Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-regional form of

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

spoken and written during the

Hellenistic period In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

, the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

and the early

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

. It evolved from the spread of Greek following the conquests of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

in the fourth century BC, and served as the

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

of much of the Mediterranean region and the Middle East during the following centuries . It was based mainly on

Attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building. It is also known as a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because they fill the space between the ceiling of a building's t ...

and related Ionic speech forms, with various admixtures brought about through

dialect levelling Dialect levelling (or leveling in American English) is an overall reduction in the variation or diversity of a dialect's features when in contact with one or more other dialects. This can come about through assimilation, mixture, and merging o ...

with other varieties. Koine Greek included styles ranging from conservative literary forms to the spoken vernaculars of the time. As the dominant language of the Byzantine Empire, it developed further into

Medieval Greek Medieval Greek (also known as Middle Greek, Byzantine Greek, or Romaic; 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 ...

, which then turned into

Modern Greek Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ...

. Literary Koine was the medium of much

post-classical In Human history, world history, post-classical history refers to the period from about 500 CE to 1500 CE, roughly corresponding to the European Middle Ages. The period is characterized by the expansion of civilizations geographically an ...

Greek literary and scholarly writing, such as the works of

Plutarch Plutarch (; , ''Ploútarchos'', ; – 120s) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo (Delphi), Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''Parallel Lives'', ...

and

Polybius Polybius (; , ; ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 ...

. Koine is also the language of the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

(the 3rd century BC Greek translation of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

, and of most early Christian theological writing by the

Church Fathers The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical peri ...

. In this context, Koine Greek is also known as "Biblical", "New Testament", "ecclesiastical", or "patristic" Greek. The Roman Emperor

Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ( ; ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher. He was a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperors ...

wrote his private thoughts in Koine Greek in a work that is now known as ''

Meditations ''Meditations'' () is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161–180 AD, recording his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy. Composition Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the ''Meditations'' i ...

''. Koine Greek continues to be used as the liturgical language of services in the

Greek Orthodox Church Greek Orthodox Church (, , ) is a term that can refer to any one of three classes of Christian Churches, each associated in some way with Christianity in Greece, Greek Christianity, Antiochian Greek Christians, Levantine Arabic-speaking Christian ...

and in some Greek Catholic churches.

Name

The English-language name ''Koine'' is derived from the Koine Greek term ('), meaning "the common dialect". The Greek word (') itself means "common". The word is pronounced , , or in US English and in UK English. The pronunciation of the word ''koine'' itself gradually changed from (close to the Classical Attic pronunciation ) to (close to the

). In Modern Greek, the language is referred to as , "Hellenistic Koiné", in the sense of "Hellenistic supraregional language"). Ancient scholars used the term ''koine'' in several different senses. Scholars such as Apollonius Dyscolus (second century AD) and Aelius Herodianus (second century AD) maintained the term ''koine'' to refer to the

Proto-Greek language The Proto-Greek language (also known as Proto-Hellenic) is the Indo-European language which was the last common ancestor of all varieties of Greek, including Mycenaean Greek, the subsequent ancient Greek dialects (i.e., Attic, Ionic, A ...

, while others used it to refer to any vernacular form of Greek speech which differed somewhat from the literary language.Andriotis, Nikolaos P. ''History of the Greek Language''. When Koine Greek became a language of literature by the first century BC, some people distinguished two forms: written as the literary post-classical form (which should not be confused with

Atticism 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 vari ...

), and vernacular as the day-to-day

vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...

. Others chose to refer to Koine as "the dialect of

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

" or "Alexandrian dialect" (), or even the universal dialect of its time. Modern classicists have often used the former sense.

Origins and history

Koine

arose as a common dialect within the armies of

. Under the leadership of

Macedon Macedonia ( ; , ), also called Macedon ( ), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, which later became the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal ...

, their newly formed common variety was spoken from the

Ptolemaic Kingdom The Ptolemaic Kingdom (; , ) or Ptolemaic Empire was an ancient Greek polity based in Ancient Egypt, Egypt during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 305 BC by the Ancient Macedonians, Macedonian Greek general Ptolemy I Soter, a Diadochi, ...

of Egypt to the

Seleucid Empire The Seleucid Empire ( ) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator, following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great ...

