Attic Greek is the
Greek dialect of the
ancient region of
Attica, including the ''
polis'' of
Athens. Often called classical Greek, it was the
prestige dialect of the
Greek world for centuries and remains the standard form of the language that is taught to students of
ancient Greek
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 (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
. As the basis of the Hellenistic
Koine
Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
, it is the most similar of the
ancient dialects to later Greek. Attic is traditionally classified as a member or sister dialect of the
Ionic branch.
Origin and range
Greek is the primary member of the
Hellenic branch of the
Indo-European language family. In ancient times, Greek had already come to exist in several dialects, one of which was Attic. The earliest
attestations of Greek, dating from the 16th to 11th centuries BC, are written in
Linear B
Linear B was a syllabic script used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of Greek. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries. The oldest Mycenaean writing dates to about 1400 BC. It is descended from ...
, an archaic writing system used by the
Mycenaean Greeks in writing their language; the distinction between
Eastern and
Western Greek is believed to have arisen by Mycenaean times or before.
Mycenaean Greek represents an early form of Eastern Greek, the group to which Attic also belongs. Later Greek literature wrote about three main dialects:
Aeolic,
Doric, and
Ionic; Attic was part of the Ionic dialect group. "
Old Attic
Old or OLD may refer to:
Places
*Old, Baranya, Hungary
*Old, Northamptonshire, England
* Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD)
*OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, M ...
" is used in reference to the dialect of
Thucydides (460–400 BC) and the dramatists of
5th-century Athens whereas "
New Attic
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...
" is used for the language of later writers following conventionally the accession in 285 BC of Greek-speaking
Ptolemy II
; egy, Userkanaenre Meryamun Clayton (2006) p. 208
, predecessor = Ptolemy I
, successor = Ptolemy III
, horus = ''ḥwnw-ḳni'Khunuqeni''The brave youth
, nebty = ''wr-pḥtj'Urpekhti''Great of strength
, gol ...
to the throne of the
Kingdom of Egypt. Ruling from
Alexandria, Ptolemy launched the Alexandrian period, during which the city of Alexandria and its expatriate Greek-medium scholars flourished.
The original range of the spoken Attic dialect included
Attica and a number of the
Aegean Islands; the closely related Ionic was also spoken along the western and northwestern coasts of
Asia Minor
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...
in modern
Turkey, in
Chalcidice
Chalkidiki (; el, Χαλκιδική , also spelled Halkidiki, is a peninsula and regional unit of Greece, part of the region of Central Macedonia, in the geographic region of Macedonia in Northern Greece. The autonomous Mount Athos region c ...
,
Thrace,
Euboea, and in some colonies of
Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; these re ...
. Eventually, the texts of literary Attic were widely studied far beyond their homeland: first in the classical civilizations of the Mediterranean, including in
Ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–50 ...
and the larger
Hellenistic world, and later in the
Muslim world, Europe, and other parts of the world touched by those civilizations.
Literature
The earliest
Greek literature, which is attributed to
Homer and is dated to the eighth or seventh centuries BC, is written in "Old Ionic" rather than Attic. Athens and its dialect remained relatively obscure until the establishment of its
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...
following the reforms of
Solon in the sixth century BC; so began the
classical period, one of great Athenian influence both in Greece and throughout the Mediterranean.
The first extensive works of literature in Attic are the plays of dramatists
Aeschylus,
Sophocles,
Euripides, and
Aristophanes dating from the fifth century BC. The military exploits of the Athenians led to some universally read and admired history, as found in the works of
Thucydides and
Xenophon. Slightly less known because they are more technical and legal are the orations by
Antiphon,
Demosthenes,
Lysias,
Isocrates
Isocrates (; grc, Ἰσοκράτης ; 436–338 BC) was an ancient Greek rhetorician, one of the ten Attic orators. Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education throu ...
, and many others. The Attic Greek of philosophers
Plato (427–347 BC) and his student
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatet ...
(384–322 BC) dates to the period of transition between Classical Attic and Koine.
Students who learn Ancient Greek usually begin with the Attic dialect and continue, depending upon their interests, to the later Koine of the
New Testament and other early Christian writings, to the earlier
Homeric Greek of
Homer and
Hesiod
Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...
