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84-473: The Greek population of Epirus proper (not including colonies founded on or near the coast by southern Greeks) spoke a dialectal variety of Northwest Doric , joining Epirotic with Locrian, Phocian, Delphic, Aenanian, Aetolian, and Acarnian. Doric, including Northwest Doric and its sister branches, may also be called "West Greek" or "North Greek". Nevertheless, Epirote lacked some of the features that are described as salient diagnostics of Northwest Doric, including

168-1400: A ~ Attic e in certain words. Proto-Greek *-ti is retained (assibilated to -si in Attic). Proto-Greek *ts > -ss- between vowels. (Attic shares the same development, but further shortens the geminate to -s- .) Initial *w ( ϝ ) is preserved in earlier Doric (lost in Attic). Literary texts in Doric and inscriptions from the Hellenistic age have no digamma. For information on the peculiarities of Doric accentuation, see Ancient Greek accent § Doric . Numeral te t ores ~ Attic te tt ares , Ionic te ss eres "four". Ordinal pr ā tos ~ Attic–Ionic pr ō tos "first". Demonstrative pronoun t ēnos "this" ~ Attic–Ionic (e) k einos t for h (from Proto-Indo-European s ) in article and demonstrative pronoun. Third person plural, athematic or root aorist -n ~ Attic -san . First person plural active -mes ~ Attic–Ionic -men . Future -se-ō ~ Attic -s-ō . Modal particle ka ~ Attic–Ionic an . Temporal adverbs in -ka ~ Attic–Ionic -te . Locative adverbs in -ei ~ Attic/Koine -ou . The aorist and future of verbs in -izō , -azō has x (versus Attic/Koine s ). Aetolian League The Aetolian (or Aitolian ) League ( Ancient Greek : Κοινὸν τῶν Αἰτωλῶν )

252-456: A "non-piecemeal description of the epichoric variety", though Filos himself offers a summarized account. In 2013, a collection of over 4000 texts from the Dodona lamellae was published. Evidence from epigraphy starting in the late Archaic period (sixth to fifth centuries BCE) as well as ancient literary evidence indicates that the people of Epirus spoke a dialectal variety of Northwest Doric. On

336-498: A Corinthian epichoric alphabet. (See under Attic Greek .) Corinth contradicts the prejudice that Dorians were rustic militarists, as some consider the speakers of Laconian to be. Positioned on an international trade route, Corinth played a leading part in the re-civilizing of Greece after the centuries of disorder and isolation following the collapse of Mycenaean Greece. The Northwest Doric (or "Northwest Greek", with "Northwest Doric" now considered more accurate so as not to distance

420-406: A common currency and adopting a uniform system of weights and measures. There may not have been any central archive of state documents. However, the constituent communities of the league enjoyed substantial autonomy. At times the league was unable (or unwilling) to prevent its members from undertaking military actions against states that had treaties with it. The league members were grouped together in

504-507: A dialect that some consider to be predominantly Laconian. Philoxenus of Alexandria wrote a treatise On the Laconian dialect . Argolic was spoken in the thickly settled northeast Peloponnese at, for example, Argos , Mycenae , Hermione , Troezen , Epidaurus , and as close to Athens as the island of Aegina . As Mycenaean Greek had been spoken in this dialect region in the Bronze Age , it

588-465: A long front mid-close vowel /e:/, and an analogous difference between /ɔ:/ and /o:/. Because the earliest scripts from the region of Epirus (not the earliest Epirote scripts) hail from Ambracia, the letters resemble those of Corinth, because Ambracia was founded by Corinthians. Another early example using the Corinthian alphabet is the inquiry of a citizen of Orikos ( Orikum ), but Filos argues that this

672-633: A mere intermediary stage before the final Atticization of Epirus. In the third and second centuries BCE texts are already encountered showing increasing influence of the Attic-Ionic koine. Statistical analyses have corroborated that Attic was slowly supplanting the native dialect during the end of this period, while the record also shows texts of Epirote embedded in Attic during this period. The Attic-Ionic koine eventually decisively established itself in Epirus firmly during

