Modern Greek (endonym:Νέα Ελληνικά,Néa Elliniká[ˈne.aeliniˈka] orΚοινή Νεοελληνική Γλώσσα,Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa), generally referred to by speakers simply asGreek (Ελληνικά,Elliniká), refers collectively to thedialects of theGreek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to asStandard Modern Greek. The end of theMedieval Greek period and the beginning of Modern Greek is often symbolically assigned to the fall of theByzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic features of the modern language arose centuries earlier, having begun around the fourth century AD.
During most of the Modern Greek period, the language existed in a situation ofdiglossia, with regional spoken dialects existing side by side with learned, more archaic written forms, as with the vernacular and learned varieties (Dimotiki andKatharevousa) that co-existed in Greece throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Strictly speaking,Demotic orDimotiki (Δημοτική), refers to allpopular varieties of Modern Greek that followed a common evolutionary path fromKoine and have retained a high degree ofmutual intelligibility to the present. As shown inPtochoprodromic andAcritic poems, Demotic Greek was the vernacular already before the 11th century and called the "Roman" language of theByzantine Greeks, notably in peninsularGreece, theGreek islands, coastalAsia Minor,Constantinople, andCyprus.
The distribution of major modern Greek dialect areas.[8]
Today, a standardized variety of Demotic Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus, and is referred to as "Standard Modern Greek", or less strictly simply as "Greek", "Modern Greek", or "Demotic".
Demotic Greek comprises various regional varieties with minor linguistic differences, mainly in phonology and vocabulary. Due to the high degree of mutual intelligibility of these varieties, Greek linguists refer to them as "idioms" of a wider "Demotic dialect", known as "Koine Modern Greek" (Koiní Neoellinikí - 'common Neo-Hellenic'). Most English-speaking linguists however refer to them as "dialects", emphasizing degrees of variation only when necessary. Demotic Greek varieties are divided into two main groups, Northern and Southern.
The main distinguishing feature common to Northern variants is a set of standard phonological shifts inunaccented vowel phonemes:[o] becomes[u],[e] becomes[i], and[i] and[u] are dropped. The dropped vowels' existence is implicit, and may affect surrounding phonemes: for example, a dropped[i] palatalizes preceding consonants, just like an[i] that is pronounced. Southern variants do not exhibit these phonological shifts.
Katharevousa (Καθαρεύουσα) is asociolect promoted in the 19th century at the foundation of the modern Greek state, as a compromise betweenClassical Greek and modern Demotic. It was the official language of modern Greece until 1976.
Katharevousa is written inpolytonic Greek script. Also, while Demotic Greek contains loanwords from Turkish, Italian, Latin, and other languages, these have for the most part been purged from Katharevousa. See also theGreek language question.
Anatolian Greek dialects until 1923.Demotic in yellow.Pontic in orange.Cappadocian Greek in green, with green dots indicating individual Cappadocian Greek villages in 1910.[10]
Pontic (Ποντιακά) was originally spoken along the mountainous Black Sea coast of Turkey, the so-calledPontus region, until most of its speakers were killed or displaced to modern Greece during thePontic genocide (1919–1921), followed later by thepopulation exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. (Small numbers ofMuslim speakers of Pontic Greek escaped these events and still reside in the Pontic villages of Turkey.) It derives fromHellenistic andMedieval Koine and preserves characteristics ofIonic due to ancient colonizations of the region. Pontic evolved as a separate dialect from Demotic Greek as a result of the region's isolation from the Greek mainstream after theFourth Crusade fragmented the Byzantine Empire into separate kingdoms (seeEmpire of Trebizond).
Cappadocian (Καππαδοκικά) is a Greek dialect of central Turkey of the same fate as Pontic; its speakers settled in mainland Greece after theGreek genocide (1919–1921) and the laterPopulation exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. Cappadocian Greek diverged from the other Byzantine Greek dialects earlier, beginning with the Turkish conquests of central Asia Minor in the 11th and 12th centuries, and so developed several radical features, such as the loss of the gender for nouns.[10] Having been isolated from the crusader conquests (Fourth Crusade) and the later Venetian influence of the Greek coast, it retained the Ancient Greek terms for many words that were replaced withRomance ones in Demotic Greek.[10] The poetRumi, whose name means "Roman", referring to his residence amongst the "Roman" Greek speakers of Cappadocia, wrote a few poems in Cappadocian Greek, one of the earliest attestations of the dialect.[11][12][13][14]
Ruméika (Ρωμαίικα) or Mariupolitan Greek is a dialect spoken in about 17 villages around the northern coast of theSea of Azov in southernUkraine andRussia. Mariupolitan Greek is closely related to Pontic Greek and evolved from the dialect of Greek spoken inCrimea, which was a part of the Byzantine Empire and then the PonticEmpire of Trebizond, until that latter state fell to the Ottomans in 1461.[15] Thereafter, the Crimean Greek state continued to exist as the independent GreekPrincipality of Theodoro. The Greek-speaking inhabitants of Crimea weredeported byCatherine the Great to resettle in the new city ofMariupol after theRusso-Turkish War (1768–74) to escape the then Muslim-dominated Crimea.[16] Mariupolitan's main features have certain similarities with both Pontic (e.g. the lack ofsynizesis of-ía, éa) and the northern varieties of the core dialects (e.g. the northern vocalism).[17]
Areas in Southern Italy where theGriko andCalabrian dialects are spoken
Southern Italian orItaliot (Κατωιταλιώτικα) comprises bothCalabrian andGriko varieties, spoken by around 15 villages in the regions ofCalabria andApulia. The Southern Italian dialect is the last living trace of Hellenic elements in Southern Italy that once formedMagna Graecia. Its origins can be traced to theDorian Greek settlers who colonised the area fromSparta andCorinth in 700 BC.
