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Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 spanning across the Archaic (c. 9th–6th centuries BC), Classical
Classical Greece

Classical Greece was a culture that was highly advanced and which heavilly influenced the cultures of Ancient Rome and much of the Western World....
 (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic
Hellenistic civilization

File:Diadochen1.pngHellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Ancient Greece influence in the Classical Antiquity from 323 BC to about 146 BC ....
 (c. 3rd century BC–6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
 and the ancient world
Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine
Koine Greek

Koine Greek is the popular form of Greek which emerged in post-Classical antiquity . Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Common, or New Testament Greek....
 ("common") or Biblical Greek, and its late period mutates imperceptibly into Medieval Greek
Medieval Greek

Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek , is a cover term for all forms of the Greek language that were spoken and written during the time of the Byzantine Empire....
.






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Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 spanning across the Archaic (c. 9th–6th centuries BC), Classical
Classical Greece

Classical Greece was a culture that was highly advanced and which heavilly influenced the cultures of Ancient Rome and much of the Western World....
 (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic
Hellenistic civilization

File:Diadochen1.pngHellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Ancient Greece influence in the Classical Antiquity from 323 BC to about 146 BC ....
 (c. 3rd century BC–6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
 and the ancient world
Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine
Koine Greek

Koine Greek is the popular form of Greek which emerged in post-Classical antiquity . Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Common, or New Testament Greek....
 ("common") or Biblical Greek, and its late period mutates imperceptibly into Medieval Greek
Medieval Greek

Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek , is a cover term for all forms of the Greek language that were spoken and written during the time of the Byzantine Empire....
. Koine
Koine Greek

Koine Greek is the popular form of Greek which emerged in post-Classical antiquity . Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Common, or New Testament Greek....
 is regarded as a separate historical stage of its own, although in its earlier form it closely resembles Classical Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects.

The Ancient Greek language is one of the most prominent in human cultural history, including the works of Homer
Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
, the historians, playwrights and philosophers of the Athenian Golden Age
Age of Pericles

The Golden Age is the term used to denote the historical period in Ancient Greece lasting roughly from the end of the Persian Wars in 448 BC to either the death of Pericles 429 BC or the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC....
, and the New Testament
New Testament

The New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christianity Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
. It has made a large contribution to the vocabulary of English, including such essential terms as democracy
Democracy

Democracy is a form of government in which power is held directly or indirectly by citizens under a free electoral system. It is derived from the Greek language d?????at?a , "popular government" which was coined from d???? , "people" and ???t?? , "rule, strength" in the middle of the 5th-4th century BC to denote the political syst...
 and was a standard subject of study in Western educational institutions from the Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 to the early 20th century. The New Latin
New Latin

The term New Latin or Neo-Latin is used to describe a form the Latin language used after the end of the Medieval Latin period to c. 1900, and in a very limited fashion, down to the present day....
 used in the scientific binomial classification
Binomial nomenclature

In biology, binomial nomenclature is the formal system of naming species. The system is called binominal nomenclature , binary nomenclature , or the binomial classification system....
 system continues today to draw vigorously from Ancient Greek vocabulary.

This article treats primarily the Archaic and Classical phases of the language — see also the article on Koine Greek
Koine Greek

Koine Greek is the popular form of Greek which emerged in post-Classical antiquity . Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Common, or New Testament Greek....
.

Dialects of Ancient Greek

The origins, early forms, and early development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood, owing to the lack of contemporaneous evidence. There are several theories about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, linguistic reconstruction common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans....
 language (not later than 2000 BC), and about 1200 BC. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean, but its relationship to the historical dialects and the historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form.

The major dialect groups of the Ancient Greek period can be assumed to have developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasion
Dorian invasion

The Dorian invasion is a concept devised by historians of Ancient Greece to explain the replacement of pre-classical dialects and traditions in southern Greece by the ones that prevailed in Classical Greece....
(s), and their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to the historical Dorians; moreover, the invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians.

The ancient Greeks themselves considered there to be three major divisions of the Greek people, into Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cyprian, far from the center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. This is very important to realize because of the content and the change that has occurred.

