Varieties of Modern Greek
Encyclopedia
The linguistic varieties of Modern Greek
can be classified along two principal dimensions. First, there is a long tradition of sociolect
al variation between the natural, popular spoken language on the one hand and archaizing, learned written forms on the other. Second, there is regional variation between dialect
s. The competition between the popular and the learned registers (see Diglossia
), culminated in the struggle between Dimotiki
(Demotic Greek) and Katharevousa
during the 19th and 20th centuries. As for regional dialects, variation within the bulk of dialects of present-day Greece is not particularly strong, except for a number of outlying, highly divergent dialects spoken by isolated communities.
in Hellenistic and Roman antiquity, there was a competition between the naturally evolving spoken forms of Greek on the one hand, and the use of artificially archaic, learned registers
on the other. The learned registers employed grammatical and lexical forms in imitation of classical Attic Greek
(Atticism
). This situation is known in modern linguistics as diglossia
.
During the Middle Ages, Greek writing varied along a continuum between extreme forms of the high register very close to Attic, and moderate forms much closer to the spoken Demotic. According to Manolis Triantafyllides, the modern Greek language of the beginning of the 19th century, as used in the demotic poetry of the time, has very few grammatical differences from the vernacular language of the 15th century. During the early Modern Era, a middle-ground variety of moderately archaic written standard Greek emerged in the usage of educated Greeks (such as the Phanariots) and the Greek church; its syntax was essentially Modern Greek. After the Greek War of Independence
and the formation of the modern Greek state
(1830), a political effort was made to "purify" this form of Greek by bringing it back to resemble classical Attic Greek more closely. The result was Katharevousa (καθαρεύουσα, lit. 'the purifying one'), still a compromise form with basically Modern Greek syntax, but re-lexified with a much larger amount of Ancient Greek words and morphology. Katharevousa was used as an official language in administration, education, the church, journalism, and (until the late 19th century) in literature.
At the same time, spoken Demotic, while not recognised as an official language, nevertheless developed a supra-regional, de-facto standard variety. From the late 19th century onwards, written Demotic rather than Katharevousa became the primary medium of literature. During much of the 20th century, there were heated political conflicts over the use of either of the two varieties, especially over the issue of their use in education. Schools were forced to switch from one form to the other and back several times during the 20th century. The conflict was resolved only after the overthrow of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974
, whose strong ideological pro-Katharevousa stance had ultimately contributed to bringing that language form into disrepute. In 1976, shortly after the restitution of democracy
, Demotic was finally adopted for use everywhere in education and became the language of the state for all official purposes. By that time, however, the form of Demotic used in practice was no longer the pure popular dialect, but had begun to assimilate elements from the Katharevousa tradition again. Georgios Babiniotis criticizes the procedures that were followed for the final solution of diglossia, arguing that, although the Greek government and the competent Greek authorities resolved the issue once for ever, they were unprepared and they acted in a hasty way. In 1982 diacritics
were replaced by the monotonic orthography.
that otherwise refers to the "common" form of post-classical Ancient Greek; according to these scholars, Modern Greek Koiné is the "supra-dialect product of the composition of both the Demotic and Katharevousa." Indeed, Standard Modern Greek has incorporated a large amount of vocabulary from the learned tradition, especially through the registers of academic discourse, politics, technology and religion; together with these, it has incorporated a number of morphological
features associated with their inflectional paradigms, as well as some phonological
features not originally found in pure Demotic. Babiniotis asserts that this koiné is still in evolution, and has prevailed without the supersession of Modern Greek dialects (contrary to the Alexandrian Koiné), which continue to exist, although falling back.
, they have no relation with the ancient dialects.
It is difficult to monitor the evolution of koiné and its splitting into the modern Greek dialects; certain researchers make the hypothesis that the various local varieties were formed between the 10th and the 12th century (as part of an evolution starting a few centuries before), but it is difficult to draw some safer conclusions because of the absence of texts written in the vernacular language, when this initial dialect differentiation occurred. Very few paradigms of these local varieties are found in certain texts, which however used mainly learned registers. The first texts written in modern Greek dialects appear during the Early Renaissance in the islands of Cyprus
and Crete
.
control, first in legal and administrative documents, and then in poetry. The earliest evidence for literary dialects comes from areas under Latin control
, notably from Cyprus, Crete, and the Aegean islands
. From Cyprus under the Lusignan dynasty in the 14th to 16th centuries still exist legal documents, prose chronicles, and a group of anonymous love poems. Dialect archives also survive from 15th century Naxos
.
It is above all from the island of Crete, during the period of Venetian rule from 1204 until its capture by the Ottomans in 1669, that dialect can be illustrated more fully. Documents showing dialectical features exist from the end of the 12th century, rapidly increasing in number from the 13th century onward. During the Cretan Renaissance in the 16th and early 17th centuries there existed a flourishing vernacular literature in the Cretan dialect, based on Italian literary influences. Its best-known specimen today is the verse romance
Erotokritos
, by Vitsentzos Kornaros
(1553–1614).
