91-418: 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. As the basis of the Hellenistic Koine , it is the most similar of the ancient dialects to later Greek. Attic
182-570: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,
273-552: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in
364-556: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on
455-531: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near
546-512: A liberality which shamed many of those who enjoyed the franchise ( Against Eratosthenes xii.20). The fact that they owned house property shows that they were classed as isoteleis ( ἰσοτελεῖς ), i.e. foreigners who paid only the same tax as citizens, being exempt from the special tax (μετοίκιον) on resident aliens . Polemarchus occupied a house in Athens itself, Lysias another in the Piraeus, near which
637-625: A rhetorical exercise purporting to be a speech in which the captive Athenian general Nicias appealed for mercy to the Sicilians. The terrible blow to Athens quickened the energies of an anti-Athenian faction at Thurii. Lysias and his elder brother Polemarchus, with three hundred other persons, were accused of Atticizing. They were driven from Thurii and settled at Athens (412 BC). Lysias and Polemarchus were rich men, having inherited property from their father, Cephalus; and Lysias claims that, though merely resident aliens, they discharged public services with
728-595: A row). The movable nu can also be used to turn what would be a short syllable into a long syllable for use in meter . Attic and Euboean Ionic use rr in words, when Cycladean and Anatolian Ionic use rs: Attic and Euboean Ionic use tt, while Cycladean and Anatolian Ionic use ss: 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. In addition to singular and plural numbers, Attic Greek had
819-446: A speech For Pherenicus ) belongs to 381 or 380 BC. He probably died in or soon after 380 BC. Lysias displays literary tact, humour, and attention to character in his extant speeches, and is famous for using his skill to conceal his art. It was obviously desirable that a speech written for delivery by a client should be suitable to his age, station and circumstances. Lysias was the first to make this adaptation truly artistic. His language
910-485: A writer of speeches to be delivered in the law courts . The thirty-four extant are but a small fraction. From 403 to about 380 BC, his industry must have been incessant. The notices of his personal life in these years are scanty. In 403 he came forward as the accuser of Eratosthenes , one of the Thirty Tyrants. This was his only direct contact with Athenian politics. The story that he wrote a defence for Socrates , which
1001-482: A young Athenian hippeus , making a spirited defence of his honor against the charge of disloyalty. The defence For the Invalid is a humorous character-sketch. The speech Against Pancleon illustrates the intimate relations between Athens and Plataea , while it gives us some picturesque glimpses of Athenian town life. The defence of the person who had, been charged with destroying a mona , or sacred olive, places us amidst
SECTION 10
#17328371086151092-465: Is a brilliant fragment, expressing the spirit of the festival at Olympia, and exhorting Greeks to unite against their common foes. The Plea for the Constitution (403 BC) is interesting for the manner in which it argues that the well-being of Athens—now stripped of empire—is bound up with the maintenance of democratic principles. The speech For Mantitheus (392 BC) is a graceful and animated portrait, of
1183-766: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout
1274-742: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system
1365-474: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During
1456-452: Is an eloquent and vivid picture of the reign of terror which the Thirty established at Athens; the concluding appeal, to both parties among the citizens, is specially powerful. Next in importance is the speech Against Agoratus (388 BC), one of our chief authorities for the internal history of Athens during the months which immediately followed the defeat at Aegospotami . The Olympiacus (388 BC)
1547-458: Is associated with the first attempt to formulate rhetoric as an art. The Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC during the Peloponnesian War would ultimately create difficulties for Lysias's family, especially when the campaign ended in a devastating defeat for Athens. The continued attempt to link Lysias to the famous names of the era is illustrated by the ancient ascription to Lysias of
1638-570: Is crafted to flow easily, in contrast to his predecessor Antiphon 's pursuit of majestic emphasis, to his pupil (and close follower in many respects) Isaeus ' more conspicuous display of artistry and more strictly logical manner of argumentation, and later to the forceful oratory of Demosthenes . Translated into terms of ancient criticism, he became the model of the plain style ( ἰσχνὸς χαρακτήρ, ἰσχνὴ/λιτὴ/ἀφελὴς λέξις : genus tenue or subtile ). Greek and then Roman critics distinguished three styles of rhetorical composition—the grand (or elaborate),