One standard formulation for the dialects is:
  • West Group
    • Northwest Greek
    • Doric
      Doric Greek

      Doric or Dorian was a ancient Greek dialects of ancient Greek Greek language. Its variants 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....
  • Aeolic Group
    Aeolic Greek

    Aeolic or Aeolian Greek is a Linguistics term used to describe a set of rather Archaic period in Greece Greek language sub-dialects, spoken mainly in Boeotia , in Lesbos Island and in other Greek colonies....
    • Aegean/Asiatic Aeolic
    • Thessalian
    • Boeotian
  • Ionic-Attic Group
    Ionic Greek

    Ionic Greek was a sub-dialect of the Attic-Ionic dialectal group of Ancient Greek .Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C....
    • Attica
      Attic Greek

      Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek"....
    • Euboea and colonies in Italy
    • Cyclades
    • Asiatic Ionia
  • Arcadocypriot Greek
    • Arcadian
    • Cypriot
    • Pamphylian


West and non-west Greek is the strongest and earliest division, with the non-west in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcado-Cyprian, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cyprian vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-west is called East Greek.

The Arcado-Cyprian group is descended more closely from the Mycenaean
Mycenaean Greece

Mycenaean Greece is a cultural period of ancient Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece....
 Greek of the Bronze Age.

Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree.

Pamphylian
Pamphylian Greek

Pamphylian is a little-attested and isolated dialect of Ancient Greek which was spoken in Pamphylia, on the southern coast of Asia Minor. Its origins and relation to other Greek dialects are uncertain....
, spoken in a small area on the south-western coast of Asia Minor and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence.

Ancient Macedonian
Ancient Macedonian language

Ancient Macedonian was the language of the ancient Macedonians. It was spoken in Macedonia during the 1st millennium BC. From the 4th century BC, it was gradually replaced by the Koine Greek dialect of the Hellenistic period....
 was an Indo-European
Indo-European languages

The Indo-European languages are a Language family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau , Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent ....
 language closely related to Greek, but its exact relationship is unclear: possibly a dialect of Greek; a sibling language to Greek; or a close cousin to Greek, and perhaps related to some extent, to Thracian
Thracian language

The Thracian language was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times by the Thracians in South-Eastern Europe....
 and Phrygian
Phrygian language

The Phrygian language was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, a people from Thrace who later migrated to Asia Minor.Inscriptions...
 languages.

Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan
Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
 Doric), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian
Doric Greek

Doric or Dorian was a ancient Greek dialects of ancient Greek Greek language. Its variants 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....
, the dialect of Sparta
Sparta

Sparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the Eurotas River in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From circa 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars....
), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian).

The Lesbian dialect was a member of the Aegean/Asiatic Aeolic sub-group.

All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects.

The dialects outside the Ionic group are known mainly from inscriptions, notable exceptions being fragments of the works of the poetess from the island of Lesbos
Lesbos Island

Lesbos is a Greece List of islands of Greece located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of 1632 Square kilometre with 320 kilometres of coastline, making it the third largest Greek island and the largest of the numerous Greek islands scattered in the Aegean....
, Sappho, and the poems of the Spartan poet, Pindar.

After the conquests of Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
 in the 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine
Koine Greek

Koine Greek is the popular form of Greek which emerged in post-Classical antiquity . Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Common, or New Testament Greek....
 or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek
Attic Greek

Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek"....
, but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived to the present in the form of the Tsakonian
Tsakonian language

Tsakonian, Tzakonian or Tsakonic is a Varieties of Modern Greek spoken in the Tsakonia of the Peloponnese, Greece. It is named after its speakers, the 'Tsakonian people', which is held to be an alteration of 'Laconians' - although Tsakonians themselves did not traditionally use this ethnonym....
 dialect of Modern Greek
Modern Greek

Modern Greek refers the varieties of Greek spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic modern features of the language had been present centuries earli...
. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek
Dimotiki

Dimotiki or Demotic is the modern Greek vernacular form of the Greek language. The term has been in use since 1818. Dimotiki refers particularly to the form of the language that evolved, with foreign infuence, from ancient Greek, in opposition to the archaic and artificial Katharevousa, which was the official standard until 1976....
. By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
Medieval Greek

Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek , is a cover term for all forms of the Greek language that were spoken and written during the time of the Byzantine Empire....
.

