There was never just one Ancient Greek. Greek was spoken in many dialects, grouped by scholars as Doric in the west, Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot in the centre, and Attic and Ionic in the east, and the books in this library were written over more than a thousand years. They are all Greek: the letters and most words are shared, and the first differences you notice are mostly in vowels and in some endings.
| Kind | Who wrote in it | Look out for |
|---|---|---|
| Homer's Greek | The Iliad and the Odyssey: a language of poetry, mainly an old form of Ionic with some Aeolic and a few Arcado-Cypriot features | η where Attic has ᾱ; genitives in -εω (Πηληϊάδεω, Iliad 1.1); datives in -εσσι (κύνεσσιν, 1.4); past tenses sometimes without their augment (τεῦχε, 1.4) |
| Ionic | Herodotus | η even after ε, ι and ρ, where Attic keeps ᾱ: ἱστορίης, αἰτίην for Attic ἱστορίας, αἰτίαν |
| Attic | Athens: the tragedians, the orators, Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon | the forms the grammars and this Academy's tables give |
| Doric colouring | Choral songs, as in Pindar, and the sung parts of tragedy | ᾱ where Attic has η: ἀέλιος for ἥλιος, the sun |
| Aeolic | Sappho and Alcaeus of Lesbos | in literature, a dialect of lyric poetry only |
| Koine, the “common” Greek | From Alexander's conquests on: the Septuagint, the New Testament, Polybius, Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius | Attic at heart; used from about 300 BC to AD 600 |
The dialect groups and writers: Wikipedia's pages on the Ancient Greek dialects, Homeric Greek and Koine Greek (see the sources below).
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Πηληϊάδεω “son of Peleus” has Homer's genitive in -εω.
Greek shown exactly as the source file gives it. Click any word to look it up.
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Ionic ἱστορίης: an Athenian would write ἱστορίας.
Greek shown exactly as the source file gives it. Click any word to look it up.
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Plain Attic prose, the Greek the grammars describe.
Greek shown exactly as the source file gives it. Click any word to look it up.
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Koine: the Greek of the New Testament.
Greek shown exactly as the source file gives it. Click any word to look it up.
| Greek | Form | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Homer (epic) | ἠέλιος | always in Homer: λαμπρὸν φάος ἠελίοιο, Iliad 1.605 |
| Doric colouring | ἀέλιος | Pindar, and the sung parts of tragedy: ἀκτὶς ἀελίου, Sophocles, Antigone 100 |
| Attic | ἥλιος | τελευταῖον δὴ οἶμαι τὸν ἥλιον, Plato, Republic 7.516 |
The forms and where they are used: LSJ's entry ἥλιος. Each example is in the library; open it in the reader.
Where this comes from
- Wikipedia, Ancient Greek dialects (the groups; which writers used which; η for ᾱ in Ionic and Attic)
- Wikipedia, Homeric Greek (its mixture of dialects; genitives in -εω, datives in -εσσι, missing augments)
- Wikipedia, Koine Greek (the name, “common”; its dates, its Attic core, what was written in it)
- LSJ, the entry ἥλιος (the epic, Doric and Attic forms), on Logeion