Proto-Ionians
Encyclopedia
The Proto-Ionians are the hypothetical earliest speakers of the Ionic dialects
of Ancient Greek
, chiefly in the works of Jean Faucounau.
The relation of Ionic to the other Greek dialects has been subject to some debate. It is mostly grouped with Arcadocypriot
as opposed to Doric
, reflecting two waves of migration into Greece following the Proto-Greek period, but sometimes also as separate from Arcadocypriot on equal footing with Doric, suggesting three distinct waves of migration.
and the other including both Arcadocypriot
and Ionic Greek
. But alternative approaches proposing three groups are not uncommon; Thumb and Kieckers (1932) propose three groups, classifying Ionic as genetically just as separate from Arcadocypriot as from Doric. Like a few other linguists (Vladimir Georgiev, C. Rhuijgh, P. Léveque, etc.),
The bipartite classification is known as the "Risch-Chadwick Theory", named after its two famous proponents, Ernst Risch and John Chadwick
.
(1887), who believed that the Attic-Ionic dialect group was due to an "Ionicization" of Attica by immigration from Ionia in historical times.
Curtius hypothesized that there had been a "Proto-Ionian" migration from the Balkans to western Anatolia in the same period that brought the Arcadic
dialect (the successor of the Mycenean Greek stage yet undiscovered in the time of Curtius) to mainland Greece.
Curtius' hypothesis was endorsed by George Hempl in 1920. Hempl preferred to call these hypothetical, early Anatolian Greeks "Javonians". Hempl attempted to defend a reading of Hittite cuneiform
as Greek, in spite of the establishment of the Hittite language
as a separate branch of Indo-European by Hrozný in 1917.
In Faucounau's view, the first Greek settlers in their historical territory were the (Pelasgic) "proto-Ionians", who were separated around 3000 BC from both the proto-Dorians and the proto-Mycenaeans
. Faucounau traces this three-wave model to similar views put forward by Paul Kretschmer
in the 1890s and the 1900s (i.e., before the decipherment of Linear B
), with a modification: the (proto-Ionic) First wave came by sea, the "Proto-Ionians" settling first in the Cycladic Islands, then in Euboea and Attica. The last two waves are the generally accepted arrival of the Mycenaean Greeks (the linguistic predecessors of the Arcadocypriot speakers) in around 1700 BC and the Dorian invasion
around 1100 BC.
Faucounau makes three arguments for the proto-Ionians in Les Proto-Ioniens (2001). The first is the explanation of certain Mycenaean forms as loan-words from the proto-Ionians already present in Greece: he asserts that digamma
is unexpectedly absent from some Mycenaean words, the occasional resolution of Indo-European
vocalic r
to -or/ro- instead of -ar/ra-; torpeza for τραπεζα, and the explanation of Mycenaean pa-da-yeu as Greek παδαω/πηδαω, "spring leap, bound", which he interprets as both cognate
with, and having the same meaning as, English
paddle. He does not explain why, in recorded Greek, πηδαω is the Ionian form.
The second argument is a refinement of a long-established argument in archaeoastronomy
, developed most recently by Michael Ovenden, which considers the motion of the North Pole with respect to the fixed stars, because of the precession
of the equinox
es. Ovenden concluded, from the slant of the constellation
s in the present sky and the hypothesis that Aratus
and Hipparchus
(insofar as his work survives) correctly and completely represent immemorial tradition, that the constellations we now use had been devised when the Pole was in Draco
, about 2800 BC. He also concluded that the inventors probably lived between 34°30' and 37°30' N., north of most ancient civilizations, and so were likely to be the Minoans.
Dr. Crommelin, FRAS, has disputed this latitude, arguing that the constellation makers could only see to 54° S, but that this was compatible with latitudes as low as the 31°N of Alexandria
; stars which only skirt the southern horizon by a few degrees are not effectively visible. Assuming a Greek latitude would render Canopus
and Fomalhaut
invisible. Crommelin estimates the constellators at 2460 BC; R. A. Proctor
has estimated 2170 BC. E. W. Maunder 2700 BC.