Later, during the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Ionian Islands
, then also under Italian rule, became a centre of literary production in Demotic Greek. The best-known writer from that period was the poet Dionysios Solomos
(1789–1857), who wrote the Greek national anthem (Hymn to Liberty) and other works celebrating the Greek Revolution of 1821-1830. His language became influential on the further course of standardisation that led to the emergence of the modern standard form of Demotic, based on the south-western dialects.
and Cyprus. Native Greek scholarship traditionally distinguishes between "dialect
s" proper (διάλεκτος), i.e. strongly marked, distinctive varieties, and mere "idioms" (ιδίωμα), less markedly distinguished sub-varieties of a language. In this sense, the term "dialect" is often reserved to only the main outlying forms listed in the next section (Tsakonian, Griko
, Pontic, and Cappadocian
), whereas the bulk of the mainstream spoken varieties of present-day Greece are classified as "idioms". However, most English-speaking linguists tend to refer to them as "dialects", emphasising degrees of variation only when necessary. The geographical dialects of Greek are divided into two main groups, Northern and Southern:
peninsula. It is unique among all other modern dialects in that it is believed to derive not from the ancient Attic
-Ionian
Koiné
, but from Doric
or from a mixed form of a late, ancient Laconian variety of the Koiné influenced by Doric. It used to be spoken earlier in a wider area of the Peloponnese, including Laconia
, the historical home of the Doric Sparta
ns.
Griko refers to the diaspora dialects of Greek spoken in some areas of southern Italy
, a historical remnant of the ancient colonisation of Magna Graecia
. There are two small Griko-speaking communities known as the Griko people
who live in the Italian regions of Calabria
, the southern tip of the Italian peninsula, and in Apulia
, its south-easternmost corner. These dialects too are believed to have developed on the basis of an originally Doric ancient dialect, and have preserved some elements of it, though to a lesser extent than Tsakonian. They subsequently adopted influences from ancient Koiné, but became isolated from the rest of the Greek-speaking world after the decline of Byzantine rule in Italy during the Middle Ages. Among their linguistic peculiarities, besides influences from Italian, is the preservation of the infinitive
, which was lost in the modern Greek of the Balkans.
Pontic Greek dialects are those originally spoken along the eastern Black Sea
coast of Asia Minor
, the historical region of Pontus
in Turkey
. From there, speakers of Pontic migrated to other areas along the Black Sea coast, in Ukraine
(see Mariupol#Language structure), Russia
and Georgia
. Through the forced population exchange
after the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)
and the Treaty of Lausanne
of 1923, the Pontic speakers of Turkey were expelled and moved to Greece. Of the Pontic speakers in the ex-Soviet Union, many have emigrated to Greece more recently. The number of Pontic Greeks currently maintaining the dialect is unclear. A small group of Muslim Pontic speakers is reported to be still found in Turkey, although their dialects show heavy structural convergence towards Turkish
.
, forming a group of dialects influenced by the Turkish language. In this group, linguists include not only the Cappadocian Greek but also the dialect spoken in Pharasa (Develi in Kayseri
) and other nearby villages (Afshar-Köy, Çukuri), and the dialect of Sille (near Iconium). In the 1920s Asia Minor Greek speakers were forced to emigrate to Greece, where they were resettled in various locations. In 2005, professors Mark Janse
and Dimitris Papazachariou discovered that there are still native speakers of the Mistiot dialect of Cappadocian in Central and Northern Greece.
which had a number of distinguishing features, such as certain differences in the accusative and genitive cases
of the definite article
; the Greek speakers of the area had also incorporated into their dialect many French words. Constantinopolitan Greek, on the other side, has very few dialectal features, and it is very close to what scholars call "Modern Greek Koiné."
In Ukraine
, the bulk of the Greek speakers is nowadays located in the wider area of Mariupol
. The Greek dialect of Mariupol is spoken in about 17 villages, although its use is declining. Its main features present certain similarities with both the Pontic (e.g. the lack of synizesis
of -ía, éa), and the northern varieties of the core dialects (e.g. the northern vocalism).
Another Greek outlying dialect was spoken, until the mid-20th century, in Cargèse
on Corsica
, by descendants of 17th-century settlers from the Mani peninsula
. The dialect, which is now regarded as extinct, had preserved the main characteristics of the Mani dialect, and had been also influenced by both the Corsican
and the French language
(official language of the island after its union with France
).
Unlike the above, the dialects described below form a contiguous Greek-speaking area, which covers most of the territory of Greece. They represent the vast majority of Greek speakers today. As they are less divergent from each other and from the standard, they are typically classified as mere "idioms" rather than "dialects" by Greek authors.
The most prominent contrasts between the present-day dialects are found between northern and southern varieties. Northern varieties cover most of continental Greece down to the Gulf of Corinth
, while the southern varieties are spoken in the Peloponese peninsula and the larger part of the Aegean
and Ionian islands
, including the large southern islands of Crete
and Cyprus
. The most salient defining marker of the northern varieties is their treatment of unstressed vowels (so-called northern vocalism), while many southern varieties are characterised, among other things, by their palatalisation of velar consonants. Between these areas, in a contiguous area around the capital Athens
(i.e. the regions of Attica
and neighbouring parts of Boeotia
, Euboia, the Peloponese and nearby islands), there is a "dialectal void" where no distinctly marked traditional Greek dialects are found. This is due to the fact that these areas were once predominantly inhabited by speakers of Arvanitika
Albanian. The Greek spoken in this area today is the product of convergence between varieties of migrants who moved to the capital and its surroundings from various other parts of the country, and it is close to the standard. On the whole, Standard Modern Greek is based predominantly on the southern dialects, especially those of the Peloponese.
At the fringes of this former Arvanitika-speaking area, there were once some enclaves of highly distinct traditional Greek dialects, believed to have been remnants of a formerly contiguous Greek dialect area from the time before the Arvanitic settlement. These include the old local dialect of Athens itself ("Old Athenian"), that of Megara
(to the west of Attica), of Kymi
in Euboia and of the island of Aegina
. These dialects are now extinct.