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

. It replaced existing

ancient Greek dialects Ancient Greek in classical antiquity, before the development of the common Koine Greek of the Hellenistic period, was divided into several varieties. Most of these varieties are known only from inscriptions, but a few of them, principally Aeolic ...

with an everyday form that people anywhere could understand. Though elements of Koine Greek took shape in

Classical Greece Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in ancient Greece,The "Classical Age" is "the modern designation of the period from about 500 B.C. to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C." ( Thomas R. Mar ...

, the post-Classical period of Greek is defined as beginning with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, when cultures under Greek sway in turn began to influence the language. The passage into the next period, known as

, is sometimes dated from the foundation of

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

Constantine the Great Constantine I (27 February 27222 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was a Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. He played a Constantine the Great and Christianity, pivotal ro ...

in 330 AD, but often only from the end of

late antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...

. The post-Classical period of Greek thus refers to the creation and evolution of Koine Greek throughout the entire Hellenistic and Roman eras of history until the start of the Middle Ages. The linguistic roots of the Common Greek dialect had been unclear since ancient times. During the

, most scholars thought of Koine as the result of the mixture of the four main Ancient Greek dialects, "" (the composition of the Four). This view was supported in the early twentieth century by Paul Kretschmer in his book ''Die Entstehung der Koine'' (1901), while Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and Antoine Meillet, based on the intense Ionic elements of the Koine – instead of and instead of (; ) – considered Koine to be a simplified form of Ionic. The view accepted by most scholars today was given by the Greek linguist Georgios Hatzidakis, who showed that despite the "composition of the Four", the "stable nucleus" of Koine Greek is Attic. In other words, Koine Greek can be regarded as Attic with the admixture of elements especially from Ionic, but also from other dialects. The degree of importance of the non-Attic linguistic elements on Koine can vary depending on the region of the Hellenistic world. In that respect, the varieties of Koine spoken in the

Ionia Ionia ( ) was an ancient region encompassing the central part of the western coast of Anatolia. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionians who ...

n colonies of

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

(e.g. Pontus, cf.

Pontic Greek Pontic Greek (, ; or ''Romeika'') is a variety of Modern Greek indigenous to the Pontus region on the southern shores of the Black Sea, northeastern Anatolia, and the Eastern Turkish and Caucasus region. An endangered Greek language variety ...

) would have more intense Ionic characteristics than others and those of Laconia and Cyprus would preserve some Doric and Arcadocypriot characteristics, respectively. The literary Koine of the Hellenistic age resembles Attic in such a degree that it is often mentioned as ''Common Attic''.

Sources

The first scholars who studied Koine, both in Alexandrian and Early Modern times, were classicists whose prototype had been the literary

Attic Greek Attic Greek is the Greek language, Greek dialect of the regions of ancient Greece, ancient region of Attica, including the ''polis'' of classical Athens, Athens. Often called Classical Greek, it was the prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige diale ...

of the Classical period and frowned upon any other variety of

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

. Koine Greek was therefore considered a decayed form of Greek which was not worthy of attention. The reconsideration on the historical and linguistic importance of Koine

began only in the early 19th century, where renowned scholars conducted a series of studies on the evolution of Koine throughout the entire

and

. The sources used on the studies of Koine have been numerous and of unequal reliability. The most significant ones are the inscriptions of the post-Classical periods and the

papyri Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, ''Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'' or ''papyruses'') can ...

, for being two kinds of texts which have authentic content and can be studied directly. Other significant sources are the

(the Greek translation of the

. The teaching of these texts was aimed at the most common people, and for that reason, they use the most popular language of the era. Other sources can be based on random findings such as inscriptions on vases written by popular painters, mistakes made by Atticists due to their imperfect knowledge of Attic Greek or even some surviving Greco-Latin glossaries of the Roman period,Augsburg
e.g.: Finally, a very important source of information on the ancient Koine is the

modern Greek Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ...

language with all its dialects and its own ''Koine'' form, which have preserved some of the ancient language's oral linguistic details which the written tradition has lost. For example, Pontic and

Cappadocian Greek Cappadocian Greek (, also known as Cappadocian is a dialect of modern Greek, originally spoken in Cappadocia (modern-day Central Turkey) by the descendants of the Byzantine Greeks of Anatolia. The language originally diverged from Medieval Gree ...

preserved the ancient pronunciation of as ε ( for standard Modern Greek etc.), while the

Tsakonian language Tsakonian or Tsaconian (also Tzakonian or Tsakonic, and Tsakonian: , ) is a highly divergent modern variety of Greek, spoken in the Tsakonian region of the Peloponnese, Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in So ...

preserved the long α instead of η ( etc.) and the other local characteristics of

Doric Greek Doric or Dorian (), also known as West Greek, was a group of Ancient Greek dialects; its Variety (linguistics), varieties are divided into the Doric proper and Northwest Doric subgroups. Doric was spoken in a vast area, including northern Greec ...

