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The Proto-Greek language is the assumed last common ancestor of all known varieties of Greek
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....
, including Mycenaean, the classical Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
 dialects (Attic
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"....
-Ionic
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....
, Aeolic
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....
, 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....
 and Northwest Greek
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....
), and ultimately 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....
, Byzantine
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....
 and 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...
. Most scholars would include the fragmentary ancient Macedonian language
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....
, either as descended from an earlier "Proto-Hellenic" language, or by definition including it among the descendants of Proto-Greek as a Hellenic language and/or a Greek dialect.

Proto-Greek would have been spoken in the late 3rd millennium BC, most probably in the Balkans
Balkans

The Balkans is the historical name of a geographic subregion of southeastern Europe. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains, which run through the centre of Bulgaria into eastern Serbia....
.






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The Proto-Greek language is the assumed last common ancestor of all known varieties of Greek
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....
, including Mycenaean, the classical Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
 dialects (Attic
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"....
-Ionic
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....
, Aeolic
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....
, 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....
 and Northwest Greek
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....
), and ultimately 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....
, Byzantine
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....
 and 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...
. Most scholars would include the fragmentary ancient Macedonian language
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....
, either as descended from an earlier "Proto-Hellenic" language, or by definition including it among the descendants of Proto-Greek as a Hellenic language and/or a Greek dialect.

Proto-Greek would have been spoken in the late 3rd millennium BC, most probably in the Balkans
Balkans

The Balkans is the historical name of a geographic subregion of southeastern Europe. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains, which run through the centre of Bulgaria into eastern Serbia....
. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic
Greeks

The Greeks , also known as Hellenes, are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighbouring regions, who can also be found in Greek diaspora communities around the world....
 migrants, speaking the predecessor of the Mycenaean language
Mycenaean language

Mycenaean is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, spoken on the Greek mainland and on Crete in the Mycenaean period, before the Dorian invasion....
, entered the Greek peninsula either around the 21st century BC, or in the 17th century BC at the latest. They were separated from the Dorian Greeks, who entered the peninsula roughly one millennium later (see 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....
, Greek Dark Ages
Greek Dark Ages

The Greek Dark Ages refers to Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean civilization in the 12th century BC, to the first Ancient Greece poleiss in the 9th century BC....
), speaking a dialect that had in some respects remained more archaic.

The evolution of Proto-Greek should be considered with the background of an early Palaeo-Balkan
Paleo-Balkan languages

The Paleo-Balkan languages is a geo-linguistic concept referring to the Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans in ancient times....
 sprachbund
Sprachbund

A Sprachbund , from the German language word for ?language union?, also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads, is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact....
 that makes it difficult to delineate exact boundaries between individual languages. The characteristically Greek representation of word-initial laryngeals by prothetic vowels is shared by the Armenian language
Armenian language

The 'Armenian language' is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenians. It is the official language of the Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh....
, which also shares other phonological and morphological peculiarities of Greek. The close relatedness of Armenian and Greek
Graeco-Armenian

Graeco-Armenian refers to the hypothesis that the Greek language and the Armenian language share a common ancestor postdating the Proto-Indo-European language ....
 sheds light on the paraphyletic nature of the Centum-Satem isogloss
Centum-Satem isogloss

The Centum-Satem division is an isogloss of the Indo-European languages family, related to the evolution of the three dorsal consonant rows reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European language, * , * , and *; ....
.

Close similarities between Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
 and Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit

Vedic Sanskrit is an Old Indic language. It is the language of the Vedas, the oldest shruti texts of Hinduism, compiled over the period of the mid 2nd to mid 1st millennium BC....
 suggest that both Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian
Proto-Indo-Iranian language

Proto-Indo-Iranian, is the Linguistic reconstruction proto-language of the Indo-Iranian languages branch of Indo-European language. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd millennium BC, and are usually connected with the early Andronovo archaeological horizon....
 were still quite similar to either late 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....
, which would place the latter somewhere in the late 4th millennium BC, or a post-PIE Graeco-Aryan proto-language. Graeco-Aryan has little support among linguists, since both geographical and temporal distribution of Greek and Indo-Iranian fit well with the Kurgan hypothesis
Kurgan hypothesis

The Kurgan hypothesis is one of the proposals about early Indo-European origins, which postulates that the people of an archaeological "Kurgan culture" in the Pontic steppe were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language....
 of Proto-Indo-European.