The following linguistic markers have been used to distinguish and classify the dialects of Greece. Many of these features are today characteristic only of the traditional rural vernaculars and may be socially stigmatised
. Younger, urban speakers throughout the country tend to converge towards accents closer to the standard language.
Modern Greek
Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...
can be classified along two principal dimensions. First, there is a long tradition of sociolect
Sociolect
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect or social dialect is a variety of language associated with a social group such as a socioeconomic class, an ethnic group, an age group, etc....
al variation between the natural, popular spoken language on the one hand and archaizing, learned written forms on the other. Second, there is regional variation between dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s. The competition between the popular and the learned registers (see Diglossia
Diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety , a second, highly codified variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal...
), culminated in the struggle between Dimotiki
Dimotiki
Demotic Greek or dimotiki is the modern vernacular form of the Greek language. The term has been in use since 1818. Demotic refers particularly to the form of the language that evolved naturally from ancient Greek, in opposition to the artificially archaic Katharevousa, which was the official...
(Demotic Greek) and Katharevousa
Katharevousa
Katharevousa , is a form of the Greek language conceived in the early 19th century as a compromise between Ancient Greek and the Modern Greek of the time, with a vocabulary largely based on ancient forms, but a much-simplified grammar. Originally, it was widely used both for literary and official...
during the 19th and 20th centuries. As for regional dialects, variation within the bulk of dialects of present-day Greece is not particularly strong, except for a number of outlying, highly divergent dialects spoken by isolated communities.
Roots and history: Demotic and Katharevousa
Ever since the times of Koiné GreekKoine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
in Hellenistic and Roman antiquity, there was a competition between the naturally evolving spoken forms of Greek on the one hand, and the use of artificially archaic, learned registers
Register (linguistics)
In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...
on the other. The learned registers employed grammatical and lexical forms in imitation of classical Attic Greek
Attic Greek
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 of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
(Atticism
Atticism
Atticism was a rhetorical movement that began in the first quarter of the 1st century BC; it may also refer to the wordings and phrasings typical of this movement, in contrast with spoken Greek, which continued to evolve in directions guided by the common usages of Hellenistic Greek.Atticism was...
). This situation is known in modern linguistics as diglossia
Diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety , a second, highly codified variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal...
.
During the Middle Ages, Greek writing varied along a continuum between extreme forms of the high register very close to Attic, and moderate forms much closer to the spoken Demotic. According to Manolis Triantafyllides, the modern Greek language of the beginning of the 19th century, as used in the demotic poetry of the time, has very few grammatical differences from the vernacular language of the 15th century. During the early Modern Era, a middle-ground variety of moderately archaic written standard Greek emerged in the usage of educated Greeks (such as the Phanariots) and the Greek church; its syntax was essentially Modern Greek. After the Greek War of Independence
Greek War of Independence
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...
and the formation of the modern Greek state
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
(1830), a political effort was made to "purify" this form of Greek by bringing it back to resemble classical Attic Greek more closely. The result was Katharevousa (καθαρεύουσα, lit. 'the purifying one'), still a compromise form with basically Modern Greek syntax, but re-lexified with a much larger amount of Ancient Greek words and morphology. Katharevousa was used as an official language in administration, education, the church, journalism, and (until the late 19th century) in literature.
At the same time, spoken Demotic, while not recognised as an official language, nevertheless developed a supra-regional, de-facto standard variety. From the late 19th century onwards, written Demotic rather than Katharevousa became the primary medium of literature. During much of the 20th century, there were heated political conflicts over the use of either of the two varieties, especially over the issue of their use in education. Schools were forced to switch from one form to the other and back several times during the 20th century. The conflict was resolved only after the overthrow of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974
Greek military junta of 1967-1974
The Greek military junta of 1967–1974, alternatively "The Regime of the Colonels" , or in Greece "The Junta", and "The Seven Years" are terms used to refer to a series of right-wing military governments that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974...
, whose strong ideological pro-Katharevousa stance had ultimately contributed to bringing that language form into disrepute. In 1976, shortly after the restitution of democracy
Metapolitefsi
The Metapolitefsi was a period in Greek history after the fall of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 that includes the transitional period from the fall of the dictatorship to the Greek legislative elections of 1974 and the democratic period immediately after these elections.The long...
, Demotic was finally adopted for use everywhere in education and became the language of the state for all official purposes. By that time, however, the form of Demotic used in practice was no longer the pure popular dialect, but had begun to assimilate elements from the Katharevousa tradition again. Georgios Babiniotis criticizes the procedures that were followed for the final solution of diglossia, arguing that, although the Greek government and the competent Greek authorities resolved the issue once for ever, they were unprepared and they acted in a hasty way. In 1982 diacritics
Greek diacritics
Greek orthography has used a variety of diacritics starting in the Hellenistic period. The complex polytonic orthography notates Ancient Greek phonology...
were replaced by the monotonic orthography.
Standard Modern Greek
Modern linguistics has come to call the resulting variety "Standard Modern Greek" to distinguish it from the pure original Demotic of earlier literature and traditional vernacular speech. Greek authors sometimes use the term "Modern Greek Koiné" (Νεοελληνική Κοινή, literally 'Common Modern Greek'), reviving the term koinéKoine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
that otherwise refers to the "common" form of post-classical Ancient Greek; according to these scholars, Modern Greek Koiné is the "supra-dialect product of the composition of both the Demotic and Katharevousa." Indeed, Standard Modern Greek has incorporated a large amount of vocabulary from the learned tradition, especially through the registers of academic discourse, politics, technology and religion; together with these, it has incorporated a number of morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
features associated with their inflectional paradigms, as well as some phonological
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
features not originally found in pure Demotic. Babiniotis asserts that this koiné is still in evolution, and has prevailed without the supersession of Modern Greek dialects (contrary to the Alexandrian Koiné), which continue to exist, although falling back.