1729-489: Is in the introduction and the narrative that Lysias is seen at his best. In his greatest extant speech—that Against Eratosthenes —and also in the fragmentary Olympiacus , he has pathos and fire; but these were not characteristic qualities of his work. In Cicero 's judgment ( De Orat. iii. 7, 28) Demosthenes was peculiarly distinguished by force ( vis ), Aeschines by resonance ( sonitus ); Hypereides by acuteness ( acumen ); Isocrates by sweetness ( suavitas );
1820-510: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to
1911-530: Is set at the house of Cephalus' eldest son, Polemarchus , in Piraeus . The tone of the picture warrants the inference that the Sicilian family were well known to Plato, and that their houses must often have been hospitable to such gatherings. Further, Plato's Phaedrus opens with Phaedrus coming from conversation with Lysias at the house of Epicrates of Athens : he meets Socrates , with whom he will read and discuss
SECTION 20
#17328371086152002-828: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Lysias Lysias ( / ˈ l ɪ s i ə s / ; Greek : Λυσίας ; c. 445 – c. 380 BC)
2093-518: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around
2184-758: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,
2275-630: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with
2366-454: 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),
2457-559: Is traditionally classified as a member or sister dialect of the Ionic branch. 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 , an archaic writing system used by
2548-585: Is used in reference to the dialect of Thucydides (460–400 BC) and the dramatists of 5th-century Athens whereas " New Attic " is used for the language of later writers following conventionally the accession in 285 BC of Greek-speaking Ptolemy II 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
2639-486: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It
2730-597: The Euripides of Attic prose. His style has attracted interest from modern readers, because it is employed in describing scenes from the everyday life of Athens. From Lysias we have thirty-four speeches. Three fragmentary ones have come down under the name of Lysias; one hundred and twenty-seven more, now lost, are known from smaller fragments or from titles. In the Augustan age four hundred and twenty-five works bore his name, of which more than two hundred were allowed as genuine by
2821-510: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as
Attic Greek - Misplaced Pages Continue
2912-511: 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 "
3003-837: The diphthongs eu and au , upsilon continued to be pronounced / u / . Attic contracts more than Ionic does. a + e → long ā . e + e → ē (written ει : spurious diphthong ) e + o → ō (written ου: spurious diphthong) Attic ē (from ē -grade of ablaut or Proto-Greek ā ) is sometimes shortened to e : Attic deletes one of two vowels in a row, called hyphaeresis ( ὑφαίρεσις ). PIE *ky or *chy → Proto-Greek ts ( palatalization ) → Attic and Euboean Ionic tt — Cycladean/Anatolian Ionic and Koine ss . Sometimes, Proto-Greek *ty and *tw → Attic and Euboean Ionic tt — Cycladean/Anatolian Ionic and Koine ss . Proto-Greek and Doric t before i or y → Attic-Ionic s (palatalization). Doric, Aeolian, early Attic-Ionic ss → Classical Attic s . Proto-Greek w ( digamma )
3094-511: 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. With regard to declension ,
3185-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in
3276-435: 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 may refer either to the varieties of Attic Greek spoken and written in Greek majuscule in
3367-403: The sacred enclosure , and the wealth of Dionysius was vividly shown by the number of chariots which he had entered. Lysias lifted up his voice to denounce Dionysius as, next to Artaxerxes , the worst enemy of Hellas, and to impress upon the assembled Greeks that one of their foremost duties was to deliver Sicily from a hateful oppression. The latest work of Lysias which can be dated (a fragment of
3458-681: The "Eucleidian" alphabet, after the name of the archon 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. 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. However, Proto-Greek ā → Attic ē after w ( digamma ), deleted by
3549-465: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into
3640-512: 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 : Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ )
3731-545: 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 , and many others. The Attic Greek of philosophers Plato (427–347 BC) and his student Aristotle (384–322 BC) dates to the period of transition between Classical Attic and Koine. Students who learn Ancient Greek usually begin with
Attic Greek - Misplaced Pages Continue
3822-543: 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 , or to the contemporaneous Ionic Greek of Herodotus and Hippocrates . 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
3913-562: The Classical Period. Proto-Greek ă → Attic ě . ⁓ Doric: ă remains. 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. Proto-Greek and other dialects' / u / (English f oo d ) became Attic / y / (pronounced as German ü , French u ) and represented by y in Latin transliteration of Greek names. In