Phonology

Greek is a Centum language, which would place a possible Graeco-Aryan protolanguage before Satemization, making it identical to late PIE. Proto-Greek does appear to have been affected by the general trend of 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;...
 characteristic of the Satem group, evidenced for example by the (post-Mycenaean) change of labiovelars into dentals before e (e.g. kwe > te "and"), but the Satemizing influence appears to have reached Greek only after it had lost the palatovelars (i.e. after it had already become a Centum language).

The primary sound changes separating Proto-Greek from the Proto-Indo-European language
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....
 included:
  • Aspiration of /s/ -> /h/ intervocalically
  • De-voicing of voiced aspirates.
  • Dissimilation of aspirates (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....
    ), possibly post-Mycenaean.
  • word-initial y- (not Hy-) is strengthened to dy- (later ?-)


The loss of prevocalic *s was not completed entirely, famously evidenced by sus "sow", dasus "dense"; sun "with" is another example, contaminated with PIE *kom (Latin cum, Proto-Greek *kon) to Homeric / Old Attic ksun.

Sound changes between Proto-Greek and Mycenaean include:
  • Loss of final stop consonants; final /m/ -> /n/.
  • Syllabic /m/ and /n/ -> /am/, /an/ before resonants; otherwise /a/.
  • Vocalization of laryngeals between vowels and initially before consonants to /e/, /a/, /o/ from h1, h2, h3 respectively.
  • The sequence CRHC (C = consonant, R = resonant, H = laryngeal) becomes CReC, CRaC, CRoC from H = h1, h2, h3 respectively.
  • The sequence CRHV (C = consonant, R = resonant, H = laryngeal, V = vowel) becomes CaRV.
  • loss of s in consonant clusters, with supplementary lengthening of the preceding vowel: esmi -> emi
  • creation of secondary s from clusters, ntia -> nsa. Assibilation ti -> si only in southern dialects.


These sound changes are already complete in Mycenaean. For changes affecting most or all later dialects see Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
.

Morphology


Noun

The PIE dative, instrumental and locative cases are syncretized into a single dative case. Some desinences are innovated (dative plural -si from locative plural -su).

Nominative plural -oi, -ai replaces late PIE -os, -as.

The superlative on -tatos becomes productive.

The peculiar oblique stem gunaik- "women", attested from the Thebes tablets
Thebes tablets

The Thebes tablets are clay tablets discovered at the city of Thebes, Greece, with inscriptions in the Mycenaean Greek language in the Linear B script....
 is probably Proto-Greek; it appears, at least as gunai- also in Armenian
Armenian language

The 'Armenian language' is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenians. It is the official language of the Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh....
.

Pronoun

The pronouns houtos, ekeinos and autos are created. Use of ho, ha, ton as articles is post-Mycenaean.

Verb

An isogloss between Greek and the closely related 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...
 is the absence of r-endings in the Middle Voice
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 ....
 in Greek, apparently already lost in Proto-Greek.

Proto-Greek inherited the augment, a prefix é- to verbal forms expressing past tense. This feature it shares only with Indo-Iranian and Phrygian (and to some extent, Armenian
Armenian language

The 'Armenian language' is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenians. It is the official language of the Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh....
), lending some support to an "Graeco-Aryan" or "Inner PIE" proto-dialect. However, the augment down to the time of Homer remained optional, and was probably little more than a free sentence particle meaning "previously" in the proto-language, that may easily have been lost by most other branches.

The first person middle verbal desinences -mai, -man replace -ai, -a. The third singular pherei is an innovation by analogy, replacing the expected Doric *phereti, Ionic *pheresi (from PIE *).

