Information about Ionic dialect

History of the
Greek language
(see also: Greek alphabet)

Proto-Greek (c. 2000 BC)

Mycenaean (c. 1600–1100 BC)

Ancient Greek (c. 800–300 BC)
Dialects:
Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, Attic-Ionic,
Doric, Pamphylian; Homeric Greek.
Possible dialect: Macedonian.

Koine Greek (from c. 300 BC)

Medieval Greek (c. 330–1453)

Modern Greek (from 1453)
Dialects:
Cappadocian, Cretan, Cypriot,
Demotic, Griko, Katharevousa,
Pontic, Tsakonian, Yevanic

Distribution of Greek dialects, ca. 400 BC.

Ionic Greek was a sub-dialect of the Attic-Ionic dialectal group of Ancient Greek (see Greek dialects).

Ionic (or Ionian) dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.

By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 8th Century B.C, the central west coast of Asia Minor, along with the islands of Khios (Chios) and Samos, formed the heartland of Ionia proper. The Ionic dialect was also spoken on islands across the central Aegean and on the large island of Euboea north of Athens. The dialect was soon spread by Ionian colonization to areas in the northern Aegean, the Black Sea, and the western Mediterranean.

Ionic dialect is generally divided into two major time periods, Old Ionic (or Old Ionian) and New Ionic (or New Ionian). The exact transition between the two is not clearly defined, but 600 B.C. is a good approximation.

The Homeric works (the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Homeric Hymns), and the works of Hesiod, were written in a literary dialect called Homeric Greek or Epic Greek, which consists largely of Old Ionic, with some borrowings from the neighboring Aeolic dialect to the north. The poet Arkhilokhos (Archilochos) wrote in late Old Ionic.

The most famous New Ionic authors are Herodotus and Hippokrates (Hippocrates).

The main differences between the Ionic dialect (Old and New) and Classical Attic were the following:

In Ionic, the shift from long alpha to eta occurs in almost all words, whereas in Attic it does not occur after eta, iota, or rho. Example: Attic νεανίας (ne-a-ni-as) versus Ionic νεηνίης (ne-ei-ni-eis), a "young person". Often the simple vowel ε or o of Attic dialect appears in Ionic as a diphthong (κούρη "young lady, girl", for κόρη; πείρας "end, border" for πέρας)
In many cases Ionic turned Proto-Greek labiovelar sound /kw/ into /k/ rather than /p/ before back vowels. Example: Attic ὅπως (hopos) versus Ionic ὄκως (okos), "the same way (as)". It is worth mentioning that similar divergent outcomes for /kw/ occurred also in Celtic and Italic branches of the Indo-European language family, for example between Latin and Oscan, as well as between P-Celtic (Welsh) and Q-Celtic (Irish) — e.g. Welsh pump, Breton pemp, Cornish pymp vs. Gaelic cóig or cùig, Irish cúig, Manx queig (note the treatment of the same consonant in English with this word meaning "five ").
Ionic contracted adjoining vowels much less frequently than Attic. Example: Ionic γένεα (gen-e-a) versus Attic γένη (gen-ei), "family, stock".
Ionic "ss" appears as "tt" in later Classical Attic. Example: Ionic τέσσαρες (tessares) versus Attic τέτταρες (tettares), "four".
Ionic had a very analytical word-order, perhaps the most analytical one within ancient Greek dialects. Moreover the Ionic morphology of noun and verb doesn't have dual-forms.
In some words, Attic initial aspiration was lacking in Old Ionic (the so called "psilosis"), and in New Ionic initial aspiration was probably lost entirely. Example: Attic ἵππος (hippos) versus Ionic ἴκκος (ikkos), "horse".

Origins

Main article: Proto-Greek language

There are several theories about the origins of the Greek language.
..... Click the link for more information.

Greek}}}
Writing system: Greek alphabet
Official status
Official language of: Greece
Cyprus
European Union
recognised as minority language in parts of:
European Union
Italy
Turkey
Regulated by:
..... Click the link for more information.

Greek alphabet
Child systems Gothic
Glagolitic
Cyrillic
Coptic
Old Italic alphabet
Latin alphabet

ISO 15924 Grek

Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
..... Click the link for more information.

The Proto-Greek language is the assumed last common ancestor of all known varieties of Greek, including the Mycenaean language, the classical Greek dialects Attic-Ionic, Aeolic, Doric and North-Western Greek, and ultimately the Koine and Modern Greek.
..... Click the link for more information.

History of the
Greek language
(see also: Greek alphabet)
Proto-Greek (c. 2000 BC)

Mycenaean (c. 1600–1100 BC)

Ancient Greek (c.
..... Click the link for more information.