Sound changes

These sound changes since Proto-Greek
Proto-Greek language

The Proto-Greek language is the assumed last common ancestor of all known varieties of Greek language, including Mycenaean Greek language, the ancient Greek ancient Greek dialects , and ultimately Koine Greek, Medieval Greek and modern Greek....
 affect most or all Ancient Greek dialects:
  • Syllabic
    Syllabic consonant

    A syllabic consonant is a consonant which either forms a syllable on its own, or is the nucleus of a syllable. The diacritic for this in the International Phonetic Alphabet is the under-stroke, , at Unicode code point U+329....
     /r/, /l/ become /ro/ and /lo/ in Mycenean Greek, Aeolic Greek
    Aeolic Greek

    Aeolic or Aeolian Greek is a Linguistics term used to describe a set of rather Archaic period in Greece Greek language sub-dialects, spoken mainly in Boeotia , in Lesbos Island and in other Greek colonies....
    ; otherwise /ra/ and /la/, but /ar/ and /al/ before resonants
    Sonorant

    In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. Essentially this means a sound that's "squeezed out" or "spat out" is not a sonorant....
     and analogously. Example: Indo-European becomes Aeolic strotos, otherwise stratos, "army".
  • Loss of /h/ from original /s/ (except initially) and of /j/. Examples: treis "three" from *treyes; Doric nikaas "having conquered" for nikahas from nikasas.
  • Loss of /w/ in many dialects (later than loss of /h/ and /j/). Example: etos "year" from wetos.
  • Loss of labiovelar
    Labiovelar consonant

    The term labiovelar is ambiguous. It may mean Labial-velar consonant , or it may mean labialization velar consonant .When the manner of articulation is a stop consonant, nasal consonant, or fricative consonant, these are quite different....
    s, which were converted (mostly) into labials, sometimes into dentals or velars.
  • Contraction of adjacent vowels resulting from loss of /h/ and /j/ (and, to a lesser extent, from loss of /w/); more in Attic Greek
    Attic Greek

    Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek"....
     than elsewhere.
  • Rise of a distinctive circumflex
    Circumflex

    The circumflex is a diacritic mark used in written Serbian language, Croatian language, Esperanto, French language, West Frisian language, Norwegian language, Romanian language, Slovak language, Vietnamese language, Romaji, Romanization of Persian, Welsh language, Portuguese language, Italian language, Afrikaans language, Turkish language...
     accent, resulting from contraction and certain other changes.
  • Limitation of the accent to the last three syllables, with various further restrictions.
  • Loss of /n/ before /s/ (incompletely in Cretan Greek), with compensatory lengthening
    Compensatory lengthening

    Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda....
     of the preceding vowel.


Note that /w/ and /j/, when following a vowel and not preceding a vowel, combined early on with the vowel to form a diphthong and were thus not lost.

The loss of /h/ and /w/ after a consonant were often accompanied by compensatory lengthening
Compensatory lengthening

Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda....
 of a preceding vowel. The loss of /j/ after a consonant was accompanied by a large number of complex changes, including diphthongization of a preceding vowel or palatalization
Palatalization

Palatalization or palatalisation generally refers to two phenomena:*As a process or the result of a process, the effect that front vowels and the palatal approximant frequently have on consonants;...
 or other change to a directly preceding consonant. Some examples:
  • /pj/, /bj/, /phj/ ? /pt/
  • /lj/ ? /ll/
  • /tj/, /thj/, /kj/, /khj/ ? /s/ when following a consonant; otherwise /ss/ or /tt/ (Attic)
  • /gj/, /dj/ ? /zd/
  • /mj/, /nj/, /rj/ ? /j/ is transposed before consonant and forms a diphthong with the preceding vowel
  • /wj/, /sj/ ? /j/, forming a diphthong with the preceding vowel


The results of vowel contraction were complex from dialect to dialect. Such contractions occur in the inflection of a number of different noun and verb classes and are among the most difficult aspects of Ancient Greek grammar. They were particularly important in the large class of contracted verbs, denominative verbs formed from nouns and adjectives ending in a vowel. (In fact, the reflex of contracted verbs in Modern Greek
Modern Greek

Modern Greek refers the varieties of Greek spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic modern features of the language had been present centuries earli...
—i.e., the set of verbs derived from Ancient Greek contracted verbs—represents one of the two main classes of verbs in that language.)