Faucounau's addition to this is the argument that Crete is also too far south, that the names of the constellations are (Ionic) Greek, not Minoan, and therefore that the constellation makers must be the proto-Ionians in the Cyclades
. The south coast of Crete follows 35°N latitude; Syros
, which he identifies as a center of proto-Ionian civilization, is at 37°20'. On this basis, he identifies the proto-Ionians with the archaeological Early Cycladic II
culture: after all, they made round "frying pans
," and one of them with an incised spiral, and the Phaistos Disc is round with an incised spiral.
His third argument depends on Herodotus's somewhat obscure use of the word Pelasgian
for various peoples, Greek-speaking and otherwise, around the Aegean basin. Faucounau claims that the word, which he derives idiosyncratically from πελαγος, "sea", means the descendants of the proto-Ionians. Some of them lost their language because they settled among foreigners; others, such as the Athenians, preserved their language - Attic, apparently, arises from a mixture of proto-Ionian and other dialects. He does not explain why Homer speaks of Dodona
, inland in north-western Greece, as Pelasgian (Il, 16,233); nor why no place in historic Ionia
is called Pelasgian.
He adds to the above arguments with some archaeological facts. For example, the Treaty of Alaksandu
between Wilusa
and the Hittite empire bore a Greek name at a time when there was no Mycenaean pottery at Troy. Faucounau considers that all these arguments are an indirect confirmation of his own decipherment claim of the Phaistos Disk as proto-Ionic, although this attempt has not been endorsed in the academic mainstream.
Faucounau's "Proto-Ionic Disk Language" has most of the properties of Homeric Greek
, including loss of labiovelars and even of digamma
(both are preserved intact in the Mycenaean of the 14th century BC). Digamma, in Faucounau's reading of the Phaistos Disk, has in some instances passed to y, a sound shift not known from any other Greek dialect, but suspected in Ionic (e.g. Ion. païs v/etym. paus). For Faucounau, the Pelasgians, the Trojans
, the Carians
and the Philistines
are all descended from the Proto-Ionians.
Faucounau's work on this subject has received two scholarly notices. Paul Faure
, as below, writes warmly of many parts of the Proto-Ionian theory. He declines to address the decipherment, and omits the Celts; he also dates the Middle Cycladic culture only from 2700 BC, not 2900. Yves Duhoux expresses his disbelief in the decipherment, but does not mention the wider theory, except to deny that the Disc came from Syros. Faucounau's paper on the statistical problem of how many glyphs are likely to be omitted from a short text has never been cited. Most of it addresses the long-solved case in which the glyphs are equally likely.
In a less academic mode, the internet troll "grapheus" has advocated Faucounau's theories over Usenet, becoming notorious in the process. Posting from Luxembourg
, and admitting to personal acquaintance of Faucounau, he has been suspected to be an alter ego of Faucounau's.
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic 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 5th Century...
of Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
, chiefly in the works of Jean Faucounau.
The relation of Ionic to the other Greek dialects has been subject to some debate. It is mostly grouped with Arcadocypriot
Arcadocypriot
Arcadocypriot or southern Achaean was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia in the central Peloponnese and in Cyprus. Its resemblance to Mycenaean Greek, as it is known from the Linear B corpus, suggests that Arcadocypriot is its descendant...
as opposed to Doric
Doric Greek
Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants 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. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...
, reflecting two waves of migration into Greece following the Proto-Greek period, but sometimes also as separate from Arcadocypriot on equal footing with Doric, suggesting three distinct waves of migration.
Position of Ionic Greek
Mainstream Greek linguistics separates the Greek dialects into two large genetic groups, one including Doric GreekDoric Greek
Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants 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. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...
and the other including both Arcadocypriot
Arcadocypriot
Arcadocypriot or southern Achaean was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia in the central Peloponnese and in Cyprus. Its resemblance to Mycenaean Greek, as it is known from the Linear B corpus, suggests that Arcadocypriot is its descendant...
and Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic 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 5th Century...
. But alternative approaches proposing three groups are not uncommon; Thumb and Kieckers (1932) propose three groups, classifying Ionic as genetically just as separate from Arcadocypriot as from Doric. Like a few other linguists (Vladimir Georgiev, C. Rhuijgh, P. Léveque, etc.),
The bipartite classification is known as the "Risch-Chadwick Theory", named after its two famous proponents, Ernst Risch and John Chadwick
John Chadwick
John Chadwick was an English linguist and classical scholar most famous for his role in deciphering Linear B, along with Michael Ventris.-Early life and education:...
