed that the measures of morphological and dialect awareness predicted performance in reading and spelling eight months later, even partialling out grade level, estimation of verbal intelligence and initial scores in reading and spelling. A model with dialect awareness as a mediator between phonological and morphological awareness and reading and spelling fitted the data better than a model with phonological or morphological awareness as mediators, and hence, phonological awareness and morphological awareness help children to become aware of the differences between their dialect and the standard variety, and dialect awareness in turn facilitates reading and spelling. Cross-lagged correlations showed that the more experience children have with reading and spelling, the more likely they are to develop morphological and dialect awareness. This study makes theoretical, empirical and practical educational contributions. The established mediational model contributes to the theoretical knowledge of the connection between dialect awareness and phonological and morphological awareness and reading and spelling while the longitudinal study contributes to theory the long term relation of morphological and dialect awareness with reading and spelling in Greek. Empirically, the study established the plausibility of a causal link between morphological and dialect awareness and reading and spelling, which must be tested in further research using intervention methods. In practice, this study contributes valid measures for assessing morphological and dialect awareness in the Greek Cypriot setting.

The purpose of this study is to investigate language attitudes towards the Greek Cypriot Dialect (GCD). This however, can only be achieved if language attitudes towards GCD are examined in relation to language attitudes towards Standard Modern Greek (SMG), the official language of the Republic of Cyprus. Empirical studies in the Greek-Cypriot (GC) setting demonstrate that GCs evaluate their peers more positively when they speak in SMG and less so when they use GCD (Papapavlou 1998, 2001). Hence, the primary questions guiding this research are why GCs evaluate their dialect and its speakers less positively than speakers of SMG and what are the factors contributing to this devaluation. This research is important as not only does it add to the existing literature as regards language attitudes in Cyprus, but it also attempts to examine whether negative language attitudes towards GCD are developed in primary and secondary education and supported by teachers in those settings. Consequently, to study GCs' language attitudes towards GCD it is vital to examine what goes on in the learning environment and whether teachers indeed contribute to GCs' devaluation of the dialect. A variety of mixed research methods were employed in tertiary, secondary, and primary education to examine language attitudes towards language variation and language use. The findings arising from this project suggest that SMG is associated with competence dimensions, whereas GCD is more closely connected with social attractiveness (see Chapters 5 and 6). Nonetheless as proposed in later Chapters, these findings are not merely an outcome of the stance education holds towards the non-standard variety, but also partly an outcome of GCs' bonds of brotherhood with Greeks, the love for their “mother land” ([Mu][eta][tau][epsilon][rho][alpha] [Iota][iota][alpha][tau][rho][iota][delta]) Greece, and the religion they strongly profess to the Orthodox Christian Church (see Vanezis 2000). Hence the need to ‘be’ and ‘feel’ Greek encompasses the need to ‘speak’ Greek.

This research study examined the effects of Greek Cypriot Dialect (GCD) on bidialectal Greek Cypriot (GC) students in the context of Modern Greek Language (MGL) lessons at Lyceum B level. GCD is the native variety and students’ mother tongue whereas MGL is the standard and target variety. This study aimed to inform opinion on the use and the role of GCD in the MGL lesson, the influence of attitudes towards GCD on students’ identity construction, and whether the use or suppression of GCD in class influences students’ expression of critical thought. The study focused on the spoken language and examined students’ speech. In order to theorise and deepen understanding of the effects of GCD on students’ performance and learning of MGL, social constructivism and Language Awareness (LA) were considered. Qualitative research was conducted through a case study focused on 7 Lyceum B level classrooms of two state secondary schools in Cyprus. An interpretive paradigmatic stance was taken and a combination of methodological tools was employed. Classroom observations of MGL lessons, group task observations with students, and group interviews with MGL teachers and students were conducted. The findings revealed that GCD appeared to be used frequently in lesson-focused and non-lesson-focused incidents, by most of the students and some of the teachers. GCD served as a means facilitating expression but its unplanned use did not seem to enhance mastery of MGL. It did, however, aid learning of the subject content. GCD was said to be central in defining students’ identity and some students claimed that negative attitudes towards it did not influence how they perceived their identity. The group task observation findings demonstrated that GCD exclusion and SMG imposition stifled the process of developing and expressing critical thinking (CT) whereas GCD use enhanced it. This was also expressed in students’ interviews whereas teachers considered that excluding GCD might hinder students to express CT but only to some extent. Overall, the findings revealed the need for implementing a bidialectal approach rooted in LA for teaching MGL as well as training teachers and raising their awareness of language variation. The potential role of Ancient Greek in enhancing Lyceum students’ knowledge of GCD and while at the same time improving their performance in MGL lessons is discussed.

