DORIC GREEK

:''For the modern Doric dialect of Scotland, see Doric dialect (Scotland)''
'Doric Greek' is an ancient branch of the Greek language. In classical times its dialects were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon.
It is widely accepted that Doric originated in the mountains of Epirus, northwestern Greece, the original seat of the Dorian Greeks. It was expanded to all other regions during the Dorian invasion (circa 1150 BC) and the colonisations that followed. The presence of a Doric state (Doris) in central Greece, north of the Gulf of Corinth, led to the theory that Doric had originated in northwest Greece or maybe beyond in the Balkans. However, exactly where the prehistoric border was, and whether it comprised the ancient Macedonians, remains unknown (see Pella curse tablet).

Contents

Doric dialects

Laconian, Heraclean

Argolic

Corinthian

Megarian

Rhodian

Coan

Theran and Cyrenaean

Cretan

Macedonian

Northwest Greek dialects

Differences between Doric and Attic/Koine

Vocalism

Consonantism

Morphology

Special words

See also

References

External links

Doric dialects

Where the Doric dialect group fits in the overall classification of ancient Greek dialects depends to some extent on the classification. Several views are stated under Greek dialects. The prevalent theme of most views listed there is that Doric is a subgroup of 'West Greek'. Some use the terms 'Northern Greek' or 'Northwest Greek' instead. The geographic distinction is only verbal and ostensibly is misnamed: all of Doric was spoken south of "Southern Greek" or "Southeastern Greek."
Be that as it may, "Northern Greek" is based on a presumption that Dorians came from the north and on the fact that Doric is closely related to 'Northwest Greek'. When the distinction began is not known. All the "northerners" might have spoken one dialect at the time of the Dorian invasion; certainly, Doric could only have further differentiated into its classical dialects when the Dorians were in place in the south. Thus 'West Greek' is the most accurate name for the classical dialects.
Tsakonian Greek, is a surviving language of the Doric branch, descendant of Laconian Doric (Spartan), still spoken by some on the southern Argolid coast of the Peloponnese in the modern prefecture of Arcadia. Today it is a source of considerable interest to linguists, and an endangered language.
The dialects of the Doric Group are as follows.

Laconian, Heraclean

'Laconian' was spoken by the population of Laconia in the southern Peloponnesus and also by its colonies, Tarentum and Heraclea, in southern Italy. Sparta was the seat of ancient Laconia.
Laconian is attested in inscriptions on pottery and stone from the 7th century BC. A dedication to Helen dates from the 2nd quarter of the 7th. Tarentum was founded in 706 BC. The founders must already have spoken Laconic.
Many documents from the state of Sparta survive, whose citizens called themselves Lacedaemonians after the name of the valley in which they lived. Homer calls it "hollow Lacedaemon", though he refers to a pre-Dorian period. The 7th century BC, Spartan poet, Alcman, used a dialect that some consider to be predominantly Laconian. Philoxenus of Alexandria wrote a treatise ''On the Laconian dialect.''

Argolic

'Argolic' was spoken in the thickly settled northeast Peloponnesus at, for example, Argos, Mycenae, Hermione, Troezen, Epidaurus, and as close to Athens as the island of Aegina. As Mycenaean Greek had been spoken in this dialect region in the Bronze Age, it is clear that the Dorians overran it but were unable to take Attica. The Dorians went on from Argos to Crete and Rhodes.
Ample inscriptional material of a legal, political and religious content exists from at least the 6th century BC.

Corinthian

'Corinthian' was spoken first in the isthmus region between the Peloponnesus and mainland Greece; that is, the Isthmus of Corinth. The cities and states of the Corinthian dialect region were Corinth, Sicyon, Cleonae, Phlius, the colonies of Corinth in western Greece: Corcyra, Leucas, Anactorium, Ambracia and others, and the colonies of Cercyra: Dyrrachium, Apollonia. The earliest inscriptions at Corinth date from the early 6th century BC. They use a Corinthian epichoric alphabet. (See under Attic Greek.)
Corinth contradicts the prejudice that Dorians were rustic militarists, as some consider the speakers of Laconian to be. Positioned on an international trade route, Corinth played a leading part in the recivilizing of Greece after the centuries of disorder and isolation following the collapse of Mycenaean Greece.

Megarian

Rhodian

Coan

Theran and Cyrenaean

Cretan

Macedonian

A school of thought maintains that Macedonian was a Greek dialect. Those who favour a purely Greek nature of Macedonian as a northern Greek dialect are numerous and include early scholars like H. Ahrens and O. Hoffmann.^[1] A recent proponent of this school was Professor Olivier Masson, who in his article on the ancient Macedonian language in the third edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary tentatively suggested that Macedonian was related to North-Western Greek dialects:
:''In our view the Greek character of most names is obvious and it is difficult to think of a Hellenization due to wholesale borrowing [...]The small minority of names which do not look Greek [...] may be due to a substratum or adstratum influences (as elsewhere in Greece).Macedonian may then be seen as a Greek dialect, characterized by its marginal position and by local pronunciations. Yet in contrast with earlier views which made of it an Aeolic dialect [...] we must by now think of a link with North-West Greek [...] We must wait for new discoveries, but we may tentatively conclude that Macedonian is a dialect related to North-West Greek.''
As to Macedonian = Greek , Claude Brixhe^[2] suggests that it may have been a later development: The letters may already have designated not voiced stops, i.e. [], but voiced fricatives, i.e. [], due to a voicing of the voiceless fricatives [] (= Classical Attic []). Brian Joseph sums up that "[t]he slender evidence is open to different interpretations, so that no definitive answer is really possible", but cautions that "most likely, Ancient Macedonian was not simply an Ancient Greek dialect on a par with Attic or Aeolic". In this sense, some authors also call it a "deviant Greek dialect."

