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Summary

For the period from the beginning of the twelfth century (when the Mycenaean texts fail) to the end of the eighth century BC or later, statements about the Greek language are inferential. On the minimum assumptions the phonemic inventory of a Greek dialect c. 100 BC would have contained sixteen consonantal phonemes and ten pure vowels. Once the changes that distinguished Greek as a whole from other Indo-European languages had been completed there was little change in noun declension that was not the direct result of the phonological developments. Literature, in verse from the time of the Homeric epic and in prose (Ionic) during the fifth century, sheds a limited light on dialect history. The Greeks themselves were apt to describe dialect in two ways, by individual city or by ethnos. One aspect of Greek linguistic history is progressive fragmentation into dialects spoken in ever smaller areas.

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20d - The Greek Language and the Historical Dialects

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20d - The Greek Language and the Historical Dialects

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