This is the first typological study devoted to Medieval Cypriot (MC). The objective of the study is to provide both syntactic and pragmatic factors which are determining for the word order of the language and to open new ways to recording mechanisms of word order change. Cypriot syntax deserves this attention, as it is a language highly interesting for the typologist as for the researcher of other linguistic areas; Modern Cypriot is VOS, and exhibits a series of exceptions to the general rules of V-initial languages. Medieval Cypriot conforms to most of Greenberg�s Universals (1963) which are pertinent to type VSO in that it has V in initial position in all unmarked clauses, in that it is prepositional, that adjectives mostly follow the noun they qualify, and so on. However, the comparison of MC to Greenberg�s Universals is not the aim of this work. Apart form the order of the main constituents, this research mainly focuses on revealing mechanisms of syntactic change not generally known, and on unveiling particular traits of the Cypriot VSO order that are not common to other VSO languages. The analysis can be defined as diachronic for it deals with the language written over a span of many years, as assumed from studying the texts. Some words and structures, used in the beginning of the narrative, seem to decrease in frequency in the end, or vice versa. It is diachronic considering it also allows for comparison with later (colloquial) and earlier (written) constructions of the language. However, it is mostly a synchronic analysis; the patterns observed are from within the same language spoken by the same people living in the same period, more importantly from within the same work. Makhairas is thus the only broad evidence of his period, offered both as a diachronic and a synchronic linguistic testimony of his time. As no language exists in vacuo, my description of MC starts with a historical approach to the language under study; it is almost impossible to realise the problems of colloquial, literary and foreign features without being aware of the earlier history of Greek in general and of Cypriot in particular, in some of its earlier documents. I refrained as far as possible from entering the field of comparative criticism with Medieval Greek. In this way I decided to focus on discussions based exclusively on the Cypriot forms and patterns, as presented and justified by the evidence in Makhairas, and as witnessed by history which, for many centuries, has singled out Cypriot from the rest of the dialects and the Greek language itself. So, alternative views, criticism and discussion of same mechanisms of change recorded within the broader Greek language have been more or less avoided. The exposition of the MC word order patterns is based on my hypotheses that word order, as I understand it, is founded on purposes of communication and that languages with extreme flexibility of order, such as Medieval Cypriot, may adopt patterns that display rigidity of order in a number of their elements. It is within these areas of rigidity that new mechanisms of change may be detected. I also hypothesised that the same syntactic changes within languages of the same branch may be merely coincidental, and that Greek or forms of Greek may well adopt foreign elements, only (but not exclusively) if these acquire the Greek endings, or if they appear as independent affixes, as is the case with the post-medieval referential Cypriot marker �mish� which is from Turkish. Acquiring particular elements from other languages does not mean acquiring their order. However, acquiring patterns that are similar to Greek from a borrowing language which has the same patterns does not exclude syntactic borrowing. Since Modern Cypriot is V-initial, I presumed that this might have also been its order in the Middle Ages. I judge that major mechanisms of syntactic change of the same period may have been triggered by factors internal to Cypriot rather than by the more general, universal mechanisms of change. Moreover, I speculated that MC was a far more marginalised language in the Middle Ages than what history and literature have taught us. Its creative dynamism and potentiality to �juggle� between words and patterns