, or to the contemporaneous
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek ( grc, Ἑλληνικὴ Ἰωνική, Hellēnikē Iōnikē) was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic or Eastern dialect group of Ancient Greek.
History
The Ionic dialect appears to have originally spread from the Greek mainland ac ...
of
Herodotus and
Hippocrates.
Alphabet
Attic Greek, like other dialects, was originally written in a local variant of the Greek alphabet. According to the classification of
archaic Greek alphabets, which was introduced by
Adolf Kirchhoff, the old-Attic system belongs to the "eastern" or "blue" type, as it uses the letters and with their classical values ( and ), unlike "western" or "red" alphabets, which used for and expressed with . In other respects, Old Attic shares many features with the neighbouring
Euboean alphabet (which is "western" in Kirchhoff's classification). Like the latter, it used an L-shaped variant of
lambda () and an S-shaped variant of
sigma
Sigma (; uppercase Σ, lowercase σ, lowercase in word-final position ς; grc-gre, σίγμα) is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 200. In general mathematics, uppercase Σ is used as ...
(). It lacked the consonant symbols
xi () for and
psi () for , expressing these sound combinations with and , respectively. Moreover, like most other mainland Greek dialects, Attic did not yet use
omega () and
eta () for the long vowels and . Instead, it expressed the vowel phonemes with the letter (which corresponds with classical , , ) and with the letter (which corresponds with , , and in later classical orthography). Moreover, the letter was used as
heta
Heta is a conventional name for the historical Greek alphabet letter Eta (Η) and several of its variants, when used in their original function of denoting the consonant .
Overview
The letter Η had been adopted by Greek from the Phoenician lett ...
, with the consonantal value of rather than the vocalic value of .
In the fifth century, Athenian writing gradually switched from this local system to the more widely used
Ionic alphabet, native to the eastern
Aegean Islands and Asia Minor. By the late fifth century, the concurrent use of elements of the Ionic system with the traditional local alphabet had become common in private writing, and in 403 BC, it was decreed that public writing would switch to the new Ionic orthography, as part of the reform following the
Thirty Tyrants
The Thirty Tyrants ( grc, οἱ τριάκοντα τύραννοι, ''hoi triákonta týrannoi'') were a pro-Spartan oligarchy installed in Athens after its defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC. Upon Lysander's request, the Thirty were elec ...
. This new system, also called the "Eucleidian" alphabet, after the name of the
archon
''Archon'' ( gr, ἄρχων, árchōn, plural: ἄρχοντες, ''árchontes'') is a Greek word that means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem αρχ-, mean ...
Eucleides, who oversaw the decision, was to become the Classical Greek alphabet throughout the Greek-speaking world. The classical works of Attic literature were subsequently handed down to posterity in the new Ionic spelling, and it is the classical orthography in which they are read today.
Phonology
Vowels
Long a
Proto-Greek long ''ā'' → Attic long ''ē'', but ''ā'' after ''e, i, r''. ⁓ Ionic ''ē'' in all positions. ⁓ Doric and Aeolic ''ā'' in all positions.
* Proto-Greek and Doric ''mātēr'' → Attic ''mētēr'' "mother"
* Attic ''chōrā'' ⁓ Ionic ''chōrē'' "place", "country"
However, Proto-Greek ''ā'' → Attic ''ē'' after ''w'' (
digamma
Digamma or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It originally stood for the sound but it has remained in use principally as a Greek numeral for 6. Whereas it was originally called ''wa ...
),
deleted by the Classical Period.
* Proto-Greek ''korwā'' → early Attic-Ionic ''*korwē'' → Attic ''korē'' (Ionic ''kourē'')
Short a
Proto-Greek ''ă'' → Attic ''ě''. ⁓ Doric: ''ă'' remains.
* Doric ''Artamis'' ⁓ Attic ''
Artemis''
Sonorant clusters
Compensatory lengthening of vowel before cluster of sonorant (''r'', ''l'', ''n'', ''m'', ''w'', sometimes ''y'') and ''s'', after deletion of ''s''. ⁓ some Aeolic: compensatory lengthening of sonorant.
:
PIE
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...