Phonology


The pronunciation of Post-Classic Greek
Koine Greek

Koine Greek is the popular form of Greek which emerged in post-Classical antiquity . Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Common, or New Testament Greek....
 changed considerably from Ancient Greek, although the orthography still reflects features of the older language (see W. Sidney Allen, Vox Graeca a guide to the pronunciation of Classical Greek). For a detailed description on the phonology
Phonology

Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system....
 changes from Ancient to Hellenistic periods of the Greek language
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
, see the article on Koine Greek
Koine Greek

Koine Greek is the popular form of Greek which emerged in post-Classical antiquity . Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Common, or New Testament Greek....
.

The examples below are intended to represent Attic Greek in the 5th century BC. Although ancient pronunciation can never be reconstructed with certainty, Greek in particular is very well documented from this period, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represented.

Vowels


Short vowels






























  Front
Front vowel

A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
 Back
Back vowel

A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
  unrounded
Roundedness

In phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. That is, it is vocalic labialization....
 rounded
Roundedness

In phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. That is, it is vocalic labialization....
 unrounded
Roundedness

In phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. That is, it is vocalic labialization....
 rounded
Roundedness

In phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. That is, it is vocalic labialization....
Close
Close vowel

A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
    
Mid
Close-mid vowel

A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel....
    
Open
Open vowel

An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth....


Long vowels






































  Front
Front vowel

A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
 Back
Back vowel

A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
  unrounded
Roundedness

In phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. That is, it is vocalic labialization....
 rounded
Roundedness

In phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. That is, it is vocalic labialization....
 unrounded
Roundedness

In phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. That is, it is vocalic labialization....
 rounded
Roundedness

In phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. That is, it is vocalic labialization....
Close
Close vowel

A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
    
Close-mid
Close-mid vowel

A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel....
    
Open-mid
Open-mid vowel

The open-mid vowels make a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel....
    
Open
Open vowel

An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth....


probably raised to by the fourth century BC.

Compensatory lengthening

There are different schemes for compensatory lengthening, depending on where it happens. The differences are in whether becomes or , and whether and become the closed values and or the open ones and .

Consonants


Front
Front vowel

A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
 Back
Back vowel

A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
Bilabial
Bilabial consonant

In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
 Dental
Dental consonant

In linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , , , and in some languages....
 Velar
Velar consonant

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the Soft palate)....
 Glottal
Glottal consonant

Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider them to be consonants at all....
Plosive
Stop consonant

A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms....
  
Aspirated
Aspiration (phonetics)

In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of Earth's atmosphere that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents....
 Plosive
Stop consonant

A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms....
  
Nasal
Nasal consonant

A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered soft palate in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the tongue....
  
Trill
Trill consonant

In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr > as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular trill....
   ~    
Fricative
Fricative consonant

Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two Place of articulation close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German language , the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue ag...
    
Lateral approximant
Lateral consonant

Laterals are "L"-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue....
      


was an allophone
Allophone

In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words: That is, changing a phoneme in a word can produce another word....
 of , used before voiced consonants; occurred as an allophone of used before velars and as an allophone of before nasals, while , written , was probably a voiceless allophone of used word initially.

Consonant classes

There are three main classes of consonants:
  • Stops. This include three subclasses: velars , labials , and dentals .
  • Sonorants are .
  • Fricatives are .


Contractions

In verb conjugation, one consonant often comes up against the other. Various sandhi
Sandhi

Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonology processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words....
 rules apply.

Rules:
  • Most basic rule: When two sounds appear next to each other, the first assimilates in voicing and aspiration to the second.
    • This applies fully to stops. Fricatives assimilate only in voicing, sonorants do not assimilate.
  • Before an (future, aorist stem), velars become , labials become , and dentals disappear.
  • Before a (aorist passive stem), velars become , labials become , and dentals become .
  • Before an (perfect middle first-singular, first-plural, participle), velars become , nasal+velar becomes , labials become , dentals become , other sonorants remain the same.


