^*Dates (beginning with Ancient Greek) from D.B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids 1997), 12.

Koine Greek (Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of: Ελληνιστική Κοινή^[1] Koine Greek: [kɔɪˈnɛ], Modern Greek: [ciˈni eliniˈci], common Greek; or ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, the common dialect) is the popular form of Greek which emerged in post-Classical antiquity Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world. It is the period in which Greek and Roman literature (such as Aeschylus, Ovid, Homer and others) flourished (c.300 BC Anno Domini and Before Christ (abbreviated as BC or B.C.) are designations used to label years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The calendar era to which they refer is based on the traditionally reckoned year of the conception or birth of Jesus, with AD denoting years after the start of this epoch, and BC denoting years before the start of – AD Anno Domini and Before Christ (abbreviated as BC or B.C.) are designations used to label years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The calendar era to which they refer is based on the traditionally reckoned year of the conception or birth of Jesus, with AD denoting years after the start of this epoch, and BC denoting years before the start of 300). Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Patristic, Common, Biblical or New Testament Greek. Original names were koine, Hellenic, Alexandrian and Macedonian (Macedonic);^[2][3] all on the contrast to Attic dialect Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic. Koine was the first common supra-regional dialect in Greece and came to serve as a lingua franca A lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues for the eastern Mediterranean and ancient Near East throughout the Roman The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor, Augustus period. It was also the original language of the New Testament The New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christian Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament. Unlike the Old Testament, the contents of the New Testament deal explicitly with Christianity, although both the Old and New Testament are regarded, together, as Sacred Scripture. The New Testament of the Christian A Christian (pronounced /ˈkrɪstʃən/ ) is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe is the Messiah (the Christ in Greek-derived terminology) prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, and the son of God. Most Christians believe in the doctrine of Bible The Bible refers to collections of sacred scripture of Judaism and Christianity. There is no single version: both the individual books and their order vary. The Hebrew Bible contains 39 books, while Christian Bibles range from the 66 books of the Protestant canon to 81 books in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible. The oldest surviving Christian Bibles and of the Septuagint The Septuagint , or simply "LXX", referred to in critical works by the abbreviation , is the Koine Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, translated in stages between the 3rd and 2nd Centuries BC in Alexandria. It was begun by the third century BC and completed before 132 BC (the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures).^[4] Koine is the main ancestor of modern Greek Modern Greek refers to the varieties of Greek spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic modern features of the language had been present.

History

Koine Greek arose as a common dialect within the armies of Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon , popularly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Μέγας Ἀλέξανδρος, Mégas Aléxandros), was a Greeki[›] king (basileus) of Macedon. He is the most celebrated member of the Argead Dynasty and created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander received a classical.^[4] Under the leadership of Macedon Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south. The rise of Macedon, from a small kingdom at the periphery of Classical Greek affairs, to one which came to dominate the entire who colonized the known world, their newly formed common dialect was spoken from Egypt Egypt (pronounced /ˈiːdʒɪpt/ ; Arabic: مصر‎ Miṣr, pronounced [misˤɾ] ( listen); Arabic: مِصْر Miṣr [ˈmisˤɾ]; Egyptian Arabic: مَصْر Maṣr [ˈmɑsˤɾ]; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, kīmi; Egyptian: 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 Kemet), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula to the fringes of India India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with 1.18 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Mainland India is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the.^[4] Though elements of Koine Greek took shape during the late Classical Era Classical Greece was a culture that was highly advanced and which heavily influenced the cultures of Ancient Rome and still has an enduring effect on European civilization. Much of modern politics, artistic thought, scientific thought, literature, and philosophy derives from this ancient society. In the context of the art, architecture, and, the post-Classical period of Greek dates from the death of Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon , popularly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Μέγας Ἀλέξανδρος, Mégas Aléxandros), was a Greeki[›] king (basileus) of Macedon. He is the most celebrated member of the Argead Dynasty and created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander received a classical in 323 BC, when cultures under Hellenistic The Hellenistic period describes the era which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia. It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decline or decadence, between the brilliance of the Greek Classical Era and the emergence of the sway in turn began to influence the language. The passage into the next period, known as Medieval Greek Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, is the stage of the Greek language between the beginning of the Middle Ages around 600 and the Ottoman conquest of the city of Constantinople in 1453. The latter date marked the end of the Middle Ages in Southeast Europe. From the 7th century onwards, Greek was the only language of administration and, dates from the foundation of Constantinople Constantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire, the Latin Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city by Constantine I Caesar Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus , commonly known in English as Constantine I, Constantine the Great, or (among Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Christians) Saint Constantine (pronounced /ˈkɒnstəntaɪn/ or /ˈkɒnstəntiːn/), was Roman emperor from 306, and the sole holder of that office from 324 in 330. 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.^[4]