''VsR'' or ''VRs'' → Attic-Ionic-Doric-Boeotian ''VVR''.
: ''VsR'' or ''VRs'' → Lesbian-Thessalian ''VRR''.
* Proto-Indo-European ''*es-mi'' (athematic verb) → Attic-Ionic ''ēmi'' (= εἰμί) ⁓ Lesbian-Thessalian ''emmi'' "I am"
Upsilon
Proto-Greek and other dialects' (English ''food'') became Attic (pronounced as German ''ü'', French ''u'') and represented by ''y'' in Latin transliteration of Greek names.
* Boeotian kourios ⁓ Attic
kyrios "lord"
In the
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s ''eu'' and ''au'', upsilon continued to be pronounced .
Contraction
Attic contracts more than Ionic does.
''a'' + ''e'' → long ''ā''.
* ''nika-e'' → ''nikā'' "conquer (thou)!"
''e'' + ''e'' → ē (written ''ει'':
spurious diphthong)
* PIE ''*trey-es'' → Proto-Greek ''trees'' → Attic ''trēs'' = τρεῖς "three"
''e'' + ''o'' → ''ō'' (written ου: spurious diphthong)
* early ''*genes-os'' → Ionic ''geneos'' → Attic ''genous'' "of a kind" (genitive singular: Latin ''generis'', with ''r'' from
rhotacism)
Vowel shortening
Attic ''ē'' (from ''ē''-grade of
ablaut or Proto-Greek ''ā'') is sometimes shortened to ''e'':
# when it is followed by a short vowel, with lengthening of the short vowel (
quantitative metathesis
Quantitative metathesis (or transfer of quantity) Smyth, ''Greek Grammar''paragraph 34on CCEL: transfer of quantity is a specific form of '' metathesis'' or ''transposition'' (a sound change) involving ''quantity'' or vowel length. By this process ...
): ''ēo'' → ''eō''
# when it is followed by a long vowel: ''ēō'' → ''eō''
# when it is followed by ''u'' and ''s'': ''ēus'' → ''eus'' (
Osthoff's law):
* ''basilēos'' → ''basileōs'' "of a king" (genitive singular)
* ''basilēōn'' → ''basileōn'' (genitive plural)
* ''basilēusi'' → ''basileusi'' (dative plural)
Hyphaeresis
Attic deletes one of two vowels in a row, called hyphaeresis ().
* Homeric ''boē-tho-os'' → Attic ''boēthos'' "running to a cry", "helper in battle"
Consonants
Palatalization
PIE ''*ky'' or ''*chy'' → Proto-Greek ''ts'' (
palatalization
Palatalization may refer to:
*Palatalization (phonetics), the phonetic feature of palatal secondary articulation
*Palatalization (sound change)
Palatalization is a historical-linguistic sound change that results in a palatalized articulation ...
) → Attic and Euboean Ionic ''tt'' — Cycladean/Anatolian Ionic and Koine ''ss''.
* Proto-Greek ''*glōkh-ya'' → Attic ''glōtta'' — East Ionic ''glōssa'' "tongue"
Sometimes, Proto-Greek *ty and *tw → Attic and Euboean Ionic ''tt'' — Cycladean/Anatolian Ionic and Koine ''ss''.
* PIE ''*kwetwores'' → Attic ''tettares'' — East Ionic ''tesseres'' "four" (Latin ''quattuor'')
Proto-Greek and Doric ''t'' before ''i'' or ''y'' → Attic-Ionic ''s'' (palatalization).
* Doric ''
ti-
the-nti'' → Attic ''tithēsi'' = τίθεισι "he places" (
compensatory lengthening of ''e'' → ''ē'' =
spurious diphthong ει)
Shortening of ''ss''
Doric, Aeolian, early Attic-Ionic ''ss'' → Classical Attic ''s''.
* PIE → Homeric (''messos'') (palatalization) → Attic (''mesos'') "middle"
*Homeric → Attic "I performed (a ceremony)"''
*Proto-Greek → Homeric → Attic "by foot"
*Proto-Greek → dialectal → Attic
Loss of ''w''
Proto-Greek ''w'' (
digamma
Digamma or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It originally stood for the sound but it has remained in use principally as a Greek numeral for 6. Whereas it was originally called ''wa ...