Ancient Greek refers to the second stage in the history of the Greek language^[1] as it existed during the Archaic (9th–6th centuries BC) and Classical (5th–4th centuries BC) periods in Greece.
..... Click the link for more information.

Greek dialects are treated under:

Ancient Greek dialects
Varieties of Modern Greek

..... Click the link for more information.

Aeolic Greek (also known as Lesbian Greek) is a linguistic term used to describe a set of rather archaic Greek sub-dialects, spoken mainly in Boeotia (a region in Central Greece), in Lesbos (an island close to Asia Minor) and in other Greek colonies.
..... Click the link for more information.

Arcadocypriot was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia and Cyprus between ca. the 7th and 4th centuries BC. It is directly descended from Mycenaean Greek, being spoken in areas where the Mycenaean population retreated from the Dorian invasion.
..... Click the link for more information.

Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek and is the standard form of the language studied in courses in "Ancient Greek".
..... Click the link for more information.

Doric Greek is an ancient branch of the Greek language. In classical times its dialects were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon.
..... Click the link for more information.

Homeric Greek is the form of Ancient Greek that was used by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey. It is an archaic version of Ionic Greek, with admixtures from certain other dialects, such as Aeolic Greek.
..... Click the link for more information.

Ancient Macedonian language was the tongue of the Ancient Macedonians. It was spoken in Macedon during the 1st millennium BC. Marginalized from the 5th century BC, it was gradually replaced by the common Greek dialect of the Hellenistic Era.
..... Click the link for more information.

Koine Greek (kini) (Κοινὴ Ἑλληνική, "common Greek", or
..... Click the link for more information.

Medieval Greek (Greek: Μεσαιωνική Ελληνική) is a linguistic term that describes the fourth period in the history of the Greek language.
..... Click the link for more information.

Modern Greek}}}
Writing system: Greek alphabet
Official status
Official language of: Greece
Cyprus
European Union
recognised as minority language in parts of:
European Union
Italy
Turkey
Regulated by:
..... Click the link for more information.

Cappadocian}}}
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: ine
ISO 639-3: cpg

Cappadocian, also known as Cappadocian Greek or Asia Minor Greek, is a dialect of the Greek language, formerly spoken in Cappadocia (Central Turkey).
..... Click the link for more information.

Cretan Greek (Cretan dialect, Greek: Kritikí diálektos Κρητική διάλεκτος or Kritiká Κρητικά
..... Click the link for more information.

Cypriot Greek (Greek: Κυπριακή διάλεκτος) or Kypriaka (Greek: Κυπριακά
..... Click the link for more information.

Griko, sometimes spelled Grico, is a Modern Greek dialect which is spoken by people in the Magna Graecia region in southern Italy and Sicily, and it is otherwise known as the Grecanic language.
..... Click the link for more information.

Katharevousa (Greek: Καθαρεύουσα, IPA: [kaθaˈrɛvusa]
..... Click the link for more information.

Pontic Greek is a form of the Greek language originally spoken in the Pontus area on the southern shores of the Black Sea, and today mainly in Greece. Its speakers are Pontian Greeks.
..... Click the link for more information.

Tsakonian, Tzakonian or Tsakonic (Greek Τσακωνικά) is a dialect of modern Greek spoken in the Tsakonian region of the Peloponnese, Greece.
..... Click the link for more information.

Yevanic, otherwise known as Romaniote and Judeo-Greek, was the dialect of the Romaniotes, the group of Greek Jews whose existence in Greece is documented since the Hellenistic period.
..... Click the link for more information.

Ancient Greek, in classical antiquity before the development of the Koiné as the lingua franca of Hellenism, was divided into several dialects. Likewise, Modern Greek is divided into several dialects, most of them deriving from the Koiné.
..... Click the link for more information.

The Greek Dark Ages (ca. 1100 BC–750 BC) refers to the period of Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean civilization in the 11th century BC to the rise of the first Greek city-states in the 9th century BC and the epics of Homer and earliest
..... Click the link for more information.

This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling.
You can assist by [ editing it] now. A how-to guide is available, as is general .
This article has been tagged since September 2007.
..... Click the link for more information.

Ionia]] Parameter not given Error...
''Template needs its first parameter as beg[in], mid[dle], or end. Parameter not given Error...
..... Click the link for more information.

Homer is the name given to the purported author of the early Greek poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. It is now generally believed that they were composed by illiterate aoidoi (rhapsodes) in an oral tradition in the 8th or 7th century BC.
..... Click the link for more information.

Ionic Dialect

See also

Origins