Nomenclature

Koine (Κοινή), Greek for "common", is a term which had been previously applied by ancient scholars to several forms of Greek speech. A school of scholars such as Apollonius Dyscolus Apollonius Dyscolus is considered one of the greatest of the Greek grammarians. He was born at Alexandria, son of Mnesitheus. The dates for his life are not known. His son Aelius Herodianus was born c. 185, which places Apollonius in the middle to late 2nd century and Aelius Herodianus maintained the term Koine to refer to the Proto-Greek language The Proto-Greek language is the assumed last common ancestor of all known varieties of Greek, including Mycenaean, the classical Greek dialects , and ultimately Koine, Byzantine and modern Greek. Most scholars would include the fragmentary ancient Macedonian language, either as descended from an earlier "Proto-Hellenic" language, or by, while others would use it to refer to any vernacular form of Greek speech which differed from the literary language.^[4] When Koine gradually became a language of literature, some people distinguished it in two forms: Hellenic (Greek) as the literary post-classical form, and Koine (common) as the spoken popular form.^[4] Others chose to refer to Koine as the Alexandrian dialect (Περὶ τῆς Ἀλεξανδρέων διαλέκτου) or the dialect of Alexandria Alexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving approximately 80% of Egypt's imports and exports. Alexandria is also an important tourist resort. Alexandria extends about 32 km (20 mi) along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in north-central Egypt. It is home to the, a term often used by modern classicists.

Roots

The linguistic roots of the Common Greek dialect had been unclear since ancient times. During the Hellenistic Hellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BC to about 146 BC ; note, however that Koine Greek language and Hellenistic philosophy and religion are also indisputably elements of the Roman era until Late Antiquity. It was immediately preceded by the Classical Greece period, and immediately age, most scholars thought of Koine as the result of the mixture of the four main Ancient Greek Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic , Classical (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine (& dialects, "ἡ ἐκ τῶν τεττάρων συνεστῶσα" (the composition of the Four). This view was supported in the early 20th century by Austrian Austria /ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/ (German: Österreich (help·info)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and linguist P. Kretschmer in his book "Die Entstehung der Koine" (1901), while the German A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, has been known and documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted until 1806. During the 16th century, northern Germany became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. As a modern nation-state, scholar Wilamowitz Enno Friedrich Wichard Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff was a German Classical Philologist. Wilamowitz, as he is known in scholarly circles, was a renowned authority on Ancient Greece and its literature and the French France (pronounced /ˈfrænts/ frantss or /ˈfrɑːnts/ frahnts; French pronunciation (help·info): [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française, pronounced: [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a state in Western Europe with several of its overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, linguist Antoine Meillet Antoine Meillet , was one of the most important French linguists of the early 20th century. Meillet began his studies at the Sorbonne, where he was influenced by Michel Bréal, Ferdinand de Saussure, and the members of the Année Sociologique. In 1890 he was part of a research trip to the Caucasus, where he studied Armenian. After his return,, based on the intense Ionic elements of the Koine — such as σσ instead of ττ and ρσ instead of ρρ (θάλασσα — θάλαττα, ἀρσενικός — ἀρρενικός) — considered Koine to be a simplified form of Ionic Ionic Greek was a sub-dialect of the Attic-Ionic dialectal group of Ancient Greek.^[4] The final answer which is academically accepted today was given by the Greek linguist G. N. Hatzidakis, who proved 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.^[4] In that respect, the varieties of Koine spoken in the Ionian Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was eponymously named after the Ionian tribe who in the Archaic Period occupied mainly the shores colonies of Asia Minor Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the western two-thirds of the Republic of Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, Georgia to the northeast, the Armenian Highland to the east, Mesopotamia to the southeast, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea and Cyprus Cyprus (pronounced /ˈsaɪprəs/ ; Greek: Κύπρος, Kýpros, IPA: [ˈcipros]; Turkish: Kıbrıs), officially the Republic of Cyprus (Greek: Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία, Kypriakī́ Dīmokratía, IPA: [cipriaˈci ðimokraˈtia]; Turkish: Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti) is an Eurasian island country in the Eastern Mediterranean, south of Turkey would have more intense Ionic Ionic Greek was a sub-dialect of the Attic-Ionic dialectal group of Ancient Greek characteristics than others. The literary Koine of the Hellenistic age resembles Attic in such a degree that it is often mentioned as Common Attic.^[4]