Morphology


Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages

The Indo-European languages are a Language family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau , Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent ....
, is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, linguistic reconstruction common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans....
 forms. In Ancient Greek noun
Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open class lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
s (including proper nouns) have five cases
Declension

In linguistics, declension is the occurrence of inflection in nouns, pronouns and adjectives, indicating such features as grammatical number , grammatical case , and grammatical gender....
 (nominative
Nominative case

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
, genitive, dative
Dative case

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave a book to Mary"....
, accusative
Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions....
 and vocative
Vocative case

The vocative case is the declension used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence....
), three genders
Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
 (masculine
Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
, feminine
Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
 and neuter
Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
), and three numbers
Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
 (singular, dual
Dual (grammatical number)

Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun....
 and plural
Plural

Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers....
). Verb
Verb

In syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its grammatical tense, grammatical aspect, grammatical mood and grammatical voice....
s have four moods
Grammatical mood

Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive verb forms that are used to signal Linguistic modality.It is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although these concepts are conflated to some degree in many languages, including English and most other modern Indo-European languages, insofar as the same word patterns are used...
 (indicative, imperative
Imperative mood

The imperative mood is a grammatical mood that expresses direct commands or requests. It is also used to signal a prohibition, permission or any other kind of exhortation....
, subjunctive
Subjunctive mood

In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb grammatical mood that exists in many languages. It is typically used in dependent clauses to express wishes, commands, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or statements that are contrary to fact at present....
, and optative
Optative mood

The optative mood is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope. It is similar to the cohortative mood, and closely related to the subjunctive mood....
), three voices
Grammatical voice

In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its verb arguments ....
 (active
Grammatical voice

In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its verb arguments ....
, middle
Grammatical voice

In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its verb arguments ....
 and passive
English passive voice

In English language, as in many other languages, the subject of a verb in the passive voice corresponds to the object of the same verb in the active voice....
), as well as three persons
Grammatical person

Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deixis reference to a participant in an event, such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns....
 (first, second and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven tenses
Grammatical tense

Grammatical tense is a temporal language quality expressing the time at, during, or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs.Tense is one of at least five qualities, along with grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, and grammatical person, which verb forms may express....
: the present
Present tense

The present tense is the Grammatical tense that may be used to express:* action at the present* a state of being;* a habitual action;* an occurrence in the near future; or...
, future
Future tense

In grammar, the future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future ....
 and imperfect
Imperfect tense

The imperfect tense, in the classical grammar of several Indo-European languages, denotes a past tense with an imperfective aspect. In English, it is referred to as the past continuous tense....
 tenses are imperfective
Imperfective aspect

The imperfective aspect is a grammatical aspect. It refers to an action that is viewed from a particular viewpoint as ongoing, habitual, repeated, or generally containing internal structure....
 in aspect
Grammatical aspect

In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb defines the temporal flow in the described event or state. In English, for example, the past-tense sentences "I swam" and "I was swimming" differ in aspect ....
; the aorist tense
Aorist

Aorist is an grammatical aspect or, used more specifically, a verb grammatical tense in some Indo-European languages such as Greek language. The term is also used for unrelated concepts in some other languages, such as Turkish language....
 (perfective aspect
Perfective aspect

In grammar, the perfective aspect is an grammatical aspect that exists in many languages. The term "perfective aspect" is generally used to refer to an action viewed as a single whole, and it is equivalent to the aspectual component of tenses variously called "aorist", "preterite", and "simple past"....
); a present-perfect
Perfect aspect

The perfect aspect is variously considered either an grammatical aspect or grammatical tense which calls a listener's attention to the consequences generated by an action, rather than the action itself....
, pluperfect
Pluperfect tense

The pluperfect tense , also called past perfect in English language, is a perfective grammatical tense that exists in most Indo-European languages, used to refer to an event that has been completed before another past action....
 and future perfect
Future perfect tense

The future perfect tense is used to describe an event that has not yet happened but is expected or planned to happen before another stated occurrence....
 (all with perfect aspect
Perfect aspect

The perfect aspect is variously considered either an grammatical aspect or grammatical tense which calls a listener's attention to the consequences generated by an action, rather than the action itself....
). Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. There are infinitives and participles corresponding to the finite combinations of tense, aspect and voice.