has been its greater forte. Cypriot has not been studied as a dialect, in this work. I avoided having only a partial or a shadowed understanding of its word order patterns. Exhaustive descriptions that show its particularities in the process of completion appear with both rigidity (in some elements) and flexibility of order, and most importantly, they exhibit a long-life endurance. I have also been concerned with forms and /or patterns of Greek such as the future and other periphrastic tenses, although they are already known and have been analysed at length in Greek linguistic studies. I concentrate here on some of these from a Cypriot perspective. Cypriot has never been classified as Balkan Greek or mainland Greek. Following this study, it will be clarified further that any attempt to fit MC into a framework defined along these categorisations will be successful only in some areas of the general Greek syntax. In fact, Cypriot opens the way for a further understanding of Greek syntax with its (almost) boundless flexibility; it is through MC and the unique data of Makhairas that the study of the Greek syntax is being enriched. Areas of fine-grained classificatory criteria result in connecting some MC syntactic traits to those of Greek and accrediting to the language its own word order singularities in what can be righteously called here the Cypriot syntax. Additionally, the study aims to open new areas of investigation on diachronic syntactic issues and to initiate new and revealing answers concerning configurational syntax. To determine the syntactic traits of MC a meticulous work of counting was needed. The counting of the order of the main constituents from both the more general narrative patterns of the Chronicle as well as of those passages thought to be more immediate to the author�s living experience(s) was done manually. The primarily and more difficult task of considering, following and explaining pragmatic word order patterns in the Chronicle has been the stepping stone of this research. Earlier (and forgotten) stages of Greek, and patterns exclusive to Cypriot, assembled in a unique lexicon and with special Cypriot phrasal verbs, have provided answers to explaining the Cypriot structure. In addition to statistics, areas of language contact have also been explored, both in the morphology and in the syntax. More importantly, the extreme word order freedom of MC that illustrates word order processes based entirely on internal structural changes, aims to contribute to discussions regarding morphology and syntax versus morphosyntax. Chapter 1 provides all the background information of the history and language in Cyprus, prior to the Middle Ages. Chapter 2 deals with the description of the data and the methodology used to assess them. Chapter 3 exhibits the MC verbal forms, both finite and non-finite; it examines non-finites more closely, inasmuch as they play an important role in the change of the order of major constituents and uncover and explain the role of V-initial structures. Chapter 4 is the core chapter of this work. It displays Cypriot particularities of word order, reveals data concerned with the word order of the major constituents within the clause and unfolds explanatory accounts of them; lastly, it classifies MC as a V-initial language. Chapter 5 summarises conclusions, adds a further note on the Cypriot morphosyntactic traits while placing the results into the contemporary scholarship on VSO languages, also suggesting additional research areas into the MC patterns. The examples from Makhairas have been written in the monotonic system, where only one accent has been used; other special symbols have been eliminated or modified in the interest of making the text readable in the absence of the right font. However, Ancient Greek words appear with their appropriate accents. Abbreviation C indicates structures or words that remained unchanged in Cypriot over a long period of time, and G means a form or word accepted in both their written and spoken forms over a long period of time in Greek. A morphemic analysis of each form of the glosses has not always been given. I limited myself to glossing some elements only, for the better understanding of some examples.