Sources

The first scholars who studied Koine, both in Alexandrian and contemporary times, were classicists whose prototype had been the literary Attic Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic language of the Classical period, and would frown upon any other kind of Hellenic Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic , Classical (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine (& speech. Koine Greek was therefore considered a decayed form of Greek which was not worthy of attention.^[4] The reconsideration on the historical and linguistic importance of Koine Greek began only in the early nineteenth century, where renowned scholars conducted a series of studies on the evolution of Koine throughout the entire Hellenistic Hellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BC to about 146 BC ; note, however that Koine Greek language and Hellenistic philosophy and religion are also indisputably elements of the Roman era until Late Antiquity. It was immediately preceded by the Classical Greece period, and immediately and Roman period which it covered. 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 thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt, for being two kinds of texts which have authentic content and can be studied directly^[4]. Other significant sources are the Septuagint The Septuagint , or simply "LXX", referred to in critical works by the abbreviation , is the Koine Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, translated in stages between the 3rd and 2nd Centuries BC in Alexandria. It was begun by the third century BC and completed before 132 BC, the somewhat literal Greek translation of the Old Testament The Old Testament is the collection of books that forms the first of the two-part Christian Biblical canon. The contents of the Old Testament canon vary from church to church, with the Orthodox communion having 51 books: the shared books are those of the shortest canon, that of the major Protestant communions, with 39 books, and the New Testament The New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christian Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament. Unlike the Old Testament, the contents of the New Testament deal explicitly with Christianity, although both the Old and New Testament are regarded, together, as Sacred Scripture. The New Testament, parts of which may have been translated from the Hebrew Gospel The Gospel according to the Hebrews, commonly shortened to the Gospel of the Hebrews, is a lost gospel preserved only in the writings of the Church Fathers . It was composed in Hebrew and is considered the most important of the apocryphal gospels because of the light it sheds on the origin and development of our Canonical gospels by Jerome (or others) using similar rules to the Septuagint translators. The teaching of the Testaments was aimed at the most common people, and for that reason they use the most popular language of the era. Information can also be derived from some Atticist Atticism was a rhetorical movement that began in the first quarter of the first century BC; it may also refer to the wordings and phrasings typical of this movement, in contrast with spoken Greek, which continued to evolve in directions guided by the common usages of Hellenistic Greek scholars of the Hellenistic Hellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BC to about 146 BC ; note, however that Koine Greek language and Hellenistic philosophy and religion are also indisputably elements of the Roman era until Late Antiquity. It was immediately preceded by the Classical Greece period, and immediately and Roman periods, who, in order to fight the evolution of the language, published works which compared the supposedly "correct" Attic Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic against the "wrong" Koine by citing examples. For example, Phrynichus Arabius Phrynichus Arabius or Phrynichus of Bithynia was a Greek grammarian who flourished in second century Bithynia, writing works on Attic usage. Also Latinized Phrynichos or Phrynikhos during the second century AD wrote:

Βασίλισσα οὐδείς τῶν Ἀρχαίων εἶπεν, ἀλλὰ βασίλεια ἢ βασιλίς. Basilissa (Queen) none of the Ancients said, but Basileia or Basilis. Διωρία ἑσχάτως ἀδόκιμον, ἀντ' αυτοῦ δὲ προθεσμίαν ἐρεῖς. Dioria (deadline) is badly illiteral, instead use Prothesmia. Πάντοτε μὴ λέγε, ἀλλὰ ἑκάστοτε καὶ διὰ παντός. Do not say Pantote (always), but Hekastote and Dia pantos.

Other sources can be based on random findings such as inscriptions on vases written by popular painters, mistakes made by Atticists Atticism was a rhetorical movement that began in the first quarter of the first century BC; it may also refer to the wordings and phrasings typical of this movement, in contrast with spoken Greek, which continued to evolve in directions guided by the common usages of Hellenistic Greek due to their imperfect knowledge of pure Attic, or even some surviving Greco-Latin glossaries of the Roman period^[5], e.g:

Καλήμερον, ἦλθες; Bono die, venisti? Good day, you came? Ἐὰν θέλεις, ἐλθὲ μεθ' ἡμῶν. Si vis, veni mecum. If you want, come with us (The Latin actually says with me, not us). Ποῦ; Ubi? Where?. Πρὸς φίλον ἡμέτερον Λεύκιον. Ad amicum nostrum Lucium. To our friend Lucius. Τί γὰρ ἔχει; Quid enim habet? Indeed, what does he have? What is it with him?. Ἀρρωστεῖ. Aegrotat. He's sick.

Finally, a very important source of information on the ancient Koine is the modern Greek 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 the Pontic and Cappadocian dialects preserved the ancient pronunciation of η as ε (νύφε, συνέλικος, τίμεσον, πεγάδι etc), while the Tsakonic preserved the long α instead of η (ἁμέρα, ἀστραπά, λίμνα, χοά etc) and the other local characteristics of Laconic.^[4] Dialects from the Southern part of the Greek-speaking regions (Dodecanese, Cyprus etc), preserve the pronunciation of the double similar consonants (ἄλ-λος, Ἑλ-λάδα, θάλασ-σα), while others pronounce in many words υ as ου or preserve ancient double forms (κρόμμυον — κρεμ-μυον, ράξ — ρώξ etc). Linguistic phenomena like the above imply that those characteristics survived within Koine, which in turn had countless variations in the Greek-speaking world^[4].

Evolution from ancient Greek

The study of all sources from the six centuries which are symbolically covered by Koine reveals linguistic changes from ancient Greek on phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary and other elements of the spoken language. Most new forms start off as rare and gradually become more frequent until they are established. From the linguistic changes which took place in Koine, Greek gained such a resemblance to its medieval and modern successors that almost all characteristics of modern Greek can be traced in the surviving texts of Koine.^[4] As most of the changes between modern and ancient Greek were introduced via Koine, Koine is largely intelligible to speakers of the modern language.

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 classical ancient Greek, whereas in the end it had much more in common with modern Greek.

The three most significant changes during this period were the loss of vowel length distinction, the substitution of the pitch accent system with a stress accent system, and the monophthongization of several diphthongs.

