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The Original Greek New Testament

LESSON 1
THE GREEK LETTERS 

by George Valsamis

 

ELPENOR EDITIONS IN PRINT



Page 11

The Ionian dialect was spoken in the area of the Aegean sea including also the coast of Asia Minor from Alikarnassos to Phokaea and the Ionian colonies, excluding some Aegean islands like Rhode, Kos and Lesvos. Because of the greatness of the Ionian culture, Ionian was spread to Aeolean and Dorean regions. Some of the features of the Ionian dialect are the turn of α το η (e.g. μήτηρ instead of μάτηρ), uncontracted forms (like κινέω instead of κινῶ), etc.

Homer, Hesiod, Theognis and most of the older Greek poetry is written in Ionian mixed with Aeolian elements, as well as some of the prose, like Herodotus' history. In later periods some authors used it again, like Apollonius from Rhode in the Hellenistic era or St. Gregory the Theologian in the 4th century A.D. 

The Attic dialect is similar to Ionic with the differences we said, mainly that it maintains the letter α as a long vowel after ε, ι and ρ (e.g. Ionic ἁρμονίη  in Attic becomes ἁρμονία), it contracts two vowels (like in κινέω which becomes κινῶ). There is an older and a newer form of the Attic dialect with minor differences between them. To the newer one belong authors who wrote after 400 B.C. It is the dialect in which tragedies and the philosophical works of Plato and Aristotle are written. 

Aeolic was spoken at the coast of the Asia Minor from north of Smyrna to Hellespondus, Lesvos, Thessaly and Boiotia. We know this dialect mainly from Sappho and Alcaeus and mixed with other dialects in Homer and later poetry, mostly in Pindar. In Aeolic contracted verbs end in -μι (e.g. instead of φιλῶ in Aeolic we have φίλημι). Words with two or more syllables are not accented in the ultima (last syllable), e.g. ἄγαθος instead of ἀγαθός, θῦμος instead of θυμός. Verbs ending in two liquid or nasal consonants (λ, ρ, μ, ν) maintain these consonants instead of expanding the preceding vowel (e.g. κτέννω instead of κτείνω). After liquids (λ, ρ) Aeolic uses ο instead of α (e.g. βροχὺς instead of βραχύς). 


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Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/lessons/lesson1.asp?pg=11