Augment


The indicative of past tense
Grammatical tense

Grammatical tense is a temporal language quality expressing the time at, during, or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs.Tense is one of at least five qualities, along with grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, and grammatical person, which verb forms may express....
s adds (conceptually, at least) a prefix /e-/. This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual
Grammatical aspect

In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb defines the temporal flow in the described event or state. In English, for example, the past-tense sentences "I swam" and "I was swimming" differ in aspect ....
 meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist
Aorist

Aorist is an grammatical aspect or, used more specifically, a verb grammatical tense in some Indo-European languages such as Greek language. The term is also used for unrelated concepts in some other languages, such as Turkish language....
, imperfect
Imperfect tense

The imperfect tense, in the classical grammar of several Indo-European languages, denotes a past tense with an imperfective aspect. In English, it is referred to as the past continuous tense....
 and pluperfect
Pluperfect tense

The pluperfect tense , also called past perfect in English language, is a perfective grammatical tense that exists in most Indo-European languages, used to refer to an event that has been completed before another past action....
, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist).

There are two kinds of augment in Greek, syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r, however, add er). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel:
  • a, a, e, e ? e
  • i, i ? i
  • o, o ? o
  • u, u ? u
  • ai ? ei
  • ei ? ei or ei
  • oi ? oi
  • au ? eu or au
  • eu ? eu or eu
  • ou ? ou


Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e ? ei. The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels.

Following Homer
Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry, especially epic
Homeric Greek

Homeric Greek is the form of Ancient Greek that was used by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey. It is an archaic version of Ionic Greek, with admixtures from certain other dialects, such as Aeolic Greek....
 poetry.

The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below.

Reduplication


Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (Note that a few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) There are three types of reduplication
Reduplication

Reduplication, in linguistics, is a morphology process by which the root or Stem of a word, or part of it, is repeated.Reduplication is used in inflections to convey a grammatical function, such as plurality, intensification, etc., and in lexical Derivation to create new words....
:
  • Syllabic reduplication: Most verbs beginning with a single consonant, or a cluster of a stop with a sonorant, add a syllable consisting of the initial consonant followed by e. An aspirated consonant, however, reduplicates in its unaspirated equivalent: Grassmann's law
    Grassmann's Law

    Grassmann's law, named after its discoverer Hermann Grassmann, is a dissimilatory phonological process in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit which states that if an Aspiration d consonant is followed by another aspirated consonant in the next syllable, the first one loses the aspiration....
    .
  • Augment: Verbs beginning with a vowel, as well as those beginning with a cluster other than those indicated previously (and occasionally for a few other verbs) reduplicate in the same fashion as the augment. This remains in all forms of the perfect, not just the indicative.
  • Attic reduplication: Some verbs beginning with an a, e or o, followed by a sonorant (or occasionally d or g), reduplicate by adding a syllable consisting of the initial vowel and following consonant, and lengthening the following vowel. Hence er ? erer, an ? anen, ol ? olol, ed ? eded. This is not actually specific to Attic Greek
    Attic Greek

    Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek"....
    , despite its name; but it was generalized in Attic. This originally involved reduplicating a cluster consisting of a laryngeal
    Laryngeal theory

    The laryngeal theory is a generally accepted theory of historical linguistics which proposes the existence of a set of three consonant sounds known as "laryngeals" that appear in most current reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European language ....
     and sonorant; hence h3l ? h3leh3l ? olol with normal Greek development of laryngeals. (Forms with a stop were analogous.)


Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambano (root lab) has the perfect stem eilepha (not *lelepha) because it was originally slambano, with perfect seslepha, becoming eilepha through (semi-)regular change.

Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i. A nasal consonant appears after the reduplication in some verbs.

Writing system


Ancient Greek was written in the Greek alphabet
Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th century BC or early 8th century BCE....
, with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon
Boustrophedon

Boustrophedon , is an ancient way of writing manuscripts and other inscriptions.Rather than going from left to right as in modern English language, or right to left as in Hebrew language and Arabic language, alternate lines must be read in opposite directions....
 style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of Ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks
Greek diacritics

Greek orthography has used a variety of diacritics starting in the Hellenistic period. The complex polytonic orthography which notated Ancient Greek phonology was used until 1982, when it was supplanted by the simplified monotonic orthography, which corresponds to Modern Greek phonology, and requires only two diacritics....
, interword spacing, modern punctuation
Punctuation

Punctuation is everything in written language other than the actual letters or numbers, including punctuation marks , Interword separation and indentation....
, and sometimes mixed case
Capitalization

Capitalization is writing a word with its first grapheme as a majuscule and the remaining letters in Lower case , in those writing systems which have a letter case....
, but these were all introduced later.