History of modern Greek dialects
The first systematic scholarly treatment of the modern Greek dialects took place after the middle of the 19th century, mainly thanks to the work of the prominent Greek linguist Georgios Hadjidakis. The absence of descriptive accounts of the speech of individual regions made the efforts of the researchers of the 19th century more difficult. Therefore, the dialects' forms are known to us only during their last phase (from the middle of the 19th century, and until the panhellenic dominance of the Standard Modern Greek).Initial dialect differentiation
Modern linguistics is not in accord with the tendency of the 19th century scholars to regard modern Greek dialects as the direct descendants of the dialects of ancient Greek. According to the latest findings of scholarship, modern Greek dialects are products of the dialect differentiation of koiné, and, with the exception of tsakonianTsakonian language
Tsakonian, Tsaconian, Tzakonian or Tsakonic is a Hellenic language, spoken in the Tsakonian region of the Peloponnese, Greece....
, they have no relation with the ancient dialects.
It is difficult to monitor the evolution of koiné and its splitting into the modern Greek dialects; certain researchers make the hypothesis that the various local varieties were formed between the 10th and the 12th century (as part of an evolution starting a few centuries before), but it is difficult to draw some safer conclusions because of the absence of texts written in the vernacular language, when this initial dialect differentiation occurred. Very few paradigms of these local varieties are found in certain texts, which however used mainly learned registers. The first texts written in modern Greek dialects appear during the Early Renaissance in the islands of Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
and Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
.
Historical literary dialects
Before the establishment of a common written standard of Demotic Greek, there were various approaches to using regional variants of Demotic as a written language. Dialect is recorded in areas outside ByzantineByzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
control, first in legal and administrative documents, and then in poetry. The earliest evidence for literary dialects comes from areas under Latin control
Crusader states
The Crusader states were a number of mostly 12th- and 13th-century feudal states created by Western European crusaders in Asia Minor, Greece and the Holy Land , and during the Northern Crusades in the eastern Baltic area...
, notably from Cyprus, Crete, and the Aegean islands
Aegean Islands
The Aegean Islands are the group of islands in the Aegean Sea, with mainland Greece to the west and north and Turkey to the east; the island of Crete delimits the sea to the south, those of Rhodes, Karpathos and Kasos to the southeast...
. From Cyprus under the Lusignan dynasty in the 14th to 16th centuries still exist legal documents, prose chronicles, and a group of anonymous love poems. Dialect archives also survive from 15th century Naxos
Naxos (island)
Naxos is a Greek island, the largest island in the Cyclades island group in the Aegean. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture....
.
It is above all from the island of Crete, during the period of Venetian rule from 1204 until its capture by the Ottomans in 1669, that dialect can be illustrated more fully. Documents showing dialectical features exist from the end of the 12th century, rapidly increasing in number from the 13th century onward. During the Cretan Renaissance in the 16th and early 17th centuries there existed a flourishing vernacular literature in the Cretan dialect, based on Italian literary influences. Its best-known specimen today is the verse romance
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
Erotokritos
Erotokritos
Erotokritos is a romance composed by Vikentios Kornaros in early 17th century Crete. It consists of 10,012 fifteen-syllable rhymed verses....
, by Vitsentzos Kornaros
Vitsentzos Kornaros
Vitsentzos or Vikentios Kornaros or Vincenzo Cornaro was a Cretan poet, who wrote the romantic epic poem Erotokritos. He wrote in vernacular Greek, and was a leading figure of the Cretan Renaissance....
(1553–1614).
Later, during the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Ionian Islands
Ionian Islands
The Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called the Heptanese, i.e...
, then also under Italian rule, became a centre of literary production in Demotic Greek. The best-known writer from that period was the poet Dionysios Solomos
Dionysios Solomos
Dionysios Solomos was a Greek poet from Zakynthos. He is best known for writing the Hymn to Liberty , of which the first two stanzas, set to music by Nikolaos Mantzaros, became the Greek national anthem in 1865...
(1789–1857), who wrote the Greek national anthem (Hymn to Liberty) and other works celebrating the Greek Revolution of 1821-1830. His language became influential on the further course of standardisation that led to the emergence of the modern standard form of Demotic, based on the south-western dialects.
Spoken dialects
Spoken modern vernacular Greek can be divided into various geographical dialects. There are a small number of highly divergent, outlying varieties spoken by relatively isolated communities, and a broader range of mainstream dialects less divergent from each other and from Standard Modern Greek, which cover most of the linguistic area of present-day GreeceGreece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and Cyprus. Native Greek scholarship traditionally distinguishes between "dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s" proper (διάλεκτος), i.e. strongly marked, distinctive varieties, and mere "idioms" (ιδίωμα), less markedly distinguished sub-varieties of a language. In this sense, the term "dialect" is often reserved to only the main outlying forms listed in the next section (Tsakonian, Griko
Griko language
Griko, sometimes spelled Grico, is a form of the Greek language which is spoken by the Griko people in southern Italy. The Greeks consider it as a Modern Greek dialect and often call it Katoitaliotika or Grekanika...
, Pontic, and Cappadocian
Cappadocian Greek language
Cappadocian , also known as Cappadocian Greek or Asia Minor Greek, is a mixed language formerly spoken in Cappadocia . In the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in the 1920s, Cappadocian speakers were forced to emigrate to Greece, where they were resettled in various locations,...