Η δυνατότητα δανεισμού των διαφόρων λεξικών και ελεύθερων λειτουργικών κατηγοριών είναι ένα ζήτημα που έχει κατά καιρούς απασχολήσει έντονα την διεθνή βιβλιογραφία στον χώρο της επαφής γλωσσών. Με την παρούσα μεταπτυχιακή διατριβή: (α) εξετάζω την δυνατότητα δανεισμού των διαφόρων λεξικών και ελεύθερων λειτουργικών λέξεων, (β) διερευνώ την αξιοπιστία και την καθολικότητα ορισμένων ευρέως διαδεδομένων κλιμάκων δανεισιμότητας, όπως είναι για παράδειγμα οι κλίμακες των Haugen (1950), Muysken (1981), Matras (2007) κ.λπ., (γ) ελέγχω τους παράγοντες οι οποίοι έχει προταθεί ότι επηρεάζουν την διαδικασία, και προτείνω τους παράγοντες εκείνους οι οποίοι την καθορίζουν. Για τον λόγο αυτό, διερευνώ και συγκρίνω τον λεξιλογικό δανεισμό (α) της Γκρίκο από τις Ρομανικές διαλέκτους, (β) της Καππαδοκικής από την Τουρκική, και (γ) της Κρητικής τόσο από τις Ρομανικές διαλέκτους, όσο και από την Τουρκική. Εξετάζω πόσο εύκολο ή δύσκολο είναι για την καθεμιά από τις μελετώμενες λεξικές κατηγορίες να γίνουν αντικείμενο δανεισμού, καθώς και τους παράγοντες που φαίνεται να επιδρούν στην δανεισιμότητα των στοιχείων. Προτείνω μια κοινή κλίμακα δανεισιμότητας, για όλα τα συστήματα που μελέτησα, της μορφής (ονόματα > ρήματα > επίθετα > επιρρήματα), και με αυτό τον τρόπο δείχνω ότι ορισμένες λέξεις είναι ευκολότερα δανείσιμες από άλλες. Τα βασικά ευρήματα της έρευνας αυτής ενισχύουν την άποψη ότι καμία γενίκευση με απόλυτη ισχύ δεν μπορεί να υπάρξει στο χώρο της γλωσσικής επαφής. Η ένταση της επαφής (intensity of contact) (Thomason Kaufman, 1988; Thomason, 2001) φαίνεται να είναι ο καθοριστικός παράγοντας που μπορεί να εξηγήσει την μεγάλη διαφοροποίηση η οποία καταγράφεται μεταξύ του λεξικού και του δομικού δανεισμού. Με τον τρόπο αυτό μπορεί να εξηγηθεί γιατί για παράδειγμα στην Γκρίκο και τα Καππαδοκικά, όπου η διγλωσσία και ο δανεισμός είναι ιδιαίτερα εκτεταμένα, τα ελέυθερα λειτουργικά στοιχεία γίνονται εύκολα αντικείμενο δανεισμού, ενώ αντίθετα στη Κρητική, όπου το επίπεδο της διγλωσσίας είναι εμφανώς μικρότερο, ο δανεισμός των ελεύθερων λειτουργικών στοιχείων είναι εξαιρετικά περιορισμένος. Επιπλέον, η διαφοροποίηση που καταγράφεται ως προς τον δανεισμό των ελεύθερων λειτουργικών στοιχείων μεταξύ της Γκρίκο και της Καππαδοκικής, δείχνει ότι ο δανεισμός δεν εξαρτάται μόνο από εξωγλωσσικούς παράγοντες (π.χ. ένταση της επαφής), αλλά σε μεγάλο βαθμό καθορίζεται από εργολαβικούς παράγοντες όπως είναι η τυπολογική απόσταση (typological distance) και η δομική (α)συμβατότητα (structural (in)compatibility) μεταξύ των σε επαφή συστημάτων. Χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα αποτελεί η απουσία δανεισμού προθέσεων στην Καππαδοκική, γεγονός που εμφανώς οφείλεται στην ιδιότητα της Τουρκικής να έχει μόνο μεταθέσεις.
A prevailing issue of debate in language contact studies involves the borrowability of various lexical and free grammatical categories. In this MA Thesis (a) I examine the borrowing of different lexical and free functional words, (b) I investigate the reliability of well-known borrowability scales, like those that have been formulated by Haugen (1950), Muysken (1981), Matras (2007), etc, and (c) I examine the factors that determine the borrowing process. For this purpose, I examine data from the Modern Greek Dialects. More specifically, I examine the borrowing of (a) Romance words in Griko, (b) Turkish words in Cappadocian, and (c) both Romance and Turkish words in Cretan. I investigate how easy the borrowing of a particular lexical and free functional word- category can be as well as the language-contact factors affecting the process. I propose a common borrowability scale for the lexical categories (nouns > verbs > adjectives > adverbs) for all of the dialectal varieties that I have studied, and I show that certain words are relatively easy to be borrowed. My main findings show that no absolute generalization can be drawn within the language contact domain. The intensity of contact factor (Thomason & Kaufman, 1988; Thomason, 2001) seems to be the key factor in explaining the split between lexical and structural borrowing. It explains why, for example, both in Griko and Cappadocian, where bilingualism and borrowing is vastly extensive, free-functional-words are borrowed with ease, whereas in Cretan, where the level of bilingualism is obviously less extensive, the borrowing of free-functional-words is extremely restricted. Moreover, the differentiation between the borrowing of free-functional words in Griko versus that in Cappadocian shows that borrowing depends not only on external factors (e.g. the intensity of contact) but also on intralinguistic factors such as the typological distance and the structural (in)compatibility of the systems in contact. A concrete example is the absence of borrowed prepositions in Cappadocian due to Turkish containing only postpositions.