It has received significant Koine Greek influence throughByzantine Greek colonisers who re-introduced Greek language to the region, starting withJustinian's conquest ofItaly in late antiquity and continuing through the Middle Ages. Griko and Demotic are mutually intelligible to some extent, but the former shares some common characteristics with Tsakonian.
Yevanic (יעואניקה,Γεβανικά) is an almost extinct language ofRomaniote Jews. The language was already in decline for centuries until most of its speakers were killed inthe Holocaust. Afterward, the language was mostly kept by remaining Romaniote emigrants toIsrael, where it was displaced bymodern Hebrew.
Tsakonian (Τσακωνικά) is spoken in its full form today only in a small number of villages around the town ofLeonidio in the region ofArcadia in the SouthernPeloponnese, and partially spoken further afield in the area. Tsakonian evolved directly from Laconian (ancient Spartan) and therefore descends fromDoric Greek.
It has limited input from Hellenistic Koine and is significantly different from and not mutually intelligible with other Greek varieties (such asDemotic Greek andPontic Greek). Some linguists consider it a separate language because of this.
Greco-Australian is an Australian dialect of Greek that is spoken by the Greek diaspora of Australia, including Greek immigrants living in Australia and Australians of Greek descent.[18]
A series of radicalsound changes starting inKoine Greek has led to a phonological system in Modern Greek that is significantly different from that of Ancient Greek. Instead of the complex vowel system of Ancient Greek, with its four vowel-height levels, length distinction, and multiple diphthongs, Modern Greek has a simple system of five vowels. This came about through a series of mergers, especially towards/i/ (iotacism).
Modern Greek consonants are plain (voiceless unaspirated)stops,voiced stops, or voiced and unvoicedfricatives. Modern Greek has not preserved length in vowels or consonants.
Modern Greek is written in the Greek alphabet, which has 24 letters, each with a capital and lowercase (small) form. The lettersigma additionally has a special final form. There are two diacritical symbols, theacute accent which indicatesstress and thediaeresis marking a vowel letter as not being part of adigraph. Greek has a mixed historical and phonemicorthography, where historical spellings are used if their pronunciation matches modern usage. The correspondence between consonantphonemes andgraphemes is largely unique, but several of the vowels can be spelt in multiple ways.[19] Thusreading is easy butspelling is difficult.[20]
A number ofdiacritical signs were used until 1982, when they were officially dropped from Greek spelling as no longer corresponding to the modern pronunciation of the language. Monotonic orthography is today used in official usage, in schools and for most purposes of everyday writing in Greece. Polytonic orthography, besides being used for older varieties of Greek, is still used in book printing, especially for academic andbelletristic purposes, and in everyday use by some conservative writers and elderly people. The Greek Orthodox Church continues to use polytonic and the lateChristodoulos of Athens[21] and the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece[22] have requested the reintroduction of polytonic as the official script.
The Greek vowel letters and digraphs with their pronunciations are:⟨α⟩/a/,⟨ε, αι⟩/e/,⟨η, ι, υ, ει, οι, υι⟩/i/,⟨ο, ω⟩/o/, and⟨ου⟩/u/. The digraphs⟨αυ⟩,⟨ευ⟩ and⟨ηυ⟩ are pronounced/av/,/ev/, and/iv/ respectively before vowels and voiced consonants, and/af/,/ef/ and/if/ respectively before voiceless consonants.
The Greek letters⟨φ⟩,⟨β⟩,⟨θ⟩, and⟨δ⟩ are pronounced/f/,/v/,/θ/, and/ð/ respectively. The letters⟨γ⟩ and⟨χ⟩ are pronounced/ɣ/ and/x/, respectively. All those letters represent fricatives in Modern Greek, but they were used for occlusives with the same (or with a similar) articulation point in Ancient Greek. Before mid or close front vowels (/e/ and/i/),⟨γ⟩ and⟨χ⟩ are fronted, becoming[ʝ] and[ç], respectively, which, in some dialects, notably those of Crete andMani, are further fronted to[ʑ] or[ʒ] and[ɕ] or[ʃ], respectively. Μoreover, before mid or close back vowels (/o/ and/u/),⟨γ⟩ tends to be pronounced further back than a prototypical velar, between a velar[ɣ] and an uvular[ʁ] (transcribedɣ̄). The letter⟨ξ⟩ stands for the sequence/ks/ and⟨ψ⟩ for/ps/.