Evolution in phonology is summarised below:

• The ancient distinction between long and short vowels was gradually lost, and from the 2nd century BC all vowels were isochronic.^[4]

• Since the 2nd century BC, the means of accenting words changed from pitch to stress, meaning that the accented syllable is not pronounced in a musical tone but louder and/or stronger.^[4]

• The aspirate breathing (aspiration), which was already lost in the Ionic varieties of Asia Minor and the Aeolic of Lesbos, stopped being pronounced and written in popular texts.^[4]

• Long diphthongs, which in older times were written with a subscript of ι after a long vowel, stopped being pronounced and written in popular texts.^[4]

• The diphthongs αι, ει, and οι became single vowels. In this manner 'αι', which had already been converted by the Boeotians into a long ε since the 4th century BC and written η (e.g. πῆς, χῆρε, μέμφομη), became in Koine, too, first a long ε and then short. The diphthong 'ει' had already merged with ι in the 5th century BC in regions such as Argos or in the 4th c. BC in Corinth (e.g. ΛΕΓΙΣ), and it acquired this pronunciation also in Koine. The diphthong 'οι' acquired the pronunciation of the modern French 'U' (IPA: [y]), which lasted until the 10th century AD. The diphthong 'υι' came to be pronounced [yj], and remained pronounced as a diphthong. The diphthong 'ου' had already acquired the pronunciation of Latin 'U' since the 6th century BC and preserved it in modern times.^[4]

• The diphthongs αυ and ευ came to be pronounced [av] and [ev] (via [aβ], [eβ]), but are partly assimilated to [af], [ef] before the voiceless consonants θ, κ, ξ, π, σ, τ, φ, χ, and ψ.^[4]

• Simple vowels have preserved their ancient pronunciations, except η which is pronounced as ι, and υ, which retained the pronunciation [y] of modern French 'U' only until the 10th c. AD, and was later also pronounced as ι. With those changes in phonology there were common spelling mistakes between υ and οι, while the sound of ι was multiplied (iotacism).^[4]

• The consonants also preserved their ancient pronunciations to a great extent, except β, γ, δ, φ, θ, χ and ζ. Β, Γ, Δ (Beta, Gamma, Delta), which were originally pronounced [b, ɡ, d], acquired the sounds of v, gh, and dh ([v] (via [β]), [ɣ], [ð]), which they still have today, except when preceded by a nasal consonant (μ, ν); in that case, they retain their ancient sounds (e.g. γαμβρός — γαmbρός, άνδρας — άndρας, άγγελος — άŋgελος). The latter three (Φ, Θ, Χ), which were initially pronounced as aspirates (/pʰ/, /tʰ/ and /kʰ/ respectively), developed into the fricatives [f] (via [ɸ]), [θ], and [x]. Finally the letter Ζ, which is still categorised as a double consonant with ξ and ψ, because it was initially pronounced as σδ (sd), later acquired the sound of Z as it appears in Modern English and Greek.^[4]

Biblical Koine

"Biblical Koine" refers to the varieties of Koine Greek used in the Christian Bible and related texts. Its main sources are:

• the Septuagint, a 3rd century B.C. Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, which added the Biblical apocrypha. Most of the texts are translations, but there are some portions and texts composed in Greek. Sirach, for instance, has been found in Hebrew;
• the New Testament, compiled originally in Greek (although some books may have had a Hebrew-Aramaic substrate and contain some Semitic influence on the language).

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 features (cf. Aramaic primacy). These could have been induced either through the practice of translating closely from Hebrew or Aramaic originals, or through the influence of the regional non-standard Greek spoken by the originally Aramaic-speaking Jews. Some of the features discussed in this context are the Septuagint's normative absence of the particles μεν and δε, and the use of εγενετο 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.

The term Patristic Greek is sometimes used for the Greek written by the Church Fathers, the early Christian 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 official state religion of the Roman Empire, more learned registers of Koiné influenced by Atticism came also to be used.^[6]

New Testament Greek

The Koine Greek in the table represents a reconstruction of New Testament Koine Greek, deriving to some degree from the dialect spoken in Judaea and Galilaea during the 1st century and similar to the dialect spoken in Alexandria, Egypt. Note the realizations of certain phonemes differ from the more standard Attic dialect of Koine. Note the soft fricative "β" in intervocalic position, the preservation of the aspirated plosive value of "ph", "th" and "kh", the preservation of a distinction between the four front vowels "i", "ē", "e", and "y" (which is still rounded), and other features.