) was lost in Attic before historical times.
* Proto-Greek ''korwā'' Attic ''korē'' "girl"
Retention of ''h''
Attic retained Proto-Greek ''h-'' (from
debuccalization of Proto-Indo-European initial ''s-'' or ''y-''), but some other dialects lost it (''
psilosis'' "stripping", "de-aspiration").
* Proto-Indo-European ''*si-sta-mes'' → Attic ''histamen'' — Cretan ''istamen'' "we stand"
Movable ''n''
Attic-Ionic places an ''n'' (
movable nu) at the end of some words that would ordinarily end in a vowel, if the next word starts with a vowel, to prevent ''
hiatus'' (two vowels in a row). The movable nu can also be used to turn what would be a short syllable into a
long syllable
In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segment (linguistics), segments in the syllable rime, rime. In Prosody (Latin), classical Indo-European verse, as developed in ...
for use in
meter.
* ''pāsin élegon'' "they spoke to everyone" vs. ''pāsi legousi''
* ''pāsi(n)'' ''dative plural of'' "all"
* ''legousi(n)'' "they speak" (third person plural, present indicative active)
* ''elege(n)'' "he was speaking" (third person singular, imperfect indicative active)
* ''titheisi(n)'' "he places", "makes" (third person singular, present indicative active: athematic verb)
Rr instead of rs.
Attic and Euboean Ionic use rr in words, when Cycladean and Anatolian Ionic use rs:
* Attic χερρόνησος → East Ionic χερσόνησος "peninsula"
* Attic ἄρρεν → East Ionic ἄρσεν "male"
* Attic θάρρος → East Ionic θάρσος "courage".
Attic replaces the Ionic ''-σσ'' with ''-ττ''
Attic and Euboean Ionic use tt, while Cycladean and Anatolian Ionic use ss:
* Attic γλῶττα → East Ionic γλῶσσα "tongue"
* Attic πράττειν → East Ionic πράσσειν "to do, to act"
* Attic θάλαττα → East Ionic θάλασσα "sea".
Morphology
* Attic tends to replace the ''-ter'' "doer of" suffix with ''-tes'': ''dikastes'' for ''dikaster'' "judge".
* The Attic adjectival ending ''-eios'' and corresponding noun ending, both having two syllables with the
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
''ei'', stand in place of ''ēios'', with three syllables, in other dialects: ''politeia'', Cretan ''politēia'', "constitution", both from ''politewia'' whose ''w'' is dropped.
Grammar
Attic Greek grammar follows
Ancient Greek grammar to a large extent. References to Attic Grammar are usually in reference to peculiarities and exceptions from Ancient Greek Grammar. This section mentions only some of these Attic peculiarities.
Number
In addition to singular and plural numbers, Attic Greek had the
dual number. This was used to refer to two of something and was present as an inflection in nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs (any categories inflected for number). Attic Greek was the last dialect to retain it from older forms of Greek, and the dual number had died out by the end of the 5th century BC. In addition to this, in Attic Greek, any plural neuter subjects will only ever take singular conjugation verbs.
Declension
With regard to
declension, the stem is the part of the declined word to which case endings are suffixed. In the alpha or first declension feminines, the stem ends in long ''a'', which is parallel to the Latin first declension. In Attic-Ionic the stem vowel has changed to ''ē'' in the singular, except (in Attic only) after ''e'', ''i'' or ''r''. For example, the respective nominative, genitive, dative and accusative singular forms are
ἡ γνώμη τῆς γνώμης τῇ γνώμῃ τὴν γνώμην ''gnome'', ''gnomes'', ''gnome(i)'', ''gnomen'', "opinion" but ἡ θεᾱ́ τῆς θεᾶς τῇ θεᾷ τὴν θεᾱ́ν ''thea'', ''theas'', ''thea(i)'', ''thean'', "goddess".
The plural is the same in both cases, ''gnomai'' and ''theai'', but other sound changes were more important in its formation. For example, original ''-as'' in the nominative plural was replaced by the diphthong ''-ai'', which did not change from ''a'' to ''e''. In the few ''a''-stem masculines, the genitive singular follows the second declension: ''stratiotēs'', ''stratiotou'', ''stratiotēi'', etc.