.
Proto-Ionians
The "Proto-Ionians" first appear in the work of Ernst CurtiusErnst Curtius
You may be looking for Ernst Robert Curtius .Ernst Curtius was a German archaeologist and historian.-Biography:...
(1887), who believed that the Attic-Ionic dialect group was due to an "Ionicization" of Attica by immigration from Ionia in historical times.
Curtius hypothesized that there had been a "Proto-Ionian" migration from the Balkans to western Anatolia in the same period that brought the Arcadic
Arcadocypriot
Arcadocypriot or southern Achaean was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia in the central Peloponnese and in Cyprus. Its resemblance to Mycenaean Greek, as it is known from the Linear B corpus, suggests that Arcadocypriot is its descendant...
dialect (the successor of the Mycenean Greek stage yet undiscovered in the time of Curtius) to mainland Greece.
Curtius' hypothesis was endorsed by George Hempl in 1920. Hempl preferred to call these hypothetical, early Anatolian Greeks "Javonians". Hempl attempted to defend a reading of Hittite cuneiform
Hittite cuneiform
Hittite cuneiform is the implementation of cuneiform script used in writing the Hittite language. The surviving corpus of Hittite texts is preserved in cuneiform on clay tablets dates to the 2nd millennium BC ....
as Greek, in spite of the establishment of the Hittite language
Hittite language
Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
as a separate branch of Indo-European by Hrozný in 1917.
Faucounau
The tripartite theory was revived by amateur linguist Jean Faucounau.In Faucounau's view, the first Greek settlers in their historical territory were the (Pelasgic) "proto-Ionians", who were separated around 3000 BC from both the proto-Dorians and the proto-Mycenaeans
Mycenaean Greece
Mycenaean Greece was a cultural period of Bronze Age Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. Athens, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns are also important Mycenaean sites...
. Faucounau traces this three-wave model to similar views put forward by Paul Kretschmer
Paul Kretschmer
Paul Kretschmer was a German linguist who studied the earliest history and interrelations of the Indo-European languages and showed how they were influenced by non-Indo-European languages, such as Etruscan....
in the 1890s and the 1900s (i.e., before the decipherment of Linear B
Linear B
Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization...
), with a modification: the (proto-Ionic) First wave came by sea, the "Proto-Ionians" settling first in the Cycladic Islands, then in Euboea and Attica. The last two waves are the generally accepted arrival of the Mycenaean Greeks (the linguistic predecessors of the Arcadocypriot speakers) in around 1700 BC and the Dorian invasion
Dorian invasion
The Dorian invasion is a concept devised by historians of Ancient Greece to explain the replacement of pre-classical dialects and traditions in southern Greece by the ones that prevailed in Classical Greece...
around 1100 BC.
Faucounau makes three arguments for the proto-Ionians in Les Proto-Ioniens (2001). The first is the explanation of certain Mycenaean forms as loan-words from the proto-Ionians already present in Greece: he asserts that digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
is unexpectedly absent from some Mycenaean words, the occasional resolution of Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
vocalic r
Syllabic consonant
A syllabic consonant is a consonant which either forms a syllable on its own, or is the nucleus of a syllable. The diacritic for this in the International Phonetic Alphabet is the under-stroke, ⟨⟩...
to -or/ro- instead of -ar/ra-; torpeza for τραπεζα, and the explanation of Mycenaean pa-da-yeu as Greek παδαω/πηδαω, "spring leap, bound", which he interprets as both cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
with, and having the same meaning as, English
Modern English
Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern...
paddle. He does not explain why, in recorded Greek, πηδαω is the Ionian form.
The second argument is a refinement of a long-established argument in archaeoastronomy
Archaeoastronomy
Archaeoastronomy is the study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky how they used phenomena in the sky and what role the sky played in their cultures." Clive Ruggles argues it is misleading to consider archaeoastronomy to be the study of ancient astronomy, as modern...
