The
Proto-Greek language is the assumed last common ancestor of all known varieties of
GreekGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, including Mycenaean, the
classical GreekAncient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
dialects (
AtticAttic 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". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
-
IonicIonic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History: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.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
,
AeolicAeolic Greek is a linguistic term used to describe a set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia , Thessaly, and in the Aegean island of Lesbos and the Greek colonies of Asia Minor ....
,
DoricDoric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. 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. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...
and Arcado-Cypriot), and ultimately
KoineKoine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
,
ByzantineMedieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, is the stage of the Greek language between the beginning of the Middle Ages around 600 and the Ottoman conquest of the city of Constantinople in 1453. The latter date marked the end of the Middle Ages in Southeast Europe...
and
modern GreekModern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language 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...
. Some scholars would include the fragmentary
ancient Macedonian languageAncient Macedonian was the language of the ancient Macedonians. It was spoken in the kingdom of Macedon during the 1st millennium BCE and it belongs to the Indo-European group of languages...
, either as descended from an earlier "
Proto-Hellenic" language, or by definition including it among the descendants of Proto-Greek as a
Hellenic languageHellenic, as a technical term in historical linguistics, is the branch of the Indo-European language family that includes Greek . According to most traditional classifications, Hellenic contains only Greek as a single language alone in its branch, and is as such co-extensive with "Greek"...
and/or a Greek dialect.
Proto-Greek would have been spoken in the late
3rd millennium BCThe 3rd millennium BC spans the Early to Middle Bronze Age.It represents a period of time in which imperialism, or the desire to conquer, grew to prominence, in the city states of the Middle East, but also throughout Eurasia, with Indo-European expansion to Anatolia, Europe and Central Asia. The...
, most probably in the
BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as
HellenicThe Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
migrants, speaking the predecessor of the
Mycenaean languageMycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, spoken on the Greek mainland, Crete and Cyprus in the 16th to 12th centuries BC, before the hypothesised Dorian invasion which was often cited as the terminus post quem for the coming of the Greek language to Greece...
, entered the
Greek peninsulaGreece is a country located in Southern Europe, on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula. Greece is surrounded on the north by Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia and Albania; to the west by the Ionian Sea; to the south by the Mediterranean Sea and to the east by the Aegean Sea and Turkey...
either around the
21st century BCThe 21st century BC is a century which lasted from the year 2100 BC to 2001 BC.- Events :Note: all dates from this long ago should be regarded as either approximate or conjectural; there are no absolutely certain dates, and multiple competing reconstructed chronologies, for this time period.* c....
, or in the
17th century BCThe 17th century BC is a century which lasted from 1700 BC to 1601 BC.-Events:*c. 1700 BC: Indus Valley Civilization comes to an end but is continued by the Cemetery H culture*1700 BC: Belu-bani became the King of Assyria....
at the latest.
The evolution of Proto-Greek should be considered with the background of an early
Palaeo-BalkanPaleo-Balkan is a geolinguistic term referring to the Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans in ancient times. Except for Greek and the language that gave rise to Albanian , they are all extinct, due to Hellenization, Romanization, and Slavicisation.- Classification :The following...
sprachbundA Sprachbund – 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. They may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related...
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 languageThe Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...
, which also shares other phonological and morphological peculiarities of Greek. The
close relatedness of Armenian and GreekGraeco-Armenian is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Greek and Armenian languages which postdates the Proto-Indo-European...
sheds light on the paraphyletic nature of the
Centum-Satem isoglossThe centum-satem division is an isogloss of the Indo-European language family, related to the different evolution of the three dorsal consonant rows of the mainstream reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European:...
.
Close similarities between
Ancient GreekAncient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
and
Vedic SanskritVedic Sanskrit is an old Indo-Aryan language. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the oldest preserved Iranian language...
suggest that both Proto-Greek and
Proto-Indo-IranianProto-Indo-Iranian is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. 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...
were still quite similar to either late
Proto-Indo-EuropeanThe Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
, which would place the latter somewhere in the late
4th millennium BCThe 4th millennium BC saw major changes in human culture. It marked the beginning of the Bronze Age and of writing.The city states of Sumer and the kingdom of Egypt were established and grew to prominence. Agriculture spread widely across Eurasia...
, 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 hypothesisThe 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
Introduction
Greek is a Centum language, which would place a possible Graeco-Aryan protolanguage before
SatemizationThe centum-satem division is an isogloss of the Indo-European language family, related to the different evolution of the three dorsal consonant rows of the mainstream reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European:...