Sample texts

The following excerpts 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

The following excerpt, from a decree of the Roman Senate to the town of Thisbae in Boeotia in 170 BC, is rendered in a reconstructed pronunciation representing a hypothetical conservative variety of mainland Greek Koiné in the early Hellenistic era.^[7] The transcription shows partial, but not yet completed raising of η and ει to /i/, retention of pitch accent, fricativization of γ to /j/^{[clarification needed]} but no fricativisation of the other stops as yet, and retention of word-initial /h/.

περὶ ὧν Θισ[β]εῖς λόγους ἐποιήσαντο· περὶ τῶν καθ᾿αὑ[τ]οὺς πραγμάτων, οἵτινες ἐν τῇ φιλίᾳ τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ ἐνέμειναν, ὅπως αὐτοῖς δοθῶσιν [ο]ἷς τὰ καθ᾿ αὑτοὺς πράγματα ἐξηγήσωνται, περὶ τούτου τοῦ πράγματος οὕτως ἔδοξεν· ὅπως Κόιντος Μαίνιος στρατηγὸς τῶν ἐκ τῆς συνκλήτου [π]έντε ἀποτάξῃ οἳ ἂν αὐτῷ ἐκ τῶν δημοσίων πρα[γμ]άτων καὶ τῆς ἰδίας πίστεων φαίνωνται. IPA: [ˈperì hôːn tʰizbîːs lóɡuːs epojéːsanto; perì tôːn katʰ hautùːs praɡmátoːn, hoítines en tîː pʰilíaːi tîː heːmetéraːi enémiːnan, hópoːs autoîs dotʰôːsin hoîs tà katʰ hautùːs práɡmata ekseːɡéːsoːntai, perì túːtuː tûː práɡmatos húːtoːs édoksen; hópoːs ˈkʷintos ˈmainios strateːɡòs tôːn ek têːs syŋkléːtuː pénte apotáksiː, hoì àn autôːi ek tôːn deːmosíoːn praɡmátoːn kaì têːs idíaːs písteoːs pʰaínoːntai] Concerning those matters about which the citizens of Thisbae made representations. Concerning their own affairs: the following decision was taken concerning the proposal that those who remained true to our friendship should be given the facilities to conduct their own affairs; that our governor Quintus Maenius should delegate five members of the senate who seemed to him suitable in the light of their public actions and individual good faith.

Sample 2

The following excerpt, the beginning of the Gospel of St John, is rendered in a reconstructed pronunciation representing a progressive popular variety of Koiné in the early Christian era, with vowels approaching those of Modern Greek.^[8]

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν. πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ὃ γέγονεν. ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων. καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν. IPA: [ˈen arˈkʰi in o ˈloɣos, ke o ˈloɣos in bros to(n) tʰeˈo(n), ke tʰeˈos in o ˈloɣos. ˈutos in en arˈkʰi pros to(n) tʰeˈo(n). ˈpanda di aɸˈtu eˈjeneto, ke kʰoˈris aɸˈtu eˈjeneto ude ˈen o ˈjeɣonen. en aɸˈto zoˈi in, ke i zoˈi in to pʰos ton anˈtʰropon; ke to pʰos en di skoˈtia ˈpʰeni, ke i skoˈti(a) a(ɸ)ˈto u kaˈtelaβen] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shone in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Sample 3

This is from the LXX version of Joshua, dating to c. 150 BC. This Greek is the "Biblical Greek" discussed above. Note that because of literalness this text in many ways does not fit the Hellenistic Greek of the time, full of semiticisms.