4004-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit
4095-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than
4186-491: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in
4277-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow
4368-661: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community
4459-562: The Mediterranean, including in Ancient Rome and the larger Hellenistic world , and later in the Muslim world , Europe, and other parts of the world touched by those civilizations. 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
4550-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),
4641-454: The age of eighty. This date was evidently obtained by reckoning back from the foundation of Thurii (444 BC), since there was a tradition that Lysias had gone there at the age of fifteen. Modern critics, in general, place his birth later, c. 445 BC, and place the trip to Thurii around 430 BC. Cephalus , his father, was a native of Syracuse , and on the invitation of Pericles had settled at Athens. The opening scene of Plato 's Republic
SECTION 50
#17328371086154732-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of
4823-534: The critics. The table below shows the name of the speech (in the ordered listed in the Lamb translation), the suggested date of the speech, the primary rhetorical mode, the main point of the speech, and comments. Forensic is synonymous with judicial and denotes speeches made in law courts. Epideictic is ceremonial and involves the praise or, less often, the criticism, of the subject. Deliberative denotes speeches made in legislatures. Notes (e.g., A1, B3, etc.) refer to
4914-442: The distinction which he assigns to Lysias is subtilitas , an Attic refinement—which, as he elsewhere says ( Brutus , 16, 64) is often joined to an admirable vigour ( lacerti ). Nor was it oratory alone to which Lysias rendered service; his work had an important effect on all subsequent Greek prose, by showing how perfect elegance could be joined to plainness. Here, in his artistic use of familiar idiom, he might fairly be called
5005-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of
5096-602: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute
5187-404: The establishment of its democracy 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
5278-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in
5369-458: The fragments are comparatively large. Of these, the fragmentary speech For Pherenicus belongs to 381 or 380 BC, and is thus the latest known work of Lysias. In literary and historical interest, the first place among the extant speeches of Lysias belongs to that Against Eratosthenes (403 BC), one of the Thirty Tyrants , whom Lysias arraigns as the murderer of his brother Polemarchus. The speech
5460-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn
5551-463: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write
SECTION 60
#17328371086155642-476: The latter declined to use, probably arose from a confusion. Several years after the death of Socrates, the sophist Polycrates composed a declamation against him, to which Lysias replied. A more authentic tradition represents Lysias as having spoken his own Olympiacus at the Olympic festival of 388 BC, to which Dionysius I of Syracuse had sent a magnificent embassy. Tents embroidered with gold were pitched within
5733-447: The latter, it used an L-shaped variant of lambda ( [REDACTED] ) and an S-shaped variant of sigma ( [REDACTED] ). It lacked the consonant symbols xi ( Ξ ) for /ks/ and psi ( Ψ ) for /ps/ , expressing these sound combinations with ΧΣ and ΦΣ , respectively. Moreover, like most other mainland Greek dialects, Attic did not yet use omega ( Ω ) and eta ( Η ) for the long vowels /ɔː/ and /ɛː/ . Instead, it expressed
5824-469: The list of qualifications below the table. NOTES "A": FORENSIC, RELATING TO PUBLIC CASES NOTES "B": FORENSIC, RELATING TO PRIVATE CASES To his Companions, a Complaint of Slanders, viii. (certainly spurious). The speech attributed to Lysias in Plato's Phaedrus 230e–234. This speech has generally been regarded as Plato's own work; but the certainty of this conclusion will be doubted by those who observe: If
5915-452: The measure could not be introduced to the ecclesia by the requisite preliminary resolution (προβούλευμα). On this ground, it was successfully opposed. During his later years, Lysias—now probably a comparatively poor man owing to the rapacity of the tyrants and his own generosity to the Athenian exiles—appears as a hard-working member of a new profession—that of logographer ,
6006-621: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek
6097-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and
6188-426: 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 . This new system, also called
6279-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks
6370-521: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It
6461-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