In the omicron or second declension, mainly masculines (but with some feminines), the stem ends in ''o'' or ''e'', which is composed in turn of a root plus the
thematic vowel, an ''o'' or ''e'' in
Indo-European ablaut series parallel to similar formations of the verb. It is the equivalent of the Latin second declension. The alternation of Greek ''-os'' and Latin ''-us'' in the nominative singular is familiar to readers of Greek and Latin.
In Attic Greek, an original
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
singular ending ''*-osyo'' after losing the ''s'' (like in the other dialects) lengthens the stem ''o'' to the spurious diphthong ''-ou'' (see above under Phonology, Vowels): logos "the word" ''logou'' from *''logosyo'' "of the word". The dative plural of Attic-Ionic had ''-oisi'', which appears in early Attic but later simplifies to ''-ois'': ''anthropois'' "to or for the men".
Classical Attic
Classical Attic may refer either to the varieties of Attic Greek spoken and written in Greek
majuscule
Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
in the 5th and 4th centuries BC (
Classical-era Attic) or to the Hellenistic and Roman era standardized Attic Greek, mainly on the language of
Attic orators and written in Greek
uncial.
Attic replaces the Ionic ''-σσ'' with ''-ττ'' :
* Attic → Ionic "tongue"
* Attic → Ionic "to do, to act, to make"
* Attic → Ionic "sea"
Varieties
* The
vernacular and poetic dialect of
Aristophanes.
* The dialect of
Thucydides (mixed Old Attic with
neologisms).
* The dialect and the orthography of Old Attic inscriptions in Attic alphabet before 403 BC. The Thucydidean orthography is similar.
* The conventionalized and poetic dialect of the Attic tragic poets, mixed with
Epic
Epic commonly refers to:
* Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation
* Epic film, a genre of film with heroic elements
Epic or EPIC may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and medi ...
and
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek ( grc, Ἑλληνικὴ Ἰωνική, Hellēnikē Iōnikē) was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic or Eastern dialect group of Ancient Greek.
History
The Ionic dialect appears to have originally spread from the Greek mainland ac ...
and used in the episodes. (In the choral odes, conventional
Doric is used).
* Formal Attic of
Attic orators,
Plato,
[Platonic style is poetic] Xenophon and
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatet ...
, imitated by the
Atticist
Atticism (meaning "favouring Attica", the region of Athens in Greece) 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 variou ...
s or Neo-Attic writers, and considered to be ''good'' or ''Standard'' Attic.
See also
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*Allen, W. Sidney. 1987. ''Vox Graeca: The pronunciation of Classical Greek.'' 3rd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
*Bakker, Egbert J., ed. 2010. ''A companion to the Ancient Greek language.'' Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
*Christidis, Anastasios-Phoivos, ed. 2007. ''A history of Ancient Greek: From the beginnings to Late Antiquity.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
*Colvin, Stephen C. 2007. ''A historical Greek reader: Mycenaean to the koiné.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*Horrocks, Geoffrey. 2010. ''Greek: A history of the language and its speakers.'' 2nd ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
*Palmer, Leonard R. 1980. ''The Greek language.'' London: Faber & Faber.
*Teodorsson, Sven-Tage. 1974. ''The phonemic system of the Attic dialect 400–340 BC.'' Gothenburg, Sweden: Institute of Classical Studies, University of Göteborg.
*Threatte, Leslie. 1980–86. ''The grammar of Attic inscriptions.'' 2 vols. Berlin: de Gruyter.
*Γεώργιος Μπαμπινιώτης, Συνοπτική Ιστορία τής Ελληνικής γλώσσας, Athens 2002.
External links
English-Attic Dictionary (Woodhouse)Perseus Digital LibraryGreek Word Study Tool (Perseus)A Greek Grammar for Colleges (Smyth)
Syntax of Classical Greek (Gildersleeve)
- Provides Attic Greek audio recordings
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Varieties of Ancient Greek
Greek
Languages of ancient Macedonia
Languages attested from the 5th century BC
5th-century BC establishments in Greece
Languages extinct in the 3rd century BC