Read and Speak Greek CDROM
Greek language CDROM
GREEK LANGUAGE EVOLUTION and AUTHOR DATA
GREEK LANGUAGE EVOLUTION
A brief history of the evolution of the Greek language is provided
Alphabet was developed around 725
BCE. As a historical reference, Homer
lived around 850 BCE.
BCE - 650 BCE)
... Used by Homer, Herodotus, Heraclitus and others.
... Spoken around the Cyclades islands, Samos and Icaria islands, and
Asia Minor with center the cities of Ephesus and Miletus.
3. Doric Dialect (900
BCE - 900 AD)
... Used by Archimedes.
... Spoken by the Spartans and people in Peloponnesus and Sicily.
Dialect (700 BCE
- 300 BCE)
... Used by Plato, Thucydides, Euripides, Aristophanes, Demosthenes,
Aristotle, Isocrates, and others.
... Pronunciation had long and short sounds and breathings that produced
a harmonic speech pattern.
... Writing was all capital letters without punctuation marks.
... Spoken in the Attic peninsula by Athenians and others.
or Alexandrian or Biblical Greek Dialect (300
BCE - 700 AD)
... After the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Greek language
became the international language of the period 300 B.C-300A.D. This language
version was based primarily on the Attic dialect and unified all the other
dialects. It is called Koine, which in Greek means common, to show that
it is the language spoken by all people.
... Transition from Classical Greek to Koine
started around 400 BCE.
... Koine is used in important religious works such as the Bible as
well as important works and by Plutarch and others.
... Koine changed the pronunciation by flattening the long and short
sounds and breathings.
... Koine changed the writing by adding the accents, breathings, e.t.c.
... Koine and Attic have almost identical grammar. Koine is simpler
because it does not use the dual number.
... Innovations enabled the publication of many books during the Koine
period. Almost all surviving Classical Greek texts are written with
the Koine character set.
Greek Language (200
BCE - today)
... It is based on Koine and has evolved into the language spoken today
... The Modern Greek pronunciation is the pronunciation of Koine and
is used in many places where Koine, or Classical Greek, text is pronounced.
For example, all religious services pronounce Greek text with the Modern
Greek pronunciation. Classical Greek is pronounced using either the Modern
Greek pronunciation or the Erasmian pronunciation. In particular, schools
in the United States use the Erasmian pronunciation.
... The Modern Greek character set is identical to the Koine except
that it does not have the breathings, grave accent, circumflex accent,
long and short marks and the iota suscript. Only the acute accent
is used in the Modern Greek character set.
George N Balanis
George N. Balanis obtained his elementary and high school education
at Athens College in Greece. An engineer and computer scientist, he obtained
degrees from two California universities. The Ph.D. degree was obtained
in Electrical Engineering (thesis on Inverse Scattering Theory) and Applied
Mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The
MBA degree was obtained in General Management from the University of California
at Los Angeles.
Toula Balanis obtained her elementary and high school education at
public schools in Greece at the island of Ikaria and the city of Athens.
Her AA degree was obtained from the Pasadena City College in Pasadena,
California. She has taught Greek for many years at several language schools
in the Los Angeles area.
Argyris Tsakalias obtained his elementary and high school education
at public schools in Greece at the islands of Ikaria and Patmos. His MA
degree was obtained from the theological school of Chalki in Istanbul,
Turkey. He has taught Classical Greek for many years at schools in Greece.
Revised: 15 December 1999
Copyright © 1996 Anotek, Inc.