, making it identical to late PIE. Proto-Greek does appear to have been affected by the general trend of
palatalizationIn linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
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 Greek had lost the palatovelars (i.e. after it had already become a Centum language).
Proto-Greek changes
The primary sound changes separating Proto-Greek from the
Proto-Indo-European languageThe Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
included:
- Debuccalization
Debuccalization is a sound change in which a consonant loses its original place of articulation and becomes or . The pronunciation of a consonant as is sometimes called aspiration, but in phonetics aspiration is the burst of air accompanying a plosive...
of /s/ to /h/ in the inter-and pre-vocalic positions (i.e. between two vowels, or if word-initial and followed by a vowel).
- De-voicing of voiced aspirates.
- strengthening
Fortition is a consonantal change from a 'weak' sound to a 'strong' one, the opposite of the more common lenition. For example, a fricative or an approximant may become a plosive...
of word-initial y- (not Hy-) to dy- (later ζ-).
- Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
of consonants followed by -y-, producing various affricates (still represented as a separate sound in Mycenaean) and palatal consonants; these later simplified, mostly losing their palatal character.
- Dissimilation
In phonology, particularly within historical linguistics, dissimilation is a phenomenon whereby similar consonant or vowel sounds in a word become less similar...
of aspirates (Grassmann's lawGrassmann's law, named after its discoverer Hermann Grassmann, is a dissimilatory phonological process in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit which states that if an aspirated consonant is followed by another aspirated consonant in the next syllable, the first one loses the aspiration...
), possibly post-Mycenaean.
- Vocalization of laryngeals
The laryngeal theory is a generally accepted theory of historical linguistics which proposes the existence of one, or a set of three , consonant sounds termed "laryngeals" that appear in most current reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European language...
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 CRēC, CRāC, CRōC from H = h₁, h₂, h₃ respectively.
- The sequence CRHV (C = consonant, R = resonant, H = laryngeal, V = vowel) becomes CaRV.
- Loss of final stop consonants; final /m/ -> /n/.
- Cowgill's law
Cowgill's law, named after Indo-Europeanist Warren Cowgill, refers to two unrelated sound changes, one occurring in Proto-Greek and the other in Proto-Germanic.-Cowgill's law in Greek:...
, raising /o/ to /u/ between a resonant and a labial.
Loss of prevocalic
*s was not completed entirely, famously evidenced by
sȳs (also
hȳs,
pigA pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...
, from PIE *suh₁-),
dasýs (dense) and
dásos (dense growth,
forestA forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
);
syn (with) is another example, contaminated with PIE
*kom (Latin
cum, Proto-Greek
*kon) to Homeric / Old Attic
ksyn.
Sélas (light in the sky, as in the "
Northern LightsAn aurora is a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude regions, caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere...
") and
selēnē/selána (the
MoonThe Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
) may be more examples of the same, if actually derived from PIE *swel- (to burn) (possibly related to
hēlios "
SunThe Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
", Ionic
hēelios <
*sāwelios).
Dissimilation of aspirates (so-called
Grassmann's lawGrassmann's law, named after its discoverer Hermann Grassmann, is a dissimilatory phonological process in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit which states that if an aspirated consonant is followed by another aspirated consonant in the next syllable, the first one loses the aspiration...
) caused an initial aspirated sound to lose its aspiration when a following aspirated consonant occurred in the same word. It was a relatively late change in Proto-Greek history and must have occurred independently of the similar dissimilation of aspirates (also known as
Grassmann's lawGrassmann's law, named after its discoverer Hermann Grassmann, is a dissimilatory phonological process in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit which states that if an aspirated consonant is followed by another aspirated consonant in the next syllable, the first one loses the aspiration...
) in
Indo-IranianThe Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of three language groups: the Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani...
, although it may represent a common areal feature. Specifically:
- It postdates the Greek-specific de-voicing of voiced aspirates.
- It also postdates the change of /s/ > /h/, as it affects /h/ as well: ékhō "I have" < *hekh- < PIE *seǵh-oh₂, but future heksō "I will have" < *heks- < Post-PIE *seǵh-s-oh₂.
- It even postdates the loss of aspiration before /y/ that accompanied second-stage palatalization (see below), which postdates both of the previous changes (as well as first-stage palatalization).
- On the other hand, it predates the development of the first aorist passive marker -thē-, since the aspirate in that marker has no effect on preceding aspirates.
