Koine Greek: Encyclopedia II - Koine Greek - Evolution from Ancient Greek

Koine Greek - Evolution from Ancient Greek

The study of all sources from the six centuries that are symbolically covered by Koine reveals linguistic changes from Ancient Greek on phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary and other elements of the spoken language. Most new forms start off as rare and gradually become more frequent until they are established. From the linguistic changes that took place in Koine, Greek gained such a resemblance with its Medieval and Modern successors that almost all characteristics of Modern Greek can be traced in the surviving texts of Koine. As most of the changes between Modern and Ancient Greek were introducted with Koine, today Modern and Koine Greek are almost mutually intelligible.

Evolution in phonology:

• The ancient distinction between long and short vowels was gradually lost, and from the 2nd century BC all vowels were isochronic.

• Since the 2nd century BC, the means of accenting words changed from pitch to stress, meaning that the accented syllable is not pronounced in a musical tone but louder and/or stronger.

• The aspirate breathing (aspiration), which was already lost in the Ionic idioms of Asia Minor and the Aeolic of Lesbos, stopped being pronounced and written in popular texts.

• Long diphthongs, which in older times were written with a subscript of ι after a long vowel, stopped being pronounced and written in popular texts.

• The diphthongs αι, ει, οι, and υι became single vowels. In his manner 'αι', which had already been converted by the Boetians into a long ε since the 4th century BC and written η (e.g. πής, χήρε, μέμφομη), became in Koine, too, first a long ε and then short. The diphthong 'ει' had already merged with ι in the 5th century BC in regions such as Argos or in the 4th c. BC in Corinth (e.g. ΛΕΓΙΣ), and it acquired this pronunciation also in Koine. The diphthongs 'οι' and 'υι' acquired the pronunciation of the modern French 'U' ([y] in IPA), which lasted until the 10th century AD. The diphthong 'ου' had already acquired the pronunciation of Latin 'U' since the 6th century BC and preserved it in modern times.

• The diphthongs αυ and ευ came to be pronounced "av" and "ev", but are "af" and "ef" before the voiceless consonants θ, κ, ξ, π, σ, τ, φ, χ, and ψ.

• Simple vowels have preserved their ancient pronunciations, except η which is pronounced as ι, and υ, which retained the pronunciation of modern French U only until the 10th c. AD, and was later also pronounced as ι. With those changes in phonology there were common spelling mistakes between υ and οι, while the sound of ι was multiplied (Iotacism).

• The consonants also preserved their ancient pronunciations to a great extent, except β, γ, δ, φ, θ, χ and ζ. Β, Γ, Δ (Beta, Gamma, Delta), which were initially pronounced as b, g, d, acquired the sound of v, gh, and dh ([v], [ɣ], [ð] in IPA) that they still have today, except when preceded by a nasal consonant (μ, ν); in that case, they retain their ancient sounds (e.g. γαμβρός - γαmbρός, άνδρας - άndρας, άγγελος - άŋgελος). The latter three (Φ, Θ, Χ), which were initially pronounced as aspirates (ph, th and kh respectively), acquired the sound of f, th, h ([f], [θ], and [x]) that they also preserve until today. Finally the letter Ζ, which is still categorised as a double consonant with ξ and ψ, because it was initially pronounced as σδ (sd), later acquired the sound of Z as it appears in Modern English and Greek.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Evolution from Ancient Greek", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki