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Ancient Greek
Ἑλληνική
Hellēnikḗ
Account of the construction of Athena Parthenos by Phidias.jpg
Inscription about the construction of the statue of Athena Parthenos in the
Parthenon, 440/439 BC
Region eastern Mediterranean
Language family
Indo-European
Hellenic
Ancient Greek
Early form
Proto-Greek
Writing system Greek alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-2 grc
ISO 639-3 grc (includes all pre-modern stages)
Glottolog anci1242
Homeric Greece-en.svg
Map of Ancient (Homeric) Greece
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you
may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For
an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Beginning of Homer's Odyssey

Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and
the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into
the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (c. 1400–1200 BC), Dark Ages (c. 1200–800
BC), the Archaic period (c. 800–500 BC), and the Classical period (c. 500–300 BC).
[1]

Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians,
playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary
and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western
world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the
Epic and Classical periods of the language.

From the Hellenistic period (c. 300 BC), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek,
which is regarded as a separate historical stage, although its earliest form
closely resembles Attic Greek and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek. There
were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek, of which Attic Greek developed
into Koine.
Contents
1 Dialects
1.1 History
1.2 Related languages
2 Phonology
2.1 Differences from Proto-Indo-European
2.2 Phonemic inventory
2.2.1 Consonants
2.2.2 Vowels
3 Morphology
3.1 Augment
3.2 Reduplication
4 Writing system
5 Sample texts
6 Modern use
6.1 In education
6.2 Modern real-world usage
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
10 Further reading
11 External links
11.1 Grammar learning
11.2 Classical texts
Dialects
Main article: Ancient Greek dialects
Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main
dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, and Doric, many of them
with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms
used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions.

There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek is a literary form of
Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems, the
Iliad and the Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had
significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other
Classical-era dialects.

History
Idioma griego antiguo.png
Ancient Greek language
The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not
well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories
exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of
early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the
Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the
detail. The only attested dialect from this period[a] is Mycenaean Greek, but its
relationship to the historical dialects and the historical circumstances of the
times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form.

Scholars assume that major ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later
than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions—and that their first appearances
as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not
be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to the historical
Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-
Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced
by or contending with the Dorians.

The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek
people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own
defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an
obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from the center of Greek scholarship,
this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern
archaeological-linguistic investigation.

One standard formulation for the dialects is:[2]

Distribution of Greek dialects in Greece in the classical period.[3]

Western group:

Doric proper
Northwest Doric
Achaean Doric
Central group:

Aeolic
Arcado-Cypriot
Eastern group:

Attic
Ionic

Distribution of Greek dialects in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy and Sicily) in the
classical period.
Western group:

Doric proper
Northwest Doric
Achaean Doric
Eastern group:

Attic-Ionic
West Group
Northwest Greek
Doric
Aeolic Group
Aegean/Asiatic Aeolic
Thessalian
Boeotian
Ionic-Attic Group
Attic
Ionic
Euboean and colonies in Italy
Cycladic
Asiatic Ionic
Arcadocypriot Greek
Arcadian
Cypriot
West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-
West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or
Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West is called 'East Greek'.

Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the
Bronze Age.

Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some
respects be considered a transitional dialect. Thessalian likewise had come under
Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree.

Pamphylian Greek, spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and
little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it
is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence.

Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put
forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in the
Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents,
among which the first texts written in Macedonian, such as the Pella curse tablet,
as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note.[4][5] Based on the conclusions drawn by
several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet, Emilio Crespo and other
scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect,[6][7][5]
which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in
northeastern Thessaly.[6][5]

Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally
equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric
notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including
Cretan Doric), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian, the dialect of
Sparta), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian).

The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek.

All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these
colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of
settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects.

The dialects outside the Ionic group are known mainly from inscriptions, notable
exceptions being:

fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos, in Aeolian,
and
the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar and other lyric poets, usually in Doric.
After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new
international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on
Attic Greek, but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced
most of the older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the
Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also
passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek. By about the
6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek.

Related languages
Main article: Phrygian language
Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia, which
is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek.[8][9][10]
Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have
the closest genetic ties with Armenian[11] (see also Graeco-Armenian) and Indo-
Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan).[12][13]

Phonology
Differences from Proto-Indo-European
Main article: Proto-Greek language
Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European
languages in certain ways. In phonotactics, ancient Greek words could end only in a
vowel or /n s r/; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος
"of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both
the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound
changes,[14] notably the following:
PIE *s became /h/ at the beginning of a word (debuccalization): Latin sex, English
six, ancient Greek ἕξ /héks/.
PIE *s was elided between vowels after an intermediate step of debuccalization:
Sanskrit janasas, Latin generis (where s > r by rhotacism), Greek *genesos >
*genehos > ancient Greek γένεος (/géneos/), Attic γένους (/génoːs/) "of a kind".
PIE *y /j/ became /h/ (debuccalization) or /(d)z/ (fortition): Sanskrit yas,
ancient Greek ὅς /hós/ "who" (relative pronoun); Latin iugum, English yoke, ancient
Greek ζυγός /zygós/.
PIE *w, which occurred in Mycenaean and some non-Attic dialects, was lost: early
Doric ϝέργον /wérgon/, English work, Attic Greek ἔργον /érgon/.
PIE and Mycenaean labiovelars changed to plain stops (labials, dentals, and velars)
in the later Greek dialects: for instance, PIE *kʷ became /p/ or /t/ in Attic:
Attic Greek ποῦ /pôː/ "where?", Latin quō; Attic Greek τίς /tís/, Latin quis
"who?".
PIE "voiced aspirated" stops *bʰ dʰ ǵʰ gʰ gʷʰ were devoiced and became the
aspirated stops φ θ χ /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ in ancient Greek.
Phonemic inventory
Main article: Ancient Greek phonology
The pronunciation of ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek.
Ancient Greek had long and short vowels; many diphthongs; double and single
consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops; and a pitch accent. In Modern
Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once
pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ (iotacism). Some of the stops and
glides in diphthongs have become fricatives, and the pitch accent has changed to a
stress accent. Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The
writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation
changes.

The examples below represent Attic Greek in the 5th century BC. Ancient
pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is
well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general
nature of the sounds that the letters represent.

Consonants
Bilabial Dental Velar Glottal
Nasal μ
m ν
n γ
(ŋ)
Plosive voiced β
b δ
d γ
ɡ
voiceless π
p τ
t κ
k
aspirated φ
pʰ θ
tʰ χ
kʰ
Fricative σ
s h
Trill ρ
r
Lateral λ
l
[ŋ] occurred as an allophone of /n/ that was used before velars and as an allophone
of /ɡ/ before nasals. /r/ was probably voiceless when word-initial (written ῥ). /s/
was assimilated to [z] before voiced consonants.

Vowels
Front Back
unrounded rounded
Close ι
i iː υ
y yː
Close-mid ε ει
e eː ο ου
o oː
Open-mid η
ɛː ω
ɔː
Open α
a aː
/oː/ raised to [uː], probably by the 4th century BC.

Morphology
Main article: Ancient Greek grammar

Ostracon bearing the name of Cimon, Stoa of Attalos

Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages, is highly inflected. It is
highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek,
nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases (nominative, genitive, dative,
accusative, and vocative), three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and
three numbers (singular, dual, and plural). Verbs have four moods (indicative,
imperative, subjunctive, and optative) and three voices (active, middle, and
passive), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other
forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect
(generally simply called "tenses"): the present, future, and imperfect are
imperfective in aspect; the aorist, present perfect, pluperfect and future perfect
are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices,
although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect
subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to
the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice.

Augment
The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least) a prefix /e-/, called
the augment. This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like
"then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is
added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of
the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect
exist).

The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic
augment is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems
beginning with r, however, add er). The quantitative augment is added to stems
beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel:

a, ā, e, ē → ē
i, ī → ī
o, ō → ō
u, ū → ū
ai → ēi
ei → ēi or ei
oi → ōi
au → ēu or au
eu → ēu or eu
ou → ou
Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei. The
irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or
that of the letter w, which affected the augment when it was word-initial. In verbs
with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word,
but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I
attack) goes to προσέβαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a
prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word:
αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐτομόλησα in the aorist.

Following Homer's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry, especially
epic poetry.

The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below.

Reduplication
Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the
initial syllable of the verb stem. (Note that a few irregular forms of perfect do
not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three
types of reduplication are:

Syllabic reduplication: Most verbs beginning with a single consonant, or a cluster

of a stop with a sonorant, add a syllable consisting of the initial consonant
followed by e. An aspirated consonant, however, reduplicates in its unaspirated
equivalent (see Grassmann's law).
Augment: Verbs beginning with a vowel, as well as those beginning with a cluster
other than those indicated previously (and occasionally for a few other verbs)
reduplicate in the same fashion as the augment. This remains in all forms of the
perfect, not just the indicative.
Attic reduplication: Some verbs beginning with an a, e or o, followed by a sonorant
(or occasionally d or g), reduplicate by adding a syllable consisting of the
initial vowel and following consonant, and lengthening the following vowel. Hence
er → erēr, an → anēn, ol → olōl, ed → edēd. This is not actually specific to Attic
Greek, despite its name, but it was generalized in Attic. This originally involved
reduplicating a cluster consisting of a laryngeal and sonorant, hence h₃l → h₃leh₃l
→ olōl with normal Greek development of laryngeals. (Forms with a stop were
analogous.)
Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root
lab) has the perfect stem eilēpha (not *lelēpha) because it was originally
slambanō, with perfect seslēpha, becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening.

Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These
stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i. A
nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs.[15]

Writing system
Greek alphabet alpha-omega.svg
Greek alphabet
Αα Alpha Νν Nu
Ββ Beta Ξξ Xi
Γγ Gamma Οο Omicron
Δδ Delta Ππ Pi
Εε Epsilon Ρρ Rho
Ζζ Zeta Σσς Sigma
Ηη Eta Ττ Tau
Θθ Theta Υυ Upsilon
Ιι Iota Φφ Phi
Κκ Kappa Χχ Chi
Λλ Lambda Ψψ Psi
Μμ Mu Ωω Omega
History
Archaic local variants
ϜͰϺϘͲͶ
DiacriticsLigatures
Numerals
ϛ (6)ϟ (90)ϡ (900)
Use in other languages
BactrianCopticAlbanian
Related topics
Use as scientific symbols
Category
vte
Main article: Greek orthography
The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing (circa 1450 BC) are in the
syllabic script Linear B. Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek
alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts
are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the
classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with
accents and breathing marks, interword spacing, modern punctuation, and sometimes
mixed case, but these were all introduced later.

Sample texts
The beginning of Homer's Iliad exemplifies the Archaic period of ancient Greek (see
Homeric Greek for more details):

Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος

οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε,
πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν
ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν
οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή·
ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε
Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς.

The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from the Classical period
of ancient Greek:

Ὅτι μὲν ὑμεῖς, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, πεπόνθατε ὑπὸ τῶν ἐμῶν κατηγόρων, οὐκ οἶδα· ἐγὼ
δ' οὖν καὶ αὐτὸς ὑπ' αὐτῶν ὀλίγου ἐμαυτοῦ ἐπελαθόμην, οὕτω πιθανῶς ἔλεγον. Καίτοι
ἀληθές γε ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν οὐδὲν εἰρήκασιν.
Using the IPA:

[hóti men hyːmêːs | ɔ̂ː ándres atʰɛːnaî̯i̯oi | pepóntʰate | hypo tɔ̂ːn emɔ̂ːŋ
katɛːɡórɔːn | oːk oî̯da ‖ éɡɔː dûːŋ kai̯ au̯tos | hyp au̯tɔ̂ːn olíɡoː emau̯tûː |
epelatʰómɛːn | hǔːtɔː pitʰanɔ̂ːs éleɡon ‖ kaí̯toi̯ alɛːtʰéz ɡe | hɔːs épos eːpêːn |
oːden eːrɛ̌ːkaːsin ‖]
Transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian
scheme:

Hóti mèn hūmeîs, ô ándres Athēnaîoi, pepónthate hupò tôn emôn katēgórōn, ouk oîda:
egṑ d' oûn kaì autòs hup' autōn olígou emautoû epelathómēn, hoútō pithanôs élegon.
Kaítoi alēthés ge hōs épos eipeîn oudèn eirḗkāsin.
Translated into English:

How you, men of Athens, are feeling under the power of my accusers, I do not know:
actually, even I myself almost forgot who I was because of them, they spoke so
persuasively. And yet, loosely speaking, nothing they have said is true.
Modern use
See also: Classical compound
In education
The study of ancient Greek in European countries in addition to Latin occupied an
important place in the syllabus from the Renaissance until the beginning of the
20th century. Ancient Greek is still taught as a compulsory or optional subject
especially at traditional or elite schools throughout Europe, such as public
schools and grammar schools in the United Kingdom. It is compulsory in the liceo
classico in Italy, in the gymnasium in the Netherlands, in some classes in Austria,
in klasična gimnazija (grammar school – orientation: classical languages) in
Croatia, in classical studies in ASO in Belgium and it is optional in the
humanities-oriented gymnasium in Germany (usually as a third language after Latin
and English, from the age of 14 to 18). In 2006/07, 15,000 pupils studied ancient
Greek in Germany according to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, and
280,000 pupils studied it in Italy.[16] It is a compulsory subject alongside Latin
in the humanities branch of the Spanish bachillerato. Ancient Greek is also taught
at most major universities worldwide, often combined with Latin as part of the
study of classics. In 2010 it was offered in three primary schools in the UK, to
boost children's language skills,[17][18] and was one of seven foreign languages
which primary schools could teach 2014 as part of a major drive to boost education
standards.[19][needs update]

Ancient Greek is also taught as a compulsory subject in all gymnasiums and lyceums
in Greece.[20][21] Starting in 2001, an annual international competition "Exploring
the Ancient Greek Language and Culture" (Greek: Διαγωνισμός στην Αρχαία Ελληνική
Γλώσσα και Γραμματεία) was run for upper secondary students through the Greek
Ministry of National Education and Religious Affairs, with Greek language and
cultural organisations as co-organisers.[22] It appears to have ceased in 2010,
having failed to gain the recognition and acceptance of teachers.[23]

Modern real-world usage

Modern authors rarely write in ancient Greek, though Jan Křesadlo wrote some poetry
and prose in the language, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone,[24] some
volumes of Asterix,[25] and The Adventures of Alix have been translated into
ancient Greek. Ὀνόματα Kεχιασμένα (Onomata Kechiasmena) is the first magazine of
crosswords and puzzles in ancient Greek.[26] Its first issue appeared in April 2015
as an annex to Hebdomada Aenigmatum. Alfred Rahlfs included a preface, a short
history of the Septuagint text, and other front matter translated into ancient
Greek in his 1935 edition of the Septuagint; Robert Hanhart also included the
introductory remarks to the 2006 revised Rahlfs–Hanhart edition in the language as
well.[27] Akropolis World News reports weekly a summary of the most important news
in ancient Greek.[28]

Ancient Greek is also used by organizations and individuals, mainly Greek, who wish
to denote their respect, admiration or preference for the use of this language.
This use is sometimes considered graphical, nationalistic or humorous. In any case,
the fact that modern Greeks can still wholly or partly understand texts written in
non-archaic forms of ancient Greek shows the affinity of the modern Greek language
to its ancestral predecessor.[28]

Ancient Greek is often used in the coinage of modern technical terms in the
European languages: see English words of Greek origin. Latinized forms of ancient
Greek roots are used in many of the scientific names of species and in scientific
terminology.

See also
Ancient Greek dialects
Ancient Greek grammar
Ancient Greek accent
Greek alphabet
Greek diacritics
Greek language
Hellenic languages
Katharevousa
Koine Greek
List of Greek and Latin roots in English
List of Greek phrases (mostly ancient Greek)
Medieval Greek
Modern Greek
Mycenaean Greek
Proto-Greek language
Varieties of Modern Greek
Notes
Mycenaean Greek is imprecisely attested and somewhat reconstructive due to its
being written in an ill-fitting syllabary (Linear B).
References
Ralli, Angela (2012). "Greek". Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire. 90 (3):
964. doi:10.3406/rbph.2012.8269.
Newton, Brian E.; Ruijgh, Cornelis Judd (13 April 2018). "Greek Language".
Encyclopædia Britannica.
Roger D. Woodard (2008), "Greek dialects", in: The Ancient Languages of Europe,
ed. R. D. Woodard, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 51.
Hornblower, Simon (2002). "Macedon, Thessaly and Boiotia". The Greek World, 479-
323 BC (Third ed.). Routledge. p. 90. ISBN 0-415-16326-9.
Hatzopoulos, Miltiades B. (2018). "Recent Research in the Ancient Macedonian
Dialect: Consolidation and New Perspectives". In Giannakis, Georgios K.; Crespo,
Emilio; Filos, Panagiotis (eds.). Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central
Greece to the Black Sea. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 299–324. ISBN 978-3-11-053081-0.
Crespo, Emilio (2018). "The Softening of Obstruent Consonants in the Macedonian
Dialect". In Giannakis, Georgios K.; Crespo, Emilio; Filos, Panagiotis (eds.).
Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea. Walter de
Gruyter. p. 329. ISBN 978-3-11-053081-0.
Dosuna, J. Méndez (2012). "Ancient Macedonian as a Greek dialect: A critical
survey on recent work (Greek, English, French, German text)". In Giannakis,
Georgios K. (ed.). Ancient Macedonia: Language, History, Culture. Centre for Greek
Language. p. 145. ISBN 978-960-7779-52-6.
Brixhe, Cl. "Le Phrygien". In Fr. Bader (ed.), Langues indo-européennes, pp. 165-
178, Paris: CNRS Editions.
Brixhe, Claude (2008). "Phrygian". In Woodard, Roger D (ed.). The Ancient
Languages of Asia Minor. Cambridge University Press. pp. 69–80. ISBN 978-0-521-
68496-5. "Unquestionably, however, Phrygian is most closely linked with Greek." (p.
72).
Obrador-Cursach, Bartomeu (1 December 2019). "On the place of Phrygian among the
Indo-European languages". Journal of Language Relationship (in Russian). 17 (3–4):
243. doi:10.31826/jlr-2019-173-407. S2CID 215769896. "With the current state of our
knowledge, we can affirm that Phrygian is closely related to Greek."
James Clackson. Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction. Cambridge University
Press, 2007, pp. 11-12.
Benjamin W. Fortson. Indo-European Language and Culture. Blackwell, 2004, p. 181.
Henry M. Hoenigswald, "Greek," The Indo-European Languages, ed. Anna Giacalone
Ramat and Paolo Ramat (Routledge, 1998 pp. 228-260), p. 228.
BBC: Languages across Europe: Greek
Fortson, Benjamin W. (2004). Indo-European language and culture: an introduction.
Malden, Mass: Blackwell. pp. 226–231. ISBN 978-1405103152. OCLC 54529041.
Palmer, Leonard (1996). The Greek Language. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma
Press. p. 262. ISBN 978-0-8061-2844-3.
"Ministry publication" (PDF). www.edscuola.it.
"Ancient Greek 'to be taught in state schools'". The Daily Telegraph. 30 July
2010. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
 "Now look, Latin's fine, but Greek might be even Beta" Archived 3 August 2010 at
the Wayback Machine, TES Editorial, 2010 - TSL Education Ltd.
More primary schools to offer Latin and ancient Greek, The Telegraph, 26 November
2012
"Ωρολόγιο Πρόγραμμα των μαθημάτων των Α, Β, Γ τάξεων του Hμερησίου Γυμνασίου".
Retrieved 3 May 2015.
"ΩΡΟΛΟΓΙΟ ΠΡΟΓΡΑΜΜΑ ΓΕΝΙΚΟΥ ΛΥΚΕΙΟΥ". Retrieved 3 May 2015.
"Annex to 2012 Greek statistics" (PDF). UNESCO. 2012. p. 26. Retrieved 14 December
2018.
"Proceedings of the 2nd Pan-hellenic Congress for the Promotion of Innovation in
Education". II. 2016: 548.
Areios Potēr kai ē tu philosophu lithos, Bloomsbury 2004, ISBN 1-58234-826-X
"Asterix speaks Attic (classical Greek) - Greece (ancient)". Asterix around the
World - the many Languages of Asterix. 22 May 2011.
"Enigmistica: nasce prima rivista in greco antico 2015". 4 May 2015. Retrieved 10
September 2018.
Rahlfs, Alfred, and Hanhart, Robert (eds.), Septuaginta, editio altera (Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft, 2006).
"Akropolis World News". www.akwn.net. Archived from the original on 22 September
2016.
Further reading
Adams, Matthew. "The Introduction of Greek into English Schools." Greece and Rome
61.1: 102–13, 2014.
Allan, Rutger J. "Changing the Topic: Topic Position in Ancient Greek Word Order."
Mnemosyne: Bibliotheca Classica Batava 67.2: 181–213, 2014.
Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek (Oxford University Press). [A series of
textbooks on Ancient Greek published for school use.]
Bakker, Egbert J., ed. A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language. Oxford: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2010.
Beekes, Robert S. P. Etymological Dictionary of Greek. Leiden, The Netherlands:
Brill, 2010.
Chantraine, Pierre. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, new and updated
edn., edited by Jean Taillardat, Olivier Masson, & Jean-Louis Perpillou. 3 vols.
Paris: Klincksieck, 2009 (1st edn. 1968–1980).
Christidis, Anastasios-Phoibos, ed. A History of Ancient Greek: from the Beginnings
to Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Easterling, P and Handley, C. Greek Scripts: An Illustrated Introduction. London:
Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 2001. ISBN 0-902984-17-9
Fortson, Benjamin W. Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. 2d ed.
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Hansen, Hardy and Quinn, Gerald M. (1992) Greek: An Intensive Course, Fordham
University Press
Horrocks, Geoffrey. Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers. 2d ed.
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Janko, Richard. "The Origins and Evolution of the Epic Diction." In The Iliad: A
Commentary. Vol. 4, Books 13–16. Edited by Richard Janko, 8–19. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992.
Jeffery, Lilian Hamilton. The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece: Revised Edition with
a Supplement by A. W. Johnston. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990.
Morpurgo Davies, Anna, and Yves Duhoux, eds. A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean
Greek Texts and their World. Vol. 1. Louvain, Belgium: Peeters, 2008.
Swiggers, Pierre and Alfons Wouters. "Description of the Constituent Elements of
the (Greek) Language." In Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship. Edited by
Franco Montanari and Stephanos Matthaios, 757–797. Leiden : Brill, 2015.
External links
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
Ancient Greek repository of Wikisource, the free library
For a list of words relating to Ancient Greek, see the Ancient Greek language
category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Texts in Ancient Greek
Library resources about
Ancient Greek
Online books
Resources in your library
Resources in other libraries
Classical Greek Online by Winfred P. Lehmann and Jonathan Slocum, free online
lessons at the Linguistics Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
Online Greek resources – Dictionaries, grammar, virtual libraries, fonts, etc.
Alpheios – Combines LSJ, Autenrieth, Smyth's grammar and inflection tables in a
browser add-on for use on any web site
Ancient Greek basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
Ancient Greek Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh
list appendix)
"Greek Language" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
Slavonic – online editor for Ancient Greek
glottothèque - Ancient Indo-European Grammars online, an online collection of
videos on various Ancient Indo-European languages, including Ancient Greek
Grammar learning
A more extensive grammar of the Ancient Greek language written by J. Rietveld
Recitation of classics books
Perseus Greek dictionaries
Greek-Language.com – Information on the history of the Greek language, application
of modern Linguistics to the study of Greek, and tools for learning Greek
Free Lessons in Ancient Greek, Bilingual Libraries, Forum
A critical survey of websites devoted to Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek Tutorials – Berkeley Language Center of the University of California
A Digital Tutorial For Ancient Greek Based on White's First Greek Book
New Testament Greek
Acropolis World News – A summary of the latest world news in Ancient Greek, Juan
Coderch, University of St Andrews
Classical texts
Perseus – Greek and Roman Materials
Ancient Greek Texts
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c. 3rd millennium BC c. 1600–1100 BC c. 800–300 BC c. 300 BC – AD 330
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Medieval Greek is the stage of the Greek language between the end of Classical
antiquity in the 5th–6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally
dated to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.