. Dialects from the southern part of the Greek-speaking regions (

Dodecanese The Dodecanese (, ; , ''Dodekánisa'' , ) are a group of 15 larger and 150 smaller Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Anatolia, of which 26 are inhabited. This island group generally define ...

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

, etc.), preserve the pronunciation of the double similar consonants (), while others pronounce in many words υ as ου or preserve ancient double forms ( etc.). Linguistic phenomena like the above imply that those characteristics survived within Koine, which in turn had countless variations in the Greek-speaking world.

Types

Biblical Koine

''Biblical Koine'' refers to the varieties of Koine Greek used in Bible translations into Greek and related texts. Its main sources are: * The

, a 3rd century BC Greek translation of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' texts not included in the Hebrew Bible; * The Greek New Testament, composed originally in Greek.

Septuagint Greek

There has been some debate to what degree Biblical Greek represents the mainstream of contemporary spoken Koine and to what extent it contains specifically Semitic

substratum Substrata, plural of substratum, may refer to: *Earth's substrata, the geologic layering of the Earth *''Hypokeimenon'', sometimes translated as ''substratum'', a concept in metaphysics *Substrata (album), a 1997 ambient music album by Biosphere * ...

features. These could have been induced either through the practice of translating closely from

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

originals, or through the influence of the regional non-standard Greek spoken by originally Aramaic-speaking Hellenized Jews. Some of the features discussed in this context are the Septuagint's normative absence of the particles and , and the use of to denote "it came to pass". Some features of Biblical Greek which are thought to have originally been non-standard elements eventually found their way into the main of the Greek language. H. St. J. Thackeray, in ''A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint'' (1909), wrote that only the five books of the

Pentateuch The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () o ...

, parts of the

Book of Joshua The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Israel from the conquest of Canaan to the Babylonian captivity, Babylonian exile. It tells of the ...

and the

Book of Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amo ...

may be considered "good Koine". One issue debated by scholars is whether and how much the translation of the Pentateuch influenced the rest of the Septuagint, including the translation of Isaiah. Another point that scholars have debated is the use of as a translation for the Hebrew . Old Testament scholar James Barr has been critical of

etymological Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

arguments that refers to "the community called by God to constitute his People". Kyriakoula Papademetriou explains:

New Testament Greek

The authors of the New Testament follow the Septuagint translations for over half their quotations from the Old Testament. The " historical present" tense is a term used for present tense verbs that are used in some narrative sections of the New Testament to describe events that are in the past with respect to the speaker. This is seen more in works attributed to Mark and John than Luke. It is used 151 times in the ''

Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark is the second of the four canonical Gospels and one of the three synoptic Gospels, synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from baptism of Jesus, his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, the Burial of Jesus, ...

'' in passages where a reader might expect a past tense verb. Scholars have presented various explanations for this; in the early 20th century some scholars argued that the use of the historical present tense in ''Mark'' was due to the influence of

, but this theory fell out of favor in the 1960s. Another group of scholars believed the historical present tense was used to heighten the dramatic effect, and this interpretation was favored in the ''

New American Bible The New American Bible (NAB) is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Bible first published in 1970. The 1986 Revised NAB is the basis of the revised Lectionary. In the Catholic Church it is the only translation approved ...

'' translation. In Volume II of the 1929 edition of ''A Grammar of the New Testament'', W.F. Howard argues that the heavy use of the historical present in

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

and

Thucydides Thucydides ( ; ; BC) was an Classical Athens, Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts Peloponnesian War, the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been d ...

, compared with the relatively infrequent usage by

and

Xenophon Xenophon of Athens (; ; 355/354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian. At the age of 30, he was elected as one of the leaders of the retreating Ancient Greek mercenaries, Greek mercenaries, the Ten Thousand, who had been ...

was evidence that heavy use of this verb tense is a feature of vernacular Koine, but other scholars have argued that the historical present can be a literary form to "denote semantic shifts to more prominent material."