Palatalization
The following table, taken from Sihler (1995), shows the evolution of clusters of consonant followed by PIE /y/, into various
palatal consonantPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
s and ultimately to the depalatalized representation seen in the Ancient Greek dialects.
| PIE | Early Pre-Greek | Late Pre-Greek | Proto-Greek | Greek |
| -py-, -bhy- |
-py-, -phy- |
-pč- |
-pt- |
| -ty-, -dhy- |
-tˢ- |
-tˢy- (restored) |
-čč- |
‑ss-, ‑tt- |
| -ḱy-, -ky-, -kʷy- |
-ky-, -kʷy- |
-ky- |
| -ǵhy-, -ghy-, -gʷhy- |
-khy-, -kʷhy- |
-khy- |
| -dy- |
-dᶻ- (?) |
-dᶻy- (? restored) |
-ǰǰ- |
‑zd- |
| -ǵy-, -gy-, -gʷy- |
-gy-, -gʷy- |
-gy- |
| -ly- |
-ly- |
-ľľ- |
‑ll- |
| -l̥y- |
-l̥y- |
-aly- |
-aľľ- |
‑all- |
| -Vny-, -Vmy-, -H̥ny-, -H̥my- |
-Vny-, -Vmy- |
-Vny- |
-Vňň- |
‑ain-, ‑ein-, ‑īn-, -oin-, ‑ūn- |
| -m̥y- -n̥y- |
-amy- -any- |
-any- |
-aňň- |
‑ain- |
| -Vry- |
-Vry- |
-Vřř- |
‑air-, ‑eir-, ‑īr-, ‑oir-, ‑ūr- |
| -r̥y- |
-r̥y |
-ary- |
-ařř- |
‑air- |
| -Vsy- |
-Vsy- |
-Vhy- |
-Vyy- |
-ai‑, -ei-, -oi-, -ui- |
| -Vwy- |
-Vwy- |
-Vẅẅ- /Vɥɥ/ > -Vyy- |
Note that there were actually two stages of palatalization. The first stage affected only the PIE clusters /ty/, /dhy/ and likely /dy/. In the case of /ty/ and /dhy/ > /thy/, the result was consistently /s-/ initially and /ts/ > /ss/ medially. In the case of /dy/, it apparently produced /dz/ consistently, eventually represented by /zd/ in
Attic GreekAttic 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". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
. Following this change, /y/ was restored after /ts/ and /dz/ in morphologically transparent formations, analogically to the /y/ that was still present after other consonants.
The second stage of palatalization then occurred, which affected all consonants, including the restored /tsy/ and /dzy/ sequences.
The evidence for these two stages comes from the differing behavior of PIE /ty/ and /dhy/ depending on whether the formation is morphologically transparent or opaque. In particular, medial /ty/ becomes Attic /s/ in opaque formations (first palatalization), but /tt/ in transparent formations (second palatalization). The following table shows the differing outcomes:
| PIE | Proto-Greek | Attic | Homeric | West Ionic | Other Ionic | Boeotian | Other |
-ty-, -dhy- (opaque formations);
-ts-, -ds-, -dhs- |
ts |
s |
s, ss |
s |
s |
tt |
ss |
-ty-, -dhy- (transparent formations);
-ḱy-, -ky-, -kʷy-;
-ǵhy-, -ghy-, -gʷhy- |
čč |
tt |
ss |
tt |
ss |
tt |
ss |
Note that the outcome of PG medial /ts/ in Homeric Greek is /s/ after a long vowel, and vacillation between /s/ and /ss/ after a short vowel:
tátēsi dat. pl. "rug" <
tátēt-,
possí(n)/posí(n) dat. pl. "foot" <
pod-.
Examples of initial
ty-,
dhy-:
- PIE tyegʷ- "avoid" > sébomai "worship, be respectful" (Ved. tyaj- "flee")
- PIE dhyeh₂- "notice" > Dor. sāma, Att. sêma "sign" (Ved. dhyā́- "thought, contemplation")
Examples of the first palatalization of
-ty-,
-dhy-:
- PreG *totyos "as much" (PIE *toti) > Att. tósos, Hom. tósos/tóssos (cf. Ved. táti, Lat. tot "so much/many")
- PIE *medhyos "middle" > Att. mésos, Hom. mésos/méssos, Boeot. mettos, other dial. mesos (cf. Ved. mádhya-, Lat. medius)
Examples of the second palatalization of
-ty-,
-dhy-:
- PIE *h₁erh̥₁-t-yoh₂ "I row" > Attic eréttō, usual non-Attic eréssō (cf. erétēs "oarsman")
- PIE *kret-yōs > PreG *kret-yōn "better" > Attic kreíttōn, usual non-Attic kréssōn (cf. kratús "strong" < PIE *kr̥tus)
Other Post-Proto-Greek changes
Sound changes between Proto-Greek and all early dialects, including Mycenaean, include:
- Remaining syllabic
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, ⟨⟩...