6552-452: The parallelism or opposition of clauses. The taste of the day not yet emancipated from the influence of the Sicilian rhetoric probably demanded a large use of antithesis . Lysias excels in vivid description; he has also the knack of marking the speaker's character by light touches. The structure of his sentences varies a good deal according to the dignity of the subject. He has equal command over
6643-405: The periodic style (κατεστραμμένη λέξις) and the non-periodic or continuous (εἰρομένη, διαλελυμένη). His disposition of his subject-matter is always simple. The speech has usually four parts: introduction (προοίμιον), narrative of facts (διήγησις), proofs (πίστεις), which may be either external, as from witnesses, or internal, derived from argument on the facts, and, lastly, conclusion (ἐπίλογος). It
6734-451: The plain and the middle, the plain being nearest to the language of daily life. Greek rhetoric began in the grand style; then Lysias set an exquisite pattern of the plain; and Demosthenes might be considered as having effected an almost ideal compromise. The vocabulary of Lysias is relatively simple and would later be regarded as a model of pure diction for Atticists . Most of the rhetorical figures are sparingly used—except such as consist in
6825-674: The satirist were merely analysing his own composition, such criticism would have little point. Lysias is the earliest writer who is known to have composed erōtikoi ; it is as representing both rhetoric and a false erōs that he is the object of attack in the Phaedrus . Stylistic differences between the speech and the rest of the Phaedrus have also been taken to suggest that the speech was genuine. Three hundred and fifty-five of these are collected by Hermann Sauppe , Oratores Attici , ii. 170–216. Two hundred and fifty-two of them represent one hundred and twenty-seven speeches of known title; and of six
6916-462: The speech of Lysias he heard. At Thurii, the colony newly planted on the Tarentine Gulf , the boy may have seen Herodotus , now a man in middle life, and a friendship may have grown up between them. There, too, Lysias is said to have commenced his studies in rhetoric —doubtless under a master of the Sicilian school possibly, as tradition said, under Tisias , the pupil of Corax , whose name
7007-513: 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 in modern Turkey , in Chalcidice , Thrace , Euboea , and in some colonies of Magna Graecia . Eventually, the texts of literary Attic were widely studied far beyond their homeland: first in the classical civilizations of
7098-431: 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 singular ending *-osyo after losing
7189-589: 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
7280-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of
7371-433: The vowel phonemes /o, oː, ɔː/ with the letter Ο (which corresponds with classical Ο , ΟΥ , Ω ) and /e, eː, ɛː/ with the letter Ε (which corresponds with Ε , ΕΙ , and Η in later classical orthography). Moreover, the letter Η was used as heta , with the consonantal value of /h/ rather than the vocalic value of /ɛː/ . In the fifth century, Athenian writing gradually switched from this local system to
7462-417: Was a logographer (speech writer) in ancient Greece . He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace in the third century BC. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the author of the life ascribed to Plutarch , Lysias was born in 459 BC, which would accord with a tradition that Lysias reached, or passed,
7553-568: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or
7644-549: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of
7735-498: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe
7826-466: Was arrested and compelled to drink hemlock . Lysias had a narrow escape, with the help of a large bribe. He slipped by a back-door out of the house in which he was a prisoner and took a boat to Megara . It appears that he rendered valuable services to the exiles during the reign of the tyrants, and in 403 Thrasybulus proposed that these services be recognised by the bestowal of the citizenship. The Boule , however, had not yet been reconstituted, and hence
7917-480: Was introduced by Adolf Kirchhoff , the old-Attic system belongs to the "eastern" or "blue" type, as it uses the letters Ψ and Χ with their classical values ( /ps/ and /kʰ/ ), unlike "western" or "red" alphabets, which used Χ for /ks/ and expressed /kʰ/ with Ψ . In other respects, Old Attic shares many features with the neighbouring Euboean alphabet (which is "western" in Kirchhoff's classification). Like
8008-404: Was lost in Attic before historical times. 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"). 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
8099-407: Was their shield factory, employing a hundred and twenty skilled slaves . In 404 BC, the Thirty Tyrants were established at Athens under the protection of a Spartan garrison. One of their earliest measures was an attack upon the resident aliens, who were represented as disaffected to the new government. Lysias and Polemarchus were on a list of ten singled out to be the first victims. Polemarchus
8190-566: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect
8281-653: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage
#614385