This diploma thesis will focus on the Griko dialect, which is still spoken in some areas of Apulia and which is characterized by its ambiguity between the Greek and Italian language. It thus bears the remnants of Greek culture in southern Italy. The diploma thesis will consist of a theoretical and practical part: In the first part, the cultural-historical reality that defines the dialect will be described. This will be followed by a practical analysis of selected texts, their subsequent description and analysis by a comparative method. Lastly, the work will deal with the current socio-cultural situation of the dialect and its use. Key words: griko, Southern Italy, Salento, Apulia, Greece, language, dialect, culture, text analysis, national traditions, identity, Greek, Italian, prestige, origin

This chapter considers the treatment of dialect forms in Liddell and Scott (LSJ), and the origins of LSJ’s practice. It shows that although Aeolic and Doric forms of words sometimes get their own LSJ entries, the main or most informative entry is for a non-Aeolic or non-Doric form wherever the observed data made this possible. At first sight, the obvious conclusion is that some non-Aeolic and non-Doric dialect, such as Attic, functions as the basic dialect for LSJ. On closer inspection, however, it turns out that the Lexicon is not built on a principle of treating any one variety of Greek as ‘basic’. Instead LSJ operates with the notion of a normal or default form: a form judged to be available for use in the widest range of Greek texts. By designating a form as the ‘common form’ or choosing it as the basic dictionary entry, LSJ make a judgement about the wide availability of the form in principle, not about its actual attestation.

Many Archaic inscriptions have been found since the revision of L. H. Jeffery's Local Scripts in 1990. This chapter presents a selection of some 50 new Attic Archaic inscriptions and some 25 from the Attic-Ionic islands and the Doric islands of the Cyclades. The implications of the new finds for our knowledge of scripts, dialects, vocabulary, topography, and religion are drawn out. The remarkable early evidence for extensive literacy among shepherds and goatherds in Archaic Attica, and the early dedications in both Attic and Boeotian dialect and script from the sanctuary of Zeus on Mt Parnes, are particular highlights.

Chapter 2 starts at the ultimate origin of the English term dialect, ancient Greece, contending that it was never customary in Greek scholarship to contrast this term to a word referring to a superordinate concept of language. In order to substantiate this view, the chapter treats both passing references to the Greek dialects in a wide variety of texts and influential definitions of the Greek word diálektos (διάλεκτος‎). It also frames these definition attempts in their philological context, as the phenomenon of dialect was predominantly studied for its literary relevance. Finally, this chapter briefly discusses the Latin tradition up to about 1500, arguing that an obvious opposition of dialect to language cannot be discovered there either.

Chapter 3 offers a case study of the thirteenth-century scholar Roger Bacon, who contrasted the terms lingua and idioma in a way prefiguring the later language/dialect distinction. Bacon was able to do so because of his exceptionally broad intellectual and linguistic horizon; he was familiar with English, French, Latin, Greek, and other tongues, as well as the regional variation within some of them. His mastery of Greek in particular was unique in his times. His linguistic outlook was a central precondition and a triggering circumstance for his lingua / idioma distinction. Bacon was in good company, since the renowned philosopher Thomas Aquinas presupposed a similar metalinguistic contrast in his exegetical works; yet Thomas was much less explicit about it. Chapter 3 finishes with a brief exposé on biblical exegesis as an overlooked source for ancient and medieval ideas on regional variation.

Chapter 11 draws the balance of the way in which the conceptual pair became anchored in the metalinguistic apparatus of scholars. It does so, first and foremost, by surveying the seven major interpretations of the language / dialect distinction which originated roughly in the century between 1550 and 1650, and the ways in which they interacted with each other. These conceptions were, the chapter argues, shaped by three main related circumstances: Greek tradition, scholarly interests, and sociolinguistic realities. The chapter contends that in the period 1550–1650 the conceptual pair did not undergo only consolidation by elaboration but also an emancipation from the Greek heritage. This de-Hellenization resulted in the degradation of dialect as secondary to language on nearly all levels, even though a strictly political interpretation of the distinction was only marginally present in the early modern period.