Example text

The following polytonic Greek text is from the Apology
Apology (Plato)

Apology is Plato's version of the Speech given by Socrates as he defends himself against the charges of being a man "who corrupted the young, refused to worship the deity, and created new deities"....
 by Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
:


Transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme
Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching

Ancient Greek has been pronounced in various ways by those studying Ancient Greek literature in various times and places. This article covers those pronunciations; the modern scholarly reconstruction of its ancient pronunciation is covered in Ancient Greek phonology....
:


Translated into English:
What you, men of Athens, have learned from my accusers, I do not know: but I, for my part, nearly forgot who I was thanks to them since they spoke so persuasively. And yet, of the truth, they have spoken, one might say, nothing at all.


Modern use of Ancient Greek

In most Western education systems, the study of Ancient Greek in addition to Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 occupied an important place in the syllabus until the beginning of the 20th century. Ancient Greek is still taught as a compulsory or optional subject especially at traditional or élite schools throughout Europe, such as Public school
Public school

The term public school has two distinct meanings depending on the location of usage:* in the United States, Australia and Canada: A school funded from tax revenue and most commonly administered to some degree by government or local government agencies....
s and Grammar school
Grammar school

A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries....
s in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
, the Liceo classico
Liceo classico

Liceo classico is a secondary school type in Italy. It lasts 5 years .Until 1968, this was the only secondary education track that allowed the student to access to any university; nowadays it has still the fame of a highly formative school and it is one of the few European secondary school where ancient languages and their literature are...
 in Italy
Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
, the Humanistisches Gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English Grammar schools in the United Kingdoms or sixth form colleges and U.S....
 in Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 (usually as a 3rd language after Latin and English, from age 14 till 18). In 2006/07, 15,000 pupils studied Greek in Germany according to Statistisches Bundesamt. Moreover it's an optional subject, though rarely studied, in American high schools. Ancient Greek is also taught at most major universities
University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education....
 worldwide, often combined with Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 as part of Classics
Classics

Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean World; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity ....
.

Ancient Greek is often used in the coinage of modern technical terms in the European languages: see English words of Greek origin
English words of Greek origin

The Greek language has contributed to the English language vocabulary in three ways:#directly as an immediate donor,#indirectly through other intermediate language, as an original donor , and...
.

Modern authors rarely write in Ancient Greek, though Jan Kresadlo
Jan Kresadlo

Jan Kresadlo was the primary pseudonym used by V?clav Jaroslav Karel Pinkava , a Czech people psychologist who was also a prizewinning novelist and poet....
 wrote some poetry and prose in Ancient Greek, some volumes of Asterix
Asterix

The Adventures of Asterix is a List of Asterix volumes of France comic strips written by Ren? Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo . The series first appeared in French in the magazine Pilote on 29 October 1959....
 have been written in Attic Greek and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the first novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling and featuring Harry Potter , a young Wizarding world....
 has been translated into Ancient Greek as well.

Ancient Greek is also used by, mainly Greek, organizations and individuals who wish to denote their respect, admiration or preference to the use of this language. This use is sometimes considered graphical, nationalistic or funny. In any case, the fact that modern Greeks can still wholly or partly understand texts written in non-archaic forms of ancient Greek shows the affinity of modern Greek language to its ancestral predecessor.

See also

  • Greek alphabet
    Greek alphabet

    The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th century BC or early 8th century BCE....
  • Greek diacritics
    Greek diacritics

    Greek orthography has used a variety of diacritics starting in the Hellenistic period. The complex polytonic orthography which notated Ancient Greek phonology was used until 1982, when it was supplanted by the simplified monotonic orthography, which corresponds to Modern Greek phonology, and requires only two diacritics....
  • Koine Greek
    Koine Greek

    Koine Greek is the popular form of Greek which emerged in post-Classical antiquity . Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Common, or New Testament Greek....
  • Medieval Greek
    Medieval Greek

    Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek , is a cover term for all forms of the Greek language that were spoken and written during the time of the Byzantine Empire....
  • Modern Greek
    Modern Greek

    Modern Greek refers the varieties of Greek spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic modern features of the language had been present centuries earli...
  • Greek language
    Greek language

    Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
  • List of Greek phrases
    List of Greek phrases

    List of Greek language Phrases/Proverbs...
     (mostly Ancient Greek)


External links