Northwest Greek dialects

The 'Northwest Greek' group is closely related to the Doric Group, while sometimes there is no distinction between the Doric and the Northwest Greek. Whether it is to be considered a part of the Doric Group or the latter a part of it or the two subgroups of West Greek, it is a verbal distinction only: the dialects and their grouping remain the same. The Northwest Greek dialects differ from the Doric Group dialects in two overall features: dative plural of the third declension in (''-ois'') (instead of (''-si'')) and (''en'') + accusative (instead of (''eis'')).
The dialects are as follows:

★ 'Phocian'

★
★ Delphi

★ 'Locrian'

★
★ Ozolian Locris, along the northwest coast of the Corinthian Gulf, around Amfissa

★
★ Opuntian Locris, on the coast of mainland Greece opposite northwest Euboea, around Opus

★ 'Elean'

★
★ Olympia, in the northwest Peloponnese

★ 'Northwest Greek Koiné'

★
★ hybrid dialect of Attic and certain Northwest Greek and Doric features

★
★ chiefly associated with the Aetolian Confederacy and dates to the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC.

Differences between Doric and Attic/Koine

Vocalism

# Preservation of long ''ā'' (α) where Attic/Koine change it to long open ''ē'' (η), as in (''gā mātēr'') "earth mother" — Attic/Koine (''gē mētēr'').
# Contraction ''ae'' > (''ē'') instead of Attic/Koine (''ā'').
# Original ''eo'', ''ea'' > (''io, ia'') in certain Doric dialects.
# Certain Doric dialects ("severe Doric") have (''ē, ō'') for the "spurious diphthongs" Attic/Koine (''ei, ou'') (i.e. secondary long ''ē, ō'' due to contraction or compensatory lengthening. The most prominent examples are genitive singular in (''-ō'') = (''-ou''), accusative plural in (''-ōs'') = (''-ous'') and the infinitive in (''-ēn'') = (''-ein'').
# Short (''a'') = Attic/Koine in certain words: (''hiaros''), ('
★ Artamis''), (''ga''), (''ai'')

Consonantism

# Preservation of (''-ti'') where Attic/Koine have (''-si''). The most prominent examples are: 1) third person singular of the μι-verbs ''-ti'': e.g. (''phāti'') — Attic/Koine (''phēsi(n)''); 2) third person plural of the present and the subjunctive ''-nti'': e.g. (''legonti'') — Attic/Koine (''legousi(n)''); 3) "twenty" (''wīkati'') — Attic/Koine (''eikosi(n)''); and 4) the hundreds in ''-katioi'': e.g. (''triākatioi'') — Attic/Koine (''triākosioi'').
# Preservation of double (''-ss-'') before a vowel where Attic/Koine have (''-s-''), e.g. (''messos'') before a vowel where Attic/Koine have (''mesos'').
# Preservation of initial ''w'' (ϝ) which is lost in Attic/Koine. E.g. (''woikos'') — Attic/Koine (''oikos''). The literary text in Doric and the inscriptions from the Hellenistic age have no digamma.
# (''x'') in the aorists and futures of verbs ending in (''-izō'', ''-azō'') where Attic/Koine have (''s''). E.g. (''agōniksato'') — Attic/Koine (''agōnisato''). Similarly (''k'') before suffixes beginning with ''t''.

Morphology

# The numeral (''tetores'') "four" instead of Attic/Koine (''tettares (tessares)'').
# The numeral (''prātos'') "first" instead of Attic/Koine (''prōtos'').
# The demonstrative pronoun (''tēnos'') "this" instead of Attic/Koine (''(e)keinos'')
# Nominative plural of the article and the demonstrative pronoun (''toi''), (''tai''), (''toutoi''), (''tautai'') instead of Attic/Koine (''hoi''), (''hai''), (''houtoi''), (''hautai'')
# The ending of the third person plural of the athematic ("root") preterite is ''-n'', not ''-san'', e.g. (''edon'') — Attic/Koine (''edosan'')
# First person plural in where Attic/Koine have .
# Future in (''-se-ō'') instead of Attic/Koine (''-s-ō''), e.g. (''prāxētai'') instead of Attic/Koine (''prāxetai'').
# Modal particle (''ka'') instead of Attic/Koine (''an''). NB Doric (''ai ka, ai de ka, ai tis ka'') = Attic/Koine (''(e)an, (e)an de, (e)an tis'').
# Temporal adverbs in (''-ka'') instead of Attic/Koine (''-te''): (''hoka''), (''toka'').
# Local adverbs in (''-ei'') instead of Attic/Koine (''-ou''): (''teide''), (''pei'').

Special words

# (''le(i)ō'') "will"; (''draō'') "do", (''paomai'') = (''ktaomai'') "acquire"

See also

★ Tsakonian language

★ Griko language

★ Ancient Macedonian language

★ Dorian

References

1. H. Ahrens, ''De Graecae linguae dialectis'', Göttingen, 1843; O. Hoffmann, ''Die Makedonen. Ihre Sprache und ihr Volkstum'', Göttingen 1906.
2. Claude Brixhe, "Un «nouveau» champ de la dialectologie grecque: le macédonien", in: A. C. Cassio (ed.), ''Katà diálekton. Atti del III Colloquio Internazionale di Dialettologia Greca'' (A.I.O.N., XIX), Napoli 1996, 35-71.

External links

★ New Pauly Online