, developed most recently by Michael Ovenden, which considers the motion of the North Pole with respect to the fixed stars, because of the precession
Precession
Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotation axis of a rotating body. It can be defined as a change in direction of the rotation axis in which the second Euler angle is constant...
of the equinox
Equinox
An equinox occurs twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun, the center of the Sun being in the same plane as the Earth's equator...
es. Ovenden concluded, from the slant of the constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
s in the present sky and the hypothesis that Aratus
Aratus
Aratus was a Greek didactic poet. He is best known today for being quoted in the New Testament. His major extant work is his hexameter poem Phaenomena , the first half of which is a verse setting of a lost work of the same name by Eudoxus of Cnidus. It describes the constellations and other...
and Hipparchus
Hipparchus
Hipparchus, the common Latinization of the Greek Hipparkhos, can mean:* Hipparchus, the ancient Greek astronomer** Hipparchic cycle, an astronomical cycle he created** Hipparchus , a lunar crater named in his honour...
(insofar as his work survives) correctly and completely represent immemorial tradition, that the constellations we now use had been devised when the Pole was in Draco
Draco (constellation)
Draco is a constellation in the far northern sky. Its name is Latin for dragon. Draco is circumpolar for many observers in the northern hemisphere...
, about 2800 BC. He also concluded that the inventors probably lived between 34°30' and 37°30' N., north of most ancient civilizations, and so were likely to be the Minoans.
Dr. Crommelin, FRAS, has disputed this latitude, arguing that the constellation makers could only see to 54° S, but that this was compatible with latitudes as low as the 31°N of Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
; stars which only skirt the southern horizon by a few degrees are not effectively visible. Assuming a Greek latitude would render Canopus
Canopus
Canopus |Alpha]] Carinae) is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina and Argo Navis, and the second brightest star in the night-time sky, after Sirius. Canopus's visual magnitude is −0.72, and it has an absolute magnitude of −5.53.Canopus is a supergiant of spectral...
and Fomalhaut
Fomalhaut
Fomalhaut is the brightest star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus and one of the brightest stars in the sky. Fomalhaut can be seen low in the southern sky in the northern hemisphere in fall and early winter evenings. Near latitude 50˚N, it sets around the time Sirius rises, and does not...
invisible. Crommelin estimates the constellators at 2460 BC; R. A. Proctor
Richard Anthony Proctor
Richard Anthony Proctor was an English astronomer.He is best remembered for having produced one of the earliest maps of Mars in 1867 from 27 drawings by the English observer William Rutter Dawes....
has estimated 2170 BC. E. W. Maunder 2700 BC.
Faucounau's addition to this is the argument that Crete is also too far south, that the names of the constellations are (Ionic) Greek, not Minoan, and therefore that the constellation makers must be the proto-Ionians in the Cyclades
Cyclades
The Cyclades is a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...
. The south coast of Crete follows 35°N latitude; Syros
Syros
Syros , or Siros or Syra is a Greek island in the Cyclades, in the Aegean Sea. It is located south-east of Athens. The area of the island is . The largest towns are Ermoupoli, Ano Syros, and Vari. Ermoupoli is the capital of the island and the Cyclades...
, which he identifies as a center of proto-Ionian civilization, is at 37°20'. On this basis, he identifies the proto-Ionians with the archaeological Early Cycladic II
Cyclades
The Cyclades is a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...
culture: after all, they made round "frying pans
Frying pans
Frying pans are ceramic objects of unknown purpose from the archaeological strata called Early Cycladic II in the Aegean Islands and the Early Helladic I and II elsewhere in the Aegean. There has been much speculation over the mysterious purpose of what are likely prestige goods. Characteristically...
," and one of them with an incised spiral, and the Phaistos Disc is round with an incised spiral.