The digraphs⟨γγ⟩ and⟨γκ⟩ are generally pronounced[ɡ], but are fronted to[ɟ] before front vowels (/e/ and/i/) and tend to be pronounced[ɡ̄] before the back vowels (/o/ and/u/). When these digraphs are preceded by a vowel, they are pronounced[ŋɡ] and[ɲɟ] before front vowels (/e/ and/i/) and[ŋ̄ɡ̄] before the back (/o/ and/u/). The digraph⟨γγ⟩ may be pronounced[ŋɣ] in some words ([ɲʝ] before front vowels and[ŋ̄ɣ̄] before back ones). The pronunciation[ŋk] for the digraph⟨γκ⟩ is extremely rare, but could be heard in literary and scholarly words or when reading ancient texts (by a few readers); normally it retains its "original" pronunciation[ŋk] only in thetrigraph⟨γκτ⟩, where⟨τ⟩ prevents the sonorization of⟨κ⟩ by⟨γ⟩ (hence[ŋkt]).
modal particleθα (a contraction ofἐθέλω ἵνα →θέλω να →θε' να →θα), which marks future tense and conditional mood
auxiliary verb forms for certain verb forms (in particular the perfect tense)
aspectual distinction in future tense between imperfective (present) and perfective (aorist)
Modern Greek has developed a simpler system of grammatical prefixes marking tense and aspect of a verb, such asaugmentation andreduplication, and has lost some patterns of noundeclension and some distinct forms in the declensions.
Most of these features are shared with other languages spoken in the Balkan peninsula (seeBalkan sprachbund), although Greek does not show all typical Balkan areal features, such as the postposed article.
Because of the influence of Katharevousa, however, Demotic is not commonly used in its purest form.Archaisms are still widely used, especially in writing and in more formal speech, as well as in some everyday expressions, such as the dativeεντάξει ('okay', literally 'in order') or the third person imperativeζήτω! ('long live!').
{Άρθρο 1:} Όλοι οι άνθρωποι γεννιούνται ελεύθεροι και ίσοι στην αξιοπρέπεια και τα δικαιώματα. Είναι προικισμένοι με λογική και συνείδηση, και οφείλουν να συμπεριφέρονται μεταξύ τους με πνεύμα αδελφοσύνης.
{Arthro 1:} Oloi oi anthropoi genniountai eleutheroi kai isoi stin axioprepeia kai ta dikaiomata. Einai proikismenoi me logiki kai syneidisi, kai ofeiloun na symperiferontai metaxy tous me pneuma adelfosynis.
{Árthro 1:} Óli i ánthropi yeniúnde eléftheri ke ísi stin aksioprépia ke ta dhikeómata. Íne prikizméni me loyikí ke sinídhisi, ke ofílun na simberiféronde metaksí tus me pnévma adhelfosínis.
{[ˈarθro ˈena ‖} ˈoli i ˈanθropi ʝeˈɲunde eˈlefθeri ce ˈisi stin aksioˈprepia ce ta {ðiceˈomata ‖} ˈine priciˈzmeni me loʝiˈci ce {siˈniðisi |} ce oˈfilun na simberiˈferonde metaˈksi tuz me ˈpnevma aðelfoˈsinis]
Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
^"Greek in Hungary".Database for the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Public Foundation for European Comparative Minority Research. Archived fromthe original on 29 April 2013. Retrieved31 May 2013.
^"Italy: Cultural Relations and Greek Community".Hellenic Republic: Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 9 July 2013.The Greek Italian community numbers some 30,000 and is concentrated mainly in central Italy. The age-old presence in Italy of Italians of Greek descent – dating back to Byzantine and Classical times – is attested to by the Griko dialect, which is still spoken in the Magna Graecia region. This historically Greek-speaking villages are Condofuri, Galliciano, Roccaforte del Greco, Roghudi, Bova and Bova Marina, which are in the Calabria region (the capital of which is Reggio). The Grecanic region, including Reggio, has a population of some 200,000, while speakers of the Griko dialect number fewer that 1,000 persons.
^G. Th. Pavlidis and V. Giannouli, "Spelling Errors Accurately Differentiate USA-Speakers from Greek Dyslexics: Ιmplications for Causality and Treatment"in R.M. Joshi et al. (eds)Literacy Acquisition: The Role of Phonology, Morphology and Orthography. Washington, 2003.ISBN1-58603-360-3
Ανδριώτης (Andriotis), Νικόλαος Π. (Nikolaos P.) (1995).Ιστορία της ελληνικής γλώσσας: (τέσσερις μελέτες) (History of the Greek language: four studies). Θεσσαλονίκη (Thessaloniki): Ίδρυμα Τριανταφυλλίδη.ISBN960-231-058-8.
Vitti, Mario (2001).Storia della letteratura neogreca. Roma: Carocci.ISBN88-430-1680-6.
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