Καὶ ἐγένετο μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν Μωυσῆ εἶπεν κύριος τῷ ᾿Ιησοῖ υἱῷ Ναυη τῷ ὑπουργῷ Μωυσῆ λέγων. Μωυσῆς ὁ θεράπων μου τετελεύτηκεν· νῦν οὖν ἀναστὰς διάβηθι τὸν Ιορδάνην, σὺ καὶ πᾶς ὁ λαὸς οὗτος, εἰς τὴν γῆν, ἣν ἐγὼ δίδωμι αὐτοῖς. πᾶς ὁ τόπος, ἐφ᾽ ὃν ἂν ἐπιβῆτε τῷ ἴχνει τῶν ποδῶν ὑμῶν, ὑμῖν δώσω αὐτόν, ὃν τρόπον εἴρηκα τῷ Μωυσῇ, τὴν ἔρημον καὶ τὸν ᾿Αντιλίβανον ἕως τοῦ ποταμοῦ τοῦ μεγάλου, ποταμοῦ Εὐφράτου, καὶ ἕως τῆς θαλάσσης τῆς ἐσχάτης ἀφ᾽ ἡλίου δυσμῶν ἔσται τὰ ὅρια ὑμῶν. οὐκ ἀντιστήσεται ἄνθρωπος κατενώπιον ὑμῶν πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς ζωῆς σου, καὶ ὥσπερ ἤμην μετὰ Μωυσῆ, οὕτως ἔσομαι καὶ μετὰ σοῦ καὶ οὐκ ἐγκαταλείψω σε οὐδὲ ὑπερόψομαί σε. ἴσχυε καὶ ἀνδρίζου· σὺ γὰρ ἀποδιαστελεῖς τῷ λαῷ τούτῳ τὴν γῆν, ἣν ὤμοσα τοῖς πατράσιν ὑμῶν δοῦναι αὐτοῖς. ἴσχυε οὖν καὶ ἀνδρίζου φυλάσσεσθαι καὶ ποιεῖν καθότι ἐνετείλατό σοι Μωυσῆς ὁ παῖς μου, καὶ οὐκ ἐκκλινεῖς ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν εἰς δεξιὰ οὐδὲ εἰς ἀριστερά, ἵνα συνῇς ἐν πᾶσιν, οἷς ἐὰν πράσσῃς. καὶ οὐκ ἀποστήσεται ἡ βίβλος τοῦ νόμου τούτου ἐκ τοῦ στόματός σου, καὶ μελετήσεις ἐν αὐτῷ ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτός, ἵνα συνῇς ποιεῖν πάντα τὰ γεγραμμένα· τότε εὐοδωθήσῃ καὶ εὐοδώσεις τὰς ὁδούς σου καὶ τότε συνήσεις. ἰδοὺ ἐντέταλμαί σοι· ἴσχυε καὶ ἀνδρίζου, μὴ δειλιάσῃς μηδὲ φοβηθῇς, ὅτι μετὰ σοῦ κύριος ὁ θεός σου εἰς πάντα, οὗ ἐὰν πορεύῃ. Καὶ ἐνετείλατο ᾿Ιησοῦς τοῖς γραμματεῦσιν τοῦ λαοῦ λέγων. Εἰσέλθατε κατὰ μέσον τῆς παρεμβολῆς τοῦ λαοῦ καὶ ἐντείλασθε τῷ λαῷ λέγοντες ῾Ετοιμάζεσθε ἐπισιτισμόν, ὅτι ἔτι τρεῖς ἡμέραι καὶ ὑμεῖς διαβαίνετε τὸν Ιορδάνην τοῦτον εἰσελθόντες κατασχεῖν τὴν γῆν, ἣν κύριος ὁ θεὸς τῶν πατέρων ὑμῶν δίδωσιν ὑμῖν. καὶ τῷ Ρουβην καὶ τῷ Γαδ καὶ τῷ ἡμίσει φυλῆς Μανασση εἶπεν ᾿Ιησοῦς. Μνήσθητε τὸ ῥῆμα κυρίου, ὃ ἐνετείλατο ὑμῖν Μωυσῆς ὁ παῖς κυρίου λέγων Κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὑμῶν κατέπαυσεν ὑμᾶς καὶ ἔδωκεν ὑμῖν τὴν γῆν ταύτην. αἱ γυναῖκες ὑμῶν καὶ τὰ παιδία ὑμῶν καὶ τὰ κτήνη ὑμῶν κατοικείτωσαν ἐν τῇ γῇ, ᾗ ἔδωκεν ὑμῖν· ὑμεῖς δὲ διαβήσεσθε εὔζωνοι πρότεροι τῶν ἀδελφῶν ὑμῶν, πᾶς ὁ ἰσχύων, καὶ συμμαχήσετε αὐτοῖς, ἕως ἂν καταπαύσῃ κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὑμῶν τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς ὑμῶν ὥσπερ καὶ ὑμᾶς καὶ κληρονομήσωσιν καὶ οὗτοι τὴν γῆν, ἣν κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν δίδωσιν αὐτοῖς· καὶ ἀπελεύσεσθε ἕκαστος εἰς τὴν κληρονομίαν αὐτοῦ, ἣν δέδωκεν ὑμῖν Μωυσῆς εἰς τὸ πέραν τοῦ Ιορδάνου ἀπ᾽ ἀνατολῶν ἡλίου. καὶ ἀποκριθέντες τῷ ᾿Ιησοῖ εἶπαν Πάντα, ὅσα ἂν ἐντείλῃ ἡμῖν, ποιήσομεν καὶ εἰς πάντα τόπον, οὗ ἐὰν ἀποστείλῃς ἡμᾶς, πορευσόμεθα· κατὰ πάντα, ὅσα ἠκούσαμεν Μωυσῆ, ἀκουσόμεθα σοῦ, πλὴν ἔστω κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν μετὰ σοῦ, ὃν τρόπον ἦν μετὰ Μωυσῆ. ὁ δὲ ἄνθρωπος, ὃς ἐὰν ἀπειθήσῃ σοι καὶ ὅστις μὴ ἀκούσῃ τῶν ῥημάτων σου καθότι ἂν αὐτῷ ἐντείλῃ, ἀποθανέτω. ἀλλὰ ἴσχυε καὶ ἀνδρίζου.