resonants are resolved to vowels or combinations of a vowel and consonantal resonant:
- Syllabic nasals usually become /am/, /an/ before resonants; otherwise /a/. However, /o/ usually appears in place of /a/ in Mycenaean after a labial, e.g. pe-mo /spermo/ "seed" vs. usual spérma. Similarly, /o/ often appears in place of /a/ in Arcadian after a velar, e.g. deko "ten", hekoton "one hundred" vs. usual déka, hekatón.
- Syllabic liquids usually become /ra/ and /la/, but /ar/ and /al/ before resonants
In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; fricatives and plosives are not sonorants. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like and . Other consonants, like or , restrict the airflow enough to cause turbulence, and...
and analogously. In Mycenean Greek, Aeolic GreekAeolic Greek is a linguistic term used to describe a set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia , Thessaly, and in the Aegean island of Lesbos and the Greek colonies of Asia Minor ....
, and Cypro-Arcadian, however, /ro/ /lo/ /or/ /ol/ appear in place of /ra/ /la/ /ar/ /al/. Example: PIE *str̥-tos > usual stratos, Aeolic strotos "army"; post-PIE ḱr̥di-eh₂ "heart" > Att. kardíā, Hom. kradíē, Pamphylian korzdia.
- Loss of s in consonant clusters, with 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 (AtticAttic 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". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
, IonicIonic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History: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.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
, DoricDoric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. 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. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...
) or of the consonant (AeolicAeolic Greek is a linguistic term used to describe a set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia , Thessaly, and in the Aegean island of Lesbos and the Greek colonies of Asia Minor ....
): esmi -> ēmi/eimi or emmi.
- Creation of secondary s from clusters, ntja -> nsa (this in turn followed by a change similar to the one described above, i.e. loss of the n with compensatory lengthening, e.g. apont-ja > apon-sa > apō-sa, "absent", fem.).
- Conversion of labiovelars to velars next to /u/.
- In southern dialects (including Mycenaean, but not Doric), -ti- > -si- (assibilation
In linguistics, assibilation is the term for a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is commonly the final phase of palatalization.-Romance languages:...
).
The following changes are apparently post-Mycenaean:
- Loss of /h/ (from original /s/), except initially; loss of /j/. Examples: treis "three" < *treyes; Doric nikaas "having conquered" < *nikahas < *nikasas.
- Loss of /w/ in many dialects (later than loss of /h/ and /j/). Example: etos "year" from wetos.
- Loss of labiovelars, which were converted (mostly) into labials, sometimes into dentals or velars. This had not yet happened in Mycenaean, shown by the fact that a separate letter is used for these sounds.
- 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 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". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
than elsewhere.
- Rise of a distinctive circumflex
The circumflex is a diacritic used in the written forms of many languages, and is also commonly used in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from Latin circumflexus —a translation of the Greek περισπωμένη...
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 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.
- Raising of ā to ē /ɛː/ in Attic and Ionic dialects (but not Doric). In Ionic, this change was general, but in Attic it did not occur after /i/, /e/ or /r/. (But note Attic korē "girl" < *korwā; loss of /w/ after /r/ had not occurred at that point in Attic.)
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 lengtheningCompensatory 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 development of labiovelars varies from dialect to dialect:
- Labiovelars next to /u/ had earlier been converted to plain velars.
- In Attic and some other dialects (but not, e.g., Lesbian), labiovelars before some front vowels became dentals. In Attic, kʷ and kʷh became t and th, respectively, before /e/ and /i/, while gʷ became d before /e/ (but not /i/).
- All remaining labiovelars became labials, original kʷ kʷh gʷ becoming p ph b respectively. This happened to all labiovelars in some dialects, e.g. Lesbian; in other dialects, e.g. Attic, it occurred to all labiovelars not converted into dentals. Note that original PIE labiovelars had still remained as such even before consonants, and hence became labials also in this position, whereas in many other Centum languages, such as Latin and most Germanic languages, the labiovelars lost their labialization before consonants. This makes Greek of particular importance in reconstructing original labiovelars.
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 GreekModern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language 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...
—i.e., the set of verbs derived from
Ancient GreekAncient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
contracted verbs—represents one of the two main classes of verbs in that language.)
