Ancient Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages, was highly inflected. For example nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and vocative), three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), and three numbers (singular, dual and plural). Verbs have four moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive and optative), three voices (active, middle and passive), as well as three persons (first, second and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated in four main tenses (present, aorist, ...

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Greek language, Greek language - History, Greek language - Classification, Greek language - Geographic distribution, Greek language - Official status, Greek language - Phonology, Greek language - Vowel sounds, Greek language - Consonants, Greek language - Sandhi rules, Greek language - Orthography, Greek language - Historical sound changes, Greek language - Grammar, Greek language - Writing system, Greek language - Examples, Greek language - Some common words and phrases, Greek language - The Iliad in Homeric Greek Lines 1-7, Greek language - The Lord's Prayer in Greek Matt. 6:9-13, Greek language - The Nicene Creed in Greek, Greek language - Literature, Greek language - Typography, Greek language - Lexica, Greek language - Spell checkers

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Proto-Greek language - Noun. The PIE dative, instrumental and locative cases are syncretized into a single dative case. Some desinences are innovated (dative plural -si from locative plural -su). 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 tablets is probably Proto-Greek; it appears, at least as gunai- also in Armenian. See also:

Proto-Greek language, Proto-Greek language - Phonology, Proto-Greek language - Morphology, Proto-Greek language - Noun, Proto-Greek language - Pronoun, Proto-Greek language - Verb, Proto-Greek language - Numerals, Proto-Greek language - Example text

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Eduard Schwyzer in his Griechische Grammatik (1939, I.74f.) projected the initial lines of Plato's Apology into Proto-Greek: ὅτι μὲν ὑμεῖς, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, πεπόνθατε ὑπὸ τῶν ἐμῶν κατηγόρων, wotti mān umme. ō aneres Athānaioi, pepasthe upo katāgoron meo. οὐκ οἶδα: ἐγὼ δ' οὖν ... οὕτω πιθ ...

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Proto-Greek language, Proto-Greek language - Phonology, Proto-Greek language - Morphology, Proto-Greek language - Noun, Proto-Greek language - Pronoun, Proto-Greek language - Verb, Proto-Greek language - Numerals, Proto-Greek language - Example text

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See also: Proto-Indo-European, Historical linguistics, Glottochronology. The possibility of common origin for some of these languages was first proposed by Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn in 1647, proposing their derivation from "Scythian". However, the suggestions of van Boxhorn did not become widely known and were not pursued. The hypothesis was again proposed by Sir William Jones, who noticed similarities between four of the oldest languages known in his time, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Persian. Systematic comparison of these an ...

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Indo-European languages, Indo-European languages - Classification, Indo-European languages - Satem and Centum languages, Indo-European languages - Suggested superfamilies, Indo-European languages - History, Indo-European languages - Kurgan hypothesis, Indo-European languages - Competing hypotheses, Indo-European languages - Sound changes

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Only little about the language can be said from the few words that survive. A notable sound-law is that PIE voiced aspirates appear as voiced stops, written β, γ, δ, in contrast to all known Greek dialects, which have unvoiced them, φ, χ, θ. Macedonian danos (δάνος) ("death", from PIE *dhenh2- "to leave"), compared to Greek thanatos (θάνατος). Macedonian a ...

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Ancient Macedonian language, Ancient Macedonian language - Properties, Ancient Macedonian language - Classification, Ancient Macedonian language - Graeco-Macedonian Group, Ancient Macedonian language - Ancient Greek dialect, Ancient Macedonian language - Independent Palaeo-Balkan language, Ancient Macedonian language - Classical sources, Ancient Macedonian language - Adoption of the Attic dialect, Ancient Macedonian language - Sample glossary

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