Patristic Greek

The term ''patristic Greek'' is sometimes used for the Greek written by the Greek Church Fathers, the

Early Christian Early Christianity, otherwise called the Early Church or Paleo-Christianity, describes the historical era of the Christian religion up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Christianity spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and be ...

theologians in late antiquity. Christian writers in the earliest time tended to use a simple register of Koiné, relatively close to the spoken language of their time, following the model of the Bible. After the 4th century, when Christianity became the

state church of the Roman Empire In the year before the First Council of Constantinople in 381, Nicene Christianity, Nicean Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire when Theodosius I, emperor of the East, Gratian, emperor of the West, and Gratian's junior co-r ...

, more learned registers of Koiné also came to be used.

Differences between Attic and Koine Greek

Koine period Greek differs from

Classical 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 Archa ...

in many ways:

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

word formation In linguistics, word formation is an ambiguous term that can refer to either: * the processes through which words can change (i.e. morphology), or * the creation of new lexemes in a particular language Morphological A common method of word form ...

vocabulary A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...

and

phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

(sound system).

Differences in grammar

Phonology

During the period generally designated as Koine Greek, a great deal of phonological change occurred. At the start of the period, the pronunciation was virtually identical to

Ancient Greek phonology Ancient Greek phonology is the reconstructed phonology or pronunciation of Ancient Greek. This article mostly deals with the pronunciation of the standard Attic dialect of the fifth century BC, used by Plato and other Classical Greek writers ...

, whereas in the end, it had much more in common with Modern Greek phonology. The three most significant changes were the loss of vowel length distinction, the replacement of the pitch accent system by a stress accent system, and the monophthongization of several diphthongs: *The ancient distinction between long and short vowels was gradually lost, and from the second century BC all vowels were isochronic (having equal length). *From the second century BC, the Ancient Greek pitch accent was replaced with a stress accent. * Psilosis: loss of

rough breathing In the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing ( or ; ) character is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an sound before a vowel, diphthong, or after rho. It remained in the polytonic orthography even af ...

, . Rough breathing had already been lost in the

Ionic Greek Ionic or Ionian Greek () was a subdialect of the Eastern or Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek. The Ionic group traditionally comprises three dialectal varieties that were spoken in Euboea (West Ionic), the northern Cyclades (Centr ...

varieties of

and the

Aeolic Greek In linguistics, Aeolic Greek (), also known as Aeolian (), Lesbian or Lesbic dialect, is the set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia; in Thessaly; in the Aegean island of Lesbos; and in the Greek colonies of Aeolis in Anat ...

Lesbos Lesbos or Lesvos ( ) is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of , with approximately of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, eighth largest ...

. *The diphthongs , were respectively simplified to the long vowels , , . *The diphthongs , , and became

monophthong A monophthong ( ) is a pure vowel sound, or one whose articulation at beginning and end is relatively fixed, with the tongue moving neither up nor down and neither forward nor backward towards a new position of articulation. A monophthong can be ...

s. , which had already been pronounced as by the Boeotians since the 4th century BC and written η (e.g. ), became in Koine, too, first a long vowel and then, with the loss of distinctive vowel length and openness distinction , merging with ε. The diphthong had already merged with in the 5th century BC in Argos, and by the 4th century BC in

Corinth Corinth ( ; , ) is a municipality in Corinthia in Greece. The successor to the ancient Corinth, ancient city of Corinth, it is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese (region), Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Sin ...

(e.g. ), and it acquired this pronunciation also in Koine. The diphthong fronted to , merging with . The diphthong came to be pronounced , but eventually lost its final element and also merged with . The diphthong ου had been already raised to in the 6th century BC, and remains so in Modern Greek. *The diphthongs and came to be pronounced (via ), but are partly assimilated to before the

voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...

consonants . *Simple vowels mostly preserved their ancient pronunciations. (classically pronounced ) was raised and merged with . In the 10th century AD, unrounded to merge with . These changes are known as

iotacism Iotacism (, ''iotakismos'') or itacism is the process of vowel shift by which a number of vowels and diphthongs converged towards the pronunciation in post-classical Greek and Modern Greek. The term "iotacism" refers to the letter iota, the orig ...

. *The consonants also preserved their ancient pronunciations to a great extent, except and . , which were originally pronounced , became the fricatives (via ), , , which they still are today, except when preceded by a nasal consonant (μ, ν); in that case, they retain their ancient pronunciations (e.g. , , ). The latter three (Φ, Θ, Χ), which were initially pronounced as aspirates ( respectively), developed into the fricatives (via ), , and ). Finally ζ, which is still metrically categorised as a double consonant with ξ and ψ because it may have initially been pronounced as σδ or δσ , later acquired its modern-day value of .

