Mitja Mörec wrote:Wow, thanks David thats great link. I have only one question about Hellenism, i have seen some charts that goes something like this, Hellenic-Greek-Ionic-Attic-Standard modern Greek, so my question is where does Koine Biblical Greek fits in ? Im little confused.
Historically, we start with Proto-Indo-European, then move to Proto-Greek (with a debated number of steps between). There are no records of this stage. The earliest recorded Greek is Mycenaean Greek from about C15-C12 BCE. The 'literature' of this age is mostly lists and inventories. There is then the 'Dark Ages' where nothing seems to have survived, but we can confidently assume that the Greek language existed in various dialects. Then comes Archaic Greek from about C9/8-C6 BCE, the most famous example of which is Homer's poems - although they survive in a form influenced by Classical Greek. Classical Greek begins about C6 BCE, and this lasts until Hellenistic/Koiné Greek of the C3 BCE. Classical Greek remained as a written language long after it ceased to be spoken, and there were various periods where Greek writers attempted to go back, to varying degrees, to the Classical form. The last such attempt (Katharevousa) ended in the 1970s. The main dialects of the Classical period were 1) Ionic, with a variant in Athens called Attic (the whole dialect is often called Attic-Ionic, and this is what most people mean when they say 'Classical Greek); 2) Doric (eg, Spartan) which is closely related to 3) North-West Greek; and 4) Arcado-Cyprian, which seems to be descended from Mycenaean Greek. Most Greek cities had a dialect differing somewhat from its neighbours, but they are the main groups. After Alexander the Great united the Greek world and its neighbours, a common (koiné) Greek developed which lasted until around 600 AD when it becomes known as Byzantine Greek. That becomes Modern Greek around 1500, although the change actually happened gradually from about 1100-1800. Since 1976, Standard Modern Greek ("Κοινή Νεοελληνική"), derived from the dialects of the Peloponnese area, has been the official language of Greece and Cyprus.