), whereas the bulk of the mainstream spoken varieties of present-day Greece are classified as "idioms". However, most English-speaking linguists tend to refer to them as "dialects", emphasising degrees of variation only when necessary. The geographical dialects of Greek are divided into two main groups, Northern and Southern:
- Examples of Northern dialects are RumeliaRumeliaRumelia was an historical region comprising the territories of the Ottoman Empire in Europe...
n, EpiroteEpirusThe name Epirus, from the Greek "Ήπειρος" meaning continent may refer to:-Geographical:* Epirus - a historical and geographical region of the southwestern Balkans, straddling modern Greece and Albania...
, ThessalianThessalyThessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
, MacedoniaMacedonia (Greece)Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
n, ThracianThraceThrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
.
- The Southern category is divided into groups that include variety groups from:
- MegaraMegaraMegara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King...
, AeginaAeginaAegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...
, AthensAthensAthens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, KymiKymi, GreeceKymi is a coastal town and a former municipality in the island of Euboea, Greece, named after an ancient Greek place of the same name. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Kymi-Aliveri, of which it is a municipal unit...
(Old Athenian) and Mani PeninsulaMani PeninsulaThe Mani Peninsula , also long known as Maina or Maïna, is a geographical and cultural region in Greece. Mani is the central peninsula of the three which extend southwards from the Peloponnese in southern Greece. To the east is the Laconian Gulf, to the west the Messenian Gulf...
(Maniot) - PeloponnesePeloponneseThe Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
(except Mani), CycladesCycladesThe 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...
and CreteCreteCrete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
, Ionian IslandsIonian IslandsThe Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called the Heptanese, i.e...
, Northern EpirusNorthern EpirusNorthern Epirus is a term used to refer to those parts of the historical region of Epirus, in the western Balkans, that are part of the modern Albania. The term is used mostly by Greeks and is associated with the existence of a substantial ethnic Greek population in the region...
, SmyrnaSmyrnaSmyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...
and ConstantinopleConstantinopleConstantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:... - DodecaneseDodecaneseThe Dodecanese are a group of 12 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, of which 26 are inhabited. Τhis island group generally defines the eastern limit of the Sea of Crete. They belong to the Southern Sporades island group...
and CyprusCypriot GreekThe Cypriot dialect of Modern Greek, known as Kypriaka , Cypriot Greek is spoken by 750,000 people in Cyprus and diaspora Greek Cypriots.Cypriot Greek is distinct enough that it can be classified as a distinct dialect of the Standard Greek....
. - Part of Southern Albania (known as Northern EpirusNorthern EpirusNorthern Epirus is a term used to refer to those parts of the historical region of Epirus, in the western Balkans, that are part of the modern Albania. The term is used mostly by Greeks and is associated with the existence of a substantial ethnic Greek population in the region...
among Greeks). - Asia Minor (over 1.000.000 Greeks were living throughout Anatolia -especially in western Anatolia- before the population exchange with Turkey)
- Megara
Tsakonian
Tsakonian is a highly divergent variety, sometimes classified as a separate language because of not being intelligible to speakers of standard Greek. It is spoken in a small mountainous area slightly inland from the east coast of the PeloponnesePeloponnese
The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
peninsula. It is unique among all other modern dialects in that it is believed to derive not from the ancient Attic
Attic Greek
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 of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
-Ionian
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...
Koiné
Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
, but from 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...
or from a mixed form of a late, ancient Laconian variety of the Koiné influenced by Doric. It used to be spoken earlier in a wider area of the Peloponnese, including Laconia
Laconia
Laconia , also known as Lacedaemonia, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparti...
, the historical home of the Doric Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
ns.
Griko
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, a historical remnant of the ancient colonisation of Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia
Magna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that were extensively colonized by Greek settlers; particularly the Achaean colonies of Tarentum, Crotone, and Sybaris, but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neapolis to the north...
. There are two small Griko-speaking communities known as the Griko people
Griko people
The Griko people sometimes spelled Grico, Greco and Grecanici in Calabria are an ethnic Greek community of Southern Italy, they are found principally in regions of Calabria and Puglia ,...
who live in the Italian regions of Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
, the southern tip of the Italian peninsula, and in Apulia
Apulia
Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...
, its south-easternmost corner. These dialects too are believed to have developed on the basis of an originally Doric ancient dialect, and have preserved some elements of it, though to a lesser extent than Tsakonian. They subsequently adopted influences from ancient Koiné, but became isolated from the rest of the Greek-speaking world after the decline of Byzantine rule in Italy during the Middle Ages. Among their linguistic peculiarities, besides influences from Italian, is the preservation of the infinitive
Infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
, which was lost in the modern Greek of the Balkans.
Pontic
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
coast of Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
, the historical region of Pontus
Pontus
Pontus or Pontos is a historical Greek designation for a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day northeastern Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region in antiquity by the Greeks who colonized the area, and derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea: Πόντος...
in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. From there, speakers of Pontic migrated to other areas along the Black Sea coast, in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
(see Mariupol#Language structure), Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
. Through the forced population exchange
Population exchange between Greece and Turkey
The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey was based upon religious identity, and involved the Greek Orthodox citizens of Turkey and the Muslim citizens of Greece...
after the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)
Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)
The Greco–Turkish War of 1919–1922, known as the Western Front of the Turkish War of Independence in Turkey and the Asia Minor Campaign or the Asia Minor Catastrophe in Greece, was a series of military events occurring during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War I between May...
and the Treaty of Lausanne
Treaty of Lausanne
The Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland on 24 July 1923, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The treaty of Lausanne was ratified by the Greek government on 11 February 1924, by the Turkish government on 31...
of 1923, the Pontic speakers of Turkey were expelled and moved to Greece. Of the Pontic speakers in the ex-Soviet Union, many have emigrated to Greece more recently. The number of Pontic Greeks currently maintaining the dialect is unclear. A small group of Muslim Pontic speakers is reported to be still found in Turkey, although their dialects show heavy structural convergence towards Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
.
Cappadocian Greek
Varieties of Asia Minor Greek are now almost extinct, but were spoken until the early 20th century in central Turkey, and especially in CappadociaCappadocia
Cappadocia is a historical region in Central Anatolia, largely in Nevşehir Province.In the time of Herodotus, the Cappadocians were reported as occupying the whole region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine...
, forming a group of dialects influenced by the Turkish language. In this group, linguists include not only the Cappadocian Greek but also the dialect spoken in Pharasa (Develi in Kayseri
Kayseri
Kayseri is a large and industrialized city in Central Anatolia, Turkey. It is the seat of Kayseri Province. The city of Kayseri, as defined by the boundaries of Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality, is structurally composed of five metropolitan districts, the two core districts of Kocasinan and...
) and other nearby villages (Afshar-Köy, Çukuri), and the dialect of Sille (near Iconium). In the 1920s Asia Minor Greek speakers were forced to emigrate to Greece, where they were resettled in various locations. In 2005, professors Mark Janse
Mark Janse
Mark Janse is research professor in Asia Minor and Ancient Greek at Ghent University, where he studied Classics, Hebrew and Linguistics...
and Dimitris Papazachariou discovered that there are still native speakers of the Mistiot dialect of Cappadocian in Central and Northern Greece.
Other outlying dialects
In Asia Minor, Greek dialects existed not only in the broader area of Cappadocia, but also in the western coast. The most characteristic is the dialect of SmyrnaSmyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...
which had a number of distinguishing features, such as certain differences in the accusative and genitive cases
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
of the definite article
Article (grammar)
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
; the Greek speakers of the area had also incorporated into their dialect many French words. Constantinopolitan Greek, on the other side, has very few dialectal features, and it is very close to what scholars call "Modern Greek Koiné."
In Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, the bulk of the Greek speakers is nowadays located in the wider area of Mariupol
Mariupol
Mariupol , formerly known as Zhdanov , is a port city in southeastern Ukraine. It is located on the coast of the Azov Sea, at the mouth of the Kalmius River. Mariupol is the largest city in Priazovye - a geographical region around Azov Sea, divided by Russia and Ukraine - and is also a popular sea...
. The Greek dialect of Mariupol is spoken in about 17 villages, although its use is declining. Its main features present certain similarities with both the Pontic (e.g. the lack of synizesis
Synizesis
Synizesis is a sound change in which two originally syllabic vowels are pronounced as a single syllable without change in writing. In Latin and Greek, this was often to preserve meter, but similar changes occur naturally in languages....
of -ía, éa), and the northern varieties of the core dialects (e.g. the northern vocalism).
Another Greek outlying dialect was spoken, until the mid-20th century, in Cargèse
Cargèse
Cargèse is a village and commune in the Corse-du-Sud department of France on the west coast of the island of Corsica, 27 km north of Ajaccio...
on Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
, by descendants of 17th-century settlers from the Mani peninsula
Mani Peninsula
The Mani Peninsula , also long known as Maina or Maïna, is a geographical and cultural region in Greece. Mani is the central peninsula of the three which extend southwards from the Peloponnese in southern Greece. To the east is the Laconian Gulf, to the west the Messenian Gulf...
. The dialect, which is now regarded as extinct, had preserved the main characteristics of the Mani dialect, and had been also influenced by both the Corsican
Corsican language
Corsican is a Italo-Dalmatian Romance language spoken and written on the islands of Corsica and northern Sardinia . Corsican is the traditional native language of the Corsican people, and was long the vernacular language alongside the Italian, official language in Corsica until 1859, which was...
and the French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
(official language of the island after its union with France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
).
Core dialects
 |
| Map showing the distribution of major Modern Greek dialect areas |
 |
| Map showing important isogloss Isogloss An isogloss—also called a heterogloss —is the geographical boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or use of some syntactic feature... es between the traditional Modern Greek dialects (c.1900).
|
Unlike the above, the dialects described below form a contiguous Greek-speaking area, which covers most of the territory of Greece. They represent the vast majority of Greek speakers today. As they are less divergent from each other and from the standard, they are typically classified as mere "idioms" rather than "dialects" by Greek authors.
The most prominent contrasts between the present-day dialects are found between northern and southern varieties. Northern varieties cover most of continental Greece down to the Gulf of Corinth
Gulf of Corinth
The Gulf of Corinth or the Corinthian Gulf is a deep inlet of the Ionian Sea separating the Peloponnese from western mainland Greece...
, while the southern varieties are spoken in the Peloponese peninsula and the larger part of the Aegean
Aegean Islands
The Aegean Islands are the group of islands in the Aegean Sea, with mainland Greece to the west and north and Turkey to the east; the island of Crete delimits the sea to the south, those of Rhodes, Karpathos and Kasos to the southeast...
and Ionian islands
Ionian Islands
The Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called the Heptanese, i.e...
, including the large southern islands of Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
and Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
. The most salient defining marker of the northern varieties is their treatment of unstressed vowels (so-called northern vocalism), while many southern varieties are characterised, among other things, by their palatalisation of velar consonants. Between these areas, in a contiguous area around the capital Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
(i.e. the regions of Attica
Attica
Attica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...
and neighbouring parts of Boeotia
Boeotia
Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:...
, Euboia, the Peloponese and nearby islands), there is a "dialectal void" where no distinctly marked traditional Greek dialects are found. This is due to the fact that these areas were once predominantly inhabited by speakers of Arvanitika
Arvanitika
Arvanitika also known Arvanitic is the variety of Albanian traditionally spoken by the Arvanites, a population group in Greece...
Albanian. The Greek spoken in this area today is the product of convergence between varieties of migrants who moved to the capital and its surroundings from various other parts of the country, and it is close to the standard. On the whole, Standard Modern Greek is based predominantly on the southern dialects, especially those of the Peloponese.
At the fringes of this former Arvanitika-speaking area, there were once some enclaves of highly distinct traditional Greek dialects, believed to have been remnants of a formerly contiguous Greek dialect area from the time before the Arvanitic settlement. These include the old local dialect of Athens itself ("Old Athenian"), that of Megara
Megara
Megara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King...
(to the west of Attica), of Kymi
Kymi, Greece
Kymi is a coastal town and a former municipality in the island of Euboea, Greece, named after an ancient Greek place of the same name. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Kymi-Aliveri, of which it is a municipal unit...
in Euboia and of the island of Aegina
Aegina
Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...
. These dialects are now extinct.
The following linguistic markers have been used to distinguish and classify the dialects of Greece. Many of these features are today characteristic only of the traditional rural vernaculars and may be socially stigmatised
Social stigma
Social stigma is the severe disapproval of or discontent with a person on the grounds of characteristics that distinguish them from other members of a society.Almost all stigma is based on a person differing from social or cultural norms...
. Younger, urban speakers throughout the country tend to converge towards accents closer to the standard language.
Phonological features
- Northern vocalism (high vowel loss). In the north, unstressed high vowels (/i/ and /u/) are typically deleted (e.g. [skon] vs. standard [ˈskoni]) 'dust'). Unstressed mid vowelMid vowelA mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...
s (/e/ and /o/) are raised to [i] and [u] instead (e.g. [piˈði] vs. standard [peˈði] 'child'). Subtypes of this phenomenon can be distinguished as follows: in "Extreme Northern" dialects these two processes apply throughout. In mid "Northern" dialects the deletion of /i/ and /u/ applies only to word-final vowels. "Semi-Northern" dialects only have the deletion of word-final /i/ and /u/, but not the raising of /e/ and /o/. The latter include MykonosMykonosMykonos is a Greek island, part of the Cyclades, lying between Tinos, Syros, Paros and Naxos. The island spans an area of and rises to an elevation of at its highest point. There are 9,320 inhabitants most of whom live in the largest town, Mykonos, which lies on the west coast. The town is also...
, Skiros, LefkadaLefkadaLefkada, or Leucas or Leucadia , is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea on the west coast of Greece, connected to the mainland by a long causeway and floating bridge. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Lefkada . It is situated on the northern part of the island,...
and the urban dialect of the Greeks of Constantinople (IstanbulIstanbulIstanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
).
- Palatalisation. Standard Greek has an allophonicAllophoneIn phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
alternation between velar consonantVelar consonantVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
s ([k], [ɡ], [x], [ɣ]) and palatalised counterparts (([c], [ɟ], [ç], [ʝ]) before front vowelFront vowelA front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...
s (/i/, /e/). In southern dialects, the palatalisation goes further towards affricates (e.g. [tʃe] vs. standard [ce] 'and'). Subtypes can be distinguished that have either palato-alveolarPostalveolar consonantPostalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...
([tʃ], [dʒ], [ʃ], [ʒ]) or alveolo-palatalAlveolo-palatal consonantIn phonetics, alveolo-palatal consonants are palatalized postalveolar sounds, usually fricatives and affricates, articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate...
sounds ([tɕ], [dʑ], [ɕ], [ʑ]). The former are reported for CyprusCyprusCyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, the latter for CreteCreteCrete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
, among others.
- Tsitakism. In a core area in which the palatalisation process has gone even further, covering mainly the Cycladic Islands, palatalised /k/ is further fronted to alveolarAlveolar consonantAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
[ts] and thus merges with the original phoneme /ts/. This phenomenon is known in Greek as tsitakism (τσιτακισμός). It was also shared by Old Athenian.
- Ypsilon. A highly archaic feature shared by Tsakonian, the ManiMani PeninsulaThe Mani Peninsula , also long known as Maina or Maïna, is a geographical and cultural region in Greece. Mani is the central peninsula of the three which extend southwards from the Peloponnese in southern Greece. To the east is the Laconian Gulf, to the west the Messenian Gulf...
ot dialect, and the Old Athenian enclave dialects, is the divergent treatment of historical /y/ (<υ>). While this sound merged to /i/ everywhere else, these dialects have /u/ instead (e.g. [ˈksulo] vs. standard [ˈksilo] 'wood').
- Geminate consonants. Most Modern Greek varieties have lost the distinctively long (geminate) consonants found in Ancient Greek. However, the dialects of the south-eastern islands, including Cyprus, have preserved them, and even extended them to new environments such as word-initial positions. Thus, the word ναι 'yes' is pronounced with a distinctively long initial /n/ in Cypriot, and there are minimal pairMinimal pairIn phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phonological element, such as a phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have distinct meanings...
s such as <φύλλο> [ˈfillo] 'leaf' vs. <φύλο> [ˈfilo] 'gender', which are pronounced exactly the same in other dialects but distinguished by consonant length in Cypriot.