Noun
As Mycenaean Greek shows, the PIE dative, instrumental and locative cases are still distinct, and are not yet syncretized into a single dative case.
Nominative plural
-oi,
-ai replaces late PIE
-ōs,
-ās.
The superlative on
-tatos becomes productive.
The peculiar oblique stem
gunaik- "women", attested from the
Thebes tabletsThe Thebes tablets are clay tablets discovered at the city of Thebes, Greece, with inscriptions in the Mycenaean Greek language in the Linear B script. They belong to the Late Helladic IIIB context, contemporary with the finds at Pylos. A first group of 21 fragments were found in the 1963–64...
is probably Proto-Greek; it appears, at least as
gunai- also in
ArmenianThe Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...
.
Pronoun
The pronouns
houtos,
ekeinos and
autos are created. Use of
ho, hā, ton as articles is post-Mycenaean.
Verb
An isogloss between Greek and
PhrygianThe Phrygian language was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, spoken in Asia Minor during Classical Antiquity .Phrygian is considered to have been closely related to Greek....
is the absence of
r-endings in the Middle Voice 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,
ArmenianThe Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...
), lending some support to a "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,
-mān 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 *mʰiā (> Myc. e-me /hemei/(dative); Att./Ion. , heis (henos), mia).
- "two": *duwō (> Myc. du-wo /duwō/; Hom. , dyō; Att.-Ion. , dyo)
- "three": nominative *trees, accusative trins (> Myc. ti-ri /trins/; Att./Ion. , treis; Lesb. , trēs; Cret. , trees)
- "four": nominative *kʷetwores, genitive *kʷeturōn (> Myc. qe-to-ro-we /kʷetrōwes/ "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 SchwyzerEduard Schwyzer was a Swiss Classical philologist and Indo-European linguist, specializing in Ancient Greek and 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
MycenaeanMycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, spoken on the Greek mainland, Crete and Cyprus in the 16th to 12th centuries BC, before the hypothesised Dorian invasion which was often cited as the terminus post quem for the coming of the Greek language to Greece...
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.
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Classical Greek |
Proto-Greek |
| Schwyzer |
Modern |
PlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, ApologyThe Apology of Socrates is Plato's version of the speech given by Socrates as he unsuccessfully defended himself in 399 BC against the charges of "corrupting the young, and by not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other daimonia that are novel"...
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*çokʷid mān umʰe. ō aneres Atʰānaïoi, pepãstʰe upo katāgorōn meho. oju woida; egō de ōn kai autos up’ autōn oligoço emeho autoço epi latʰomān, tō pitʰanō elegont. kai toi ãlātʰes ge çō wekʷos wewekʷehen oude hen wewrēkãti |
MatthewThe Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
6:9 |
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*pater ãmʰōn ho worʱanoihi, çagion estōd enumã tweho |
HomerIn the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
, OdysseyThe Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
1.1 |
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*anerã moi enʰekʷet, montˢa, polutrokʷon |
Notes: The reconstruction assumes that the old combinations of
sonorantIn phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; fricatives and plosives are not sonorants. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like and . Other consonants, like or , restrict the airflow enough to cause turbulence, and...
s +
s in either sequence were pronounced as unvoiced sonorants ([n̥, m̥, r̥, l̥, ʍ, ç]) 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
nasalsA nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
were pronounced as
nasalA nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...
[ã], before it split into in most dialects and as a variant in some dialects (Mycenaean, Arcadian, Aeolic).
See also
- Proto-language
A proto-language in the tree model of historical linguistics is the common ancestor of the languages that form a language family. Occasionally, the German term Ursprache is used instead.Often the proto-language is not known directly...
- Hellenes
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
- Ancient Macedonian language
Ancient Macedonian was the language of the ancient Macedonians. It was spoken in the kingdom of Macedon during the 1st millennium BCE and it belongs to the Indo-European group of languages...
- Paleo-Balkan languages
Paleo-Balkan is a geolinguistic term referring to the Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans in ancient times. Except for Greek and the language that gave rise to Albanian , they are all extinct, due to Hellenization, Romanization, and Slavicisation.- Classification :The following...
- Pre-Greek substrate
- Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
- Kafkania pebble
The Kafkania pebble was found in Kafkania, some north of Olympia, on 1 April 1994. It bears a short inscription of eight syllabic signs in Linear B, possibly reading . The reverse side shows a double-axe symbol. The inscription is identified by some to be in the Mycenean language, though this...