The future tense is created, including a future passive, as well as an aorist passive.

The suffix -ka- is attached to some perfects and aorists.

Infinitives in -ehen, -enai and -men are created.

Numerals


  • "one": nominative *hens, genitive *hemos; feminine *mhia (> Myc. e-me /hemei/(dative); Att./Ion. , heis (henos), mia).


  • "two": *duwo (> Myc. du-wo /duwo/; Hom. , dyo; Att.-Ion. , dyo)


  • "three": nominative *trees, accusative trins (> Myc. ti-ri /trins/; Att./Ion. , treis; Lesb. , tres; Cret. , trees)


  • "four": nominative *kwetwores, genitive *kweturon (> Myc. qe-to-ro-we /kwetrowes/ "four-eared"; Att. , tettares; Ion. , tesseres; Boeot. , pettares; Thess. , pittares; Lesb. , pisyres; Dor. , tetores)


  • "five": *penkwe (> Att.-Ion. , pente; Lesb., Thess. , pempe)


Example text

Eduard Schwyzer
Eduard Schwyzer

Eduard Schwyzer was a Swiss Classical Antiquity philologist and Indo-European studies linguist, specializing in Ancient Greek and Ancient Greek dialects....
 in his Griechische Grammatik (1939, I.74-75) has translated famous lines of Classical Greek into Proto-Greek. His reconstruction was ignorant of Mycenaean
Mycenaean language

Mycenaean is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, spoken on the Greek mainland and on Crete in the Mycenaean period, before the Dorian invasion....
 and assumes Proto-Greek loss of labiovelars and syllabic resonants, among other things. Thus, Schwyzer's reconstruction corresponds to an archaic but post-Mycenaean dialect rather than actual Proto-Greek.

  Classical Greek Proto-Greek
Schwyzer Modern
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....
, 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"....
 *çokwid man umhe. o aneres Athanaďoi, pepăsthe upo katagoron meho. oju woida; ego de on kai autos up’ auton oligoço emeho autoço epi lathoman, to pithano elegont. kai toi ălathes ge ço wekwos weikwehen oude hen wewrekăti
Matthew
Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel of Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels in the New Testament and is a synoptic gospel. It narrates an account of the New Testament view on Jesus' life and Ministry of Jesus of Jesus of Nazareth....
 6:9		 *pater ămhon ho worhanoihi, çagion estod enumă tweho
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....
, Odyssey
Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Hellenic civilization epic poetrys attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer....
 1.1		 *aneră moi enhekwet, montsa, polutrokwon


Notes: The reconstruction assumes that the old combinations of sonorant
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....
s + s in either sequence were pronounced as unvoiced sonorants before they were simplified as short voiced sonorants with compensatory lengthening in most dialects or as long voiced sonorants in Aeolic. It is also assumed that the PIE syllabic nasals
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....
  was pronounced as nasal
Nasal vowel

A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the Soft palate so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. The term stands in opposition to the term "oral vowel" refers to an ordinary vowel without this nasalisation....
 , before it split into in most dialects and as a variant in some dialects (Mycenaean, Arcadian, Aeolic).

See also

  • Proto-language
    Proto-language

    A proto-language is the common ancestor of the languages that form a language family. Occasionally, the German language term Ursprache is used instead....
  • Hellenes
    Greeks

    The Greeks , also known as Hellenes, are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighbouring regions, who can also be found in Greek diaspora communities around the world....
  • Ancient Macedonian language
    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....
  • Paleo-Balkan languages
    Paleo-Balkan languages

    The Paleo-Balkan languages is a geo-linguistic concept referring to the Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans in ancient times....
  • Pre-Greek substrate
  • Proto-Indo-European language
    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....
  • Kafkania pebble
    Kafkania pebble

    The Kafkania pebble was found in Kafkania, some north of Olympia, Greece, in 1994. It bears a short inscription of eight syllabic signs in Linear B, possibly reading ....