- Dark /l/. A distinctive marker of modern northern vernaculars, especially of MacedoniaMacedonia (Greece)Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
, is the use of a "darkVelarized alveolar lateral approximant-See also:* Lateral consonant* Velarization* l-vocalization* Ł...
" (velarisedVelarizationVelarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of three diacritics:...
) [ɫ] sound.
- Medial fricative deletion. Some dialects of the Aegean IslandsAegean IslandsThe Aegean Islands are the group of islands in the Aegean Sea, with mainland Greece to the west and north and Turkey to the east; the island of Crete delimits the sea to the south, those of Rhodes, Karpathos and Kasos to the southeast...
, especially in the DodecaneseDodecaneseThe Dodecanese are a group of 12 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, of which 26 are inhabited. Τhis island group generally defines the eastern limit of the Sea of Crete. They belong to the Southern Sporades island group...
, have a tendency of deleting intervocalic voicedVoice (phonetics)Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...
fricativeFricative consonantFricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
s /v/, /ð/, /ɣ/ (e.g. [meˈalo] vs. standard [meˈɣalo] 'big').
- Nasals and voiced plosives. Dialects differ in their phonetic treatment of the result of the assimilation of voicelessVoice (phonetics)Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...
plosiveStop consonantIn phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
s with preceding nasalNasal consonantA nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
s. All dialects have a voicing of the plosive in this position, but while some dialects also have an audible segment of prenasalisationPrenasalized consonantPrenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent that behave phonologically like single consonants. The reasons for considering these sequences to be single consonants is in their behavior, not in their actual composition...
, others do not; thus <πομπός> (, 'transmitter') may be realised as either [pomˈbos] or [poˈbos]. Furthermore, prenasalisation tends to be preserved in more formal registers regardless of geography. In informal speech, it tends to be more common in northern varieties.
- Lack of synizesisSynizesisSynizesis is a sound change in which two originally syllabic vowels are pronounced as a single syllable without change in writing. In Latin and Greek, this was often to preserve meter, but similar changes occur naturally in languages....
of -ía, éa > /ja/ . Standard Greek and most dialects have a pattern whereby Ancient Greek stressed /e/ or /i/ immediately before another vowel have turned into a non-syllabic glide /j/, for instance in <παιδιά> [peˈðja] ('children'), from Ancient Greek <παιδία> [paiˈdi.a]. In some dialects this process has not taken place or has done so only partially. These dialects display either full preservation of [e, i], or a schwaSchwaIn linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
sound [ə], leading to forms such as <φωλέα> [foˈle.a] 'nest' and <παιδία> [peˈði.a] 'children'. The phenomenon is common in Griko and the Pontic dialect. It is also reported in Mani and KythiraKythiraCythera is an island in Greece, once part of the Ionian Islands. It lies opposite the south-eastern tip of the Peloponnese peninsula. It is administratively part of the Islands regional unit, which is part of the Attica region , Greece.For many centuries, while naval travel was the only means...
. On the other hand, in some dialects that have [j], the glide gets further reduced and deleted after a preceding sibilant (/s, z/), leading to forms like <νησά> [niˈsa] ('islands') instead of standard <νησιά> [niˈsja] (de-palatalisation of sibilants).
Grammatical features
- Final /n/. Most Modern Greek varieties have lost word-final -n, once a part of many inflectionInflectionIn grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
al suffixSuffixIn linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es of Ancient Greek, in all but very few grammatical words. The south-eastern islands have preserved it in many words (e.g. [ˈipen] vs. standard [ˈipe] 'he said'; [tiˈrin] vs. standard [tiˈri] 'cheese').
inda? versus ti? In Standard Greek, the interrogative pronoun 'what?' is ti. In most of the Aegean Islands (except at its geographical fringe: Rhodes RhodesRhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
in the south-east, LemnosLemnosLemnos is an island of Greece in the northern part of the Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos peripheral unit, which is part of the North Aegean Periphery. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Myrina...
, ThasosThasosThasos or Thassos is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea, close to the coast of Thrace and the plain of the river Nestos but geographically part of Macedonia. It is the northernmost Greek island, and 12th largest by area...
and the SporadesSporadesThe Sporades are an archipelago along the east coast of Greece, northeast of the island of Euboea, in the Aegean Sea. It consists of 24 islands, of which four are permanently inhabited: Alonnisos, Skiathos, Skopelos and Skyros.-Administration:...
in the north; and AndrosAndrosAndros, or Andro is the northernmost island of the Greek Cyclades archipelago, approximately south east of Euboea, and about north of Tinos. It is nearly long, and its greatest breadth is . Its surface is for the most part mountainous, with many fruitful and well-watered valleys. The area is...
in the west), it is inda.
- Indirect objects. All Modern Greek dialects have lost the Ancient Greek dative case. But while in some dialects this has resulted in a merger between the dative and the genitive, in others it has been a merger between the dative and the accusative. In the standard and in the southern dialects, the personal pronounPersonal pronounPersonal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known languages contain personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...
forms used to express indirect objects are those of the genitive case, as in ex. (1) below. In northern dialects —like Macedonian; mainly in Thessaloniki, Constantinople, RhodesRhodesRhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
and Mesa Mani— the accusative forms are used instead, as in ex. (2).
| (1) | Standard Greek: | Σου you.GEN |
δίνω I-give |
το βιβλίο the book |
|
| (2) | Northern Greek: | Σε you.ACC |
δίνω I-give |
το βιβλίο the book |
|
| 'I give you the book' | |||||