Further reading

• Stevens, Gerald L. New Testament Greek Primer. ISBN 0718892062
• Stevens, Gerald L. New Testament Greek Intermediate. From Morphology to Translation. ISBN 0718892003

Notes

1. ^ Κοπιδάκης, Μ. Ζ. "Εισαγωγή στην Ελληνιστική Κοινή", in Ιστορία της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Κοπιδάκης, Μ.Ζ. (ed.), Athens, 1999, pp. 82-92
2. ^ Remarks on the synonyms of the New Testament by Johann August Heinrich Tittmann, Edward Craig, Edward Robinson, Moses Stuart pg 148-155
3. ^ A history of ancient Greek by Maria Chritē, Maria Arapopoulou, Centre for the Greek Language (Thessalonikē, Greece) pg 436 ISBN 0521833078
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v} Andriotis, Nikolaos P. History of the Greek Language.
5. ^ Augsburg.
6. ^ Horrocks (1997: ch.5.11.)
7. ^ G. Horrocks (1997), Greek: A history of the language and its speakers, p. 87), cf. also pp. 105-109.
8. ^ Horrocks (1997: 94).

References

• 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. ISBN 0-521-33555-8
• Andriotis, Nikolaos P. History of the Greek Language
• Buth, Randall, Ἡ κοινὴ προφορά: Koine Greek of Early Roman Period
• Conybeare, F.C. and Stock, St. George. Grammar of Septuagint Greek: With Selected Readings, Vocabularies, and Updated Indexes.
• Smyth, Herbert Weir, Greek Grammar, Harvard University Press, 1956. ISBN 0-674-36250-0

External links

• Greek-Language.com Dictionaries, manuscripts of the Greek New Testament, and tools for applying linguistics to the study of Hellenistic Greek
• New Testament Greek Online

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