His third argument depends on Herodotus's somewhat obscure use of the word Pelasgian
Pelasgians
The name Pelasgians was used by some ancient Greek writers to refer to populations that were either the ancestors of the Greeks or who preceded the Greeks in Greece, "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably indigenous people in the Greek world." In general, "Pelasgian" has come...
for various peoples, Greek-speaking and otherwise, around the Aegean basin. Faucounau claims that the word, which he derives idiosyncratically from πελαγος, "sea", means the descendants of the proto-Ionians. Some of them lost their language because they settled among foreigners; others, such as the Athenians, preserved their language - Attic, apparently, arises from a mixture of proto-Ionian and other dialects. He does not explain why Homer speaks of Dodona
Dodona
Dodona in Epirus in northwestern Greece, was an oracle devoted to a Mother Goddess identified at other sites with Rhea or Gaia, but here called Dione, who was joined and partly supplanted in historical times by the Greek god Zeus.The shrine of Dodona was regarded as the oldest Hellenic oracle,...
, inland in north-western Greece, as Pelasgian (Il, 16,233); nor why no place in historic Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
is called Pelasgian.
He adds to the above arguments with some archaeological facts. For example, the Treaty of Alaksandu
Alaksandu
Alaksandu was a king of Wilusa who sealed a treaty with Muwatalli II ca. 1280 BC. This treaty implies that Alaksandu had previously secured a treaty with Muwatalli's father, Mursili II, as well....
between Wilusa
Wilusa
Wilusa was a city of the late Bronze Age Assuwa confederation of western Anatolia.It is known from six references in 13th century BC Hittite sources, including...
and the Hittite empire bore a Greek name at a time when there was no Mycenaean pottery at Troy. Faucounau considers that all these arguments are an indirect confirmation of his own decipherment claim of the Phaistos Disk as proto-Ionic, although this attempt has not been endorsed in the academic mainstream.
Faucounau's "Proto-Ionic Disk Language" has most of the properties of Homeric Greek
Homeric Greek
Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language 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. It later served as the basis of Epic Greek, the language of epic poetry, typically in...
, including loss of labiovelars and even of digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
(both are preserved intact in the Mycenaean of the 14th century BC). Digamma, in Faucounau's reading of the Phaistos Disk, has in some instances passed to y, a sound shift not known from any other Greek dialect, but suspected in Ionic (e.g. Ion. païs v/etym. paus). For Faucounau, the Pelasgians, the Trojans
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
, the Carians
Carians
The Carians were the ancient inhabitants of Caria in southwest Anatolia.-Historical accounts:It is not clear when the Carians enter into history. The definition is dependent on corresponding Caria and the Carians to the "Karkiya" or "Karkisa" mentioned in the Hittite records...
and the Philistines
Philistines
Philistines , Pleshet or Peleset, were a people who occupied the southern coast of Canaan at the beginning of the Iron Age . According to the Bible, they ruled the five city-states of Gaza, Askelon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath, from the Wadi Gaza in the south to the Yarqon River in the north, but with...
are all descended from the Proto-Ionians.
Faucounau's work on this subject has received two scholarly notices. Paul Faure
Paul Faure (archeologist)
Paul Faure was a French archaeologist. He was born in Paris in 1916 and graduated from École normale supérieure. In 1967, he became professor of Greek language and civilization at the University Blaise Pascal at Clermont-Ferrand. He eventually became Doctor Honoris Causa at the University of Athens...
, as below, writes warmly of many parts of the Proto-Ionian theory. He declines to address the decipherment, and omits the Celts; he also dates the Middle Cycladic culture only from 2700 BC, not 2900. Yves Duhoux expresses his disbelief in the decipherment, but does not mention the wider theory, except to deny that the Disc came from Syros. Faucounau's paper on the statistical problem of how many glyphs are likely to be omitted from a short text has never been cited. Most of it addresses the long-solved case in which the glyphs are equally likely.
In a less academic mode, the internet troll "grapheus" has advocated Faucounau's theories over Usenet, becoming notorious in the process. Posting from Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
, and admitting to personal acquaintance of Faucounau, he has been suspected to be an alter ego of Faucounau's.
See also
- PelasgiansPelasgiansThe name Pelasgians was used by some ancient Greek writers to refer to populations that were either the ancestors of the Greeks or who preceded the Greeks in Greece, "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably indigenous people in the Greek world." In general, "Pelasgian" has come...
- Proto-Greek
- Greek dialects
- Dorian invasionDorian invasionThe Dorian invasion is a concept devised by historians of Ancient Greece to explain the replacement of pre-classical dialects and traditions in southern Greece by the ones that prevailed in Classical Greece...