New Testament Greek phonology

The Koine-period Greek in the table is taken from a reconstruction by Benjamin Kantor of New Testament Judeo-Palestinian Koine Greek. The realizations of most phonemes reflect general changes around the Greek-speaking world, including vowel isochrony and monophthongization, but certain sound values differ from other Koine varieties such as Attic, Egyptian and Anatolian. More general Koine phonological developments include the spirantization of , with palatal allophone before front-vowels and a plosive allophone after nasals, and . and still preserve their ancient aspirated plosive values, while the unaspirated stops have perhaps begun to develop voiced allophones after nasals. Initial aspiration has also likely become an optional sound for many speakers of the popular variety. Monophthongization (including the initial stage in the fortition of the second element in the αυ/ευ diphthongs) and the loss of vowel-timing distinctions are carried through. On the other hand, Kantor argues for certain vowel qualities differing from the rest of the Koine in the Judean dialect. Although it is impossible to know the exact realizations of vowels, it is tentatively argued that the mid-vowels / and had a more open pronunciation than other Koine dialects, distinguished as open-mid vs. close-mid , rather than as true-mid vs. close-mid as has been suggested for other varieties such as Egyptian. This is evidenced on the basis of Hebrew transcriptions of with ''pataḥ/qamets'' and not ''tsere/segol'' . Additionally, it is posited that perhaps had a back vowel pronunciation as , dragged backwards due to the opening of . Influence of the Aramaic substrate could have also caused confusion between and , providing further evidence for the back vowel realization.

Sample Koine texts

The following texts show differences from Attic Greek in all aspects – grammar, morphology, vocabulary and can be inferred to show differences in phonology. The following comments illustrate the phonological development within the period of Koine. The phonetic transcriptions are tentative and are intended to illustrate two different stages in the reconstructed development, an early conservative variety still relatively close to Classical Attic, and a somewhat later, more progressive variety approaching Modern Greek in some respects.

Sample 1 – A Roman decree

The following excerpt, from a decree of the Roman Senate to the town of Thisbae in

Boeotia Boeotia ( ), sometimes Latinisation of names, Latinized as Boiotia or Beotia (; modern Greek, modern: ; ancient Greek, ancient: ), is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the modern regions of Greece, region of Central Greece (adm ...

in 170 BC, is rendered in a reconstructed pronunciation representing a hypothetical conservative variety of mainland Greek Koiné in the early Roman period. The transcription shows raising of to , partial (pre-consonantal/word-final) raising of and to , retention of pitch accent, and retention of word-initial (the

Sample 2 – Greek New Testament

The following excerpt, the beginning of the Gospel of John, is rendered in a reconstructed pronunciation representing a progressive popular variety of Koiné in the early Christian era.Horrocks (1997: 94). Modernizing features include the loss of vowel length distinction, monophthongization, transition to stress accent, and raising of to . Also seen here are the bilabial fricative pronunciation of diphthongs and , loss of initial , fricative values for and , and partial post-nasal voicing of voiceless stops.

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

* Abel, F.-M. ''Grammaire du grec biblique''. * Allen, W. Sidney, ''Vox Graeca: a guide to the pronunciation of classical Greek – 3rd ed.'', Cambridge University Press, 1987. * Andriotis, Nikolaos P. ''History of the Greek Language'' * Buth, Randall,
: Koine Greek of Early Roman Period
' * Bruce, Frederick F. ''The Books and the Parchments: Some Chapters on the Transmission of the Bible''. 3rd ed. Westwood, NJ: Revell, 1963. Chapters 2 and 5. * Conybeare, F.C. and Stock, St. George. ''Grammar of Septuagint Greek: With Selected Readings, Vocabularies, and Updated Indexes''. * Horrocks, Geoffrey C. (2010). ''Greek: A history of the language and its speakers'' (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. * * . * .

External links

New Testament Greek Online
by Winfred P. Lehmann and Jonathan Slocum, free online lessons at th
Linguistics Research Center
at the

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Free Koine Greek Keyboard
– A unicode keyboard originally developed by Char Matejovsky for use by Westar Institute scholars
The Biblical Greek Forum
– An online community for Biblical Greek
Greek-Language.com
– Dictionaries, manuscripts of the Greek New Testament, and tools for applying linguistics to the study of Hellenistic Greek
Diglot
A daily di-glot or tri-glot (Vulgate) reading {{authority control Languages attested from the 3rd century BC Hellenistic civilization Hellenism and Christianity Christian liturgical languages

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