756-536: A minor post, became the General's deputy from the late 260s BC, but his exact responsibilities are not clear. The third in command was the Grammateus ( Secretary ). These three officials were Eponymous archons (eponymous magistrates), which is to say that they were named in the dating formula for all decrees of the league. From around 260 BC, there were also seven tamiai (Treasurers) and seven epilektarchoi (Commanders of

840-456: A northern Greek dialect" with numerous adherents from the 19th century and on (Fick 1874; Hoffmann 1906; Hatzidakis 1897 etc.; Kalleris 1964 and 1976). Masson himself argues with the largely Greek character of the Macedonian onomastics and sees Macedonian as "a Greek dialect, characterised by its marginal position and by local pronunciations" and probably most closely related to the dialects of

924-442: A number of tele (districts), which seem to have had administrative and juridical powers of some sort. The league's central administrative apparatus consisted of an assembly, a council, and a number of magistrates. The Ekklesia (Assembly) was open to all citizens of all member communities of the league. The assembly was the ultimate authority within the league, with responsibility for declarations of war and peace, but its power

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1008-436: A number of Greek colonies. Furthermore, there is an abundance of place names used to examine features of the northern Doric dialects. Southern dialects, in addition to numerous inscriptions, coins, and names, have also provided much more literary evidence through authors such as Alcman , Pindar , and Archimedes of Syracuse , among others, all of whom wrote in Doric. There are also ancient dictionaries that have survived; notably

1092-533: A number of advances have been made in the last few decades, largely powered by ongoing progress in archaeological research in both Greece and Southern Albania. However, there is no up-to-date comprehensive work incorporating all the recent archaeological advances, meaning the least outdated summary is Hammond 1967. Likewise, despite newly available epigraphic corpora from Dodona and Bouthroton (modern Butrint), Greek linguist Filos notes that there remains no holistic linguistic account of Epirus at all that extends beyond

1176-436: A second language. Ultimately this would lead to language replacement with Illyrian as substrate in these regions. The extent of Illyrian participation in life in Epirus proper is uncertain; although only about a dozen names in the Dodona corpus are confirmedly Illyrian, onomastics is not necessarily a safe way to ascertain ethnic or linguistic identity in this case. On the other hand, penetration of Greek speech, including Epirote,

1260-710: Is also not representative of Epirotic Greek. Except for the unrepresentative oracular tablets at Dodona, Epirus was among a set of Greek regions that practically lacked documentation until the Classical period, this set also including Macedonia, Pamphylia, and Aetolia. In terms of early written records, Epirus and the rest of north-west Greece also lagged behind other Northwest-Doric speaking areas, with areas such as Delphi and West Locris providing earlier sources. The (numerous) Northwest Doric oracular tablets from Dodona (the latter of which are indeed Epirotic) are typically short texts written on small lead plates, whose small size caused

1344-435: Is also possible that the region on the north of Epirus that became latter known as southern Illyria was home to proto-Greek populations for some generations or centuries before they moved southward into Greece. The distribution of epigraphic evidence would remain unequally distributed geographically; in later periods, sources still tend to come from Ambracia and Dodona, as well as Bouthrotos. The Corinthian and Elean colonies on

1428-456: Is an inquiry by the diaotoi (local magistrates?), dated to either the late 5th to early 4th century BCE, or the 4th to 3rd century BCE: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Doric Greek language Doric or Dorian ( Ancient Greek : Δωρισμός , romanized :  Dōrismós ), also known as West Greek , was a group of Ancient Greek dialects ; its varieties are divided into

1512-561: Is clear that the Dorians overran it but were unable to take Attica . The Dorians went on from Argos to Crete and Rhodes . Ample inscriptional material of a legal, political and religious content exists from at least the sixth century BC. Corinthian was spoken first in the isthmus region between the Peloponnesus and mainland Greece ; that is, the Isthmus of Corinth . The cities and states of

1596-486: Is elsewhere found mostly in poetry, has been found to occur a few times in Epirus. Scientific inquiry on the syntax and morphosyntax of Epirote is, to date, too weak in general to make strong statements. Due to its geographic position and its history, Epirus had an internal linguistic diversity. Epirus' northern regions, such as Chaonia , bordered on southern Illyrian territory, and likely featured bilingualism with many (likely more) Illyrians tending to adopt Greek as well as

1680-532: Is not a proper dialectal group but rather merely a case of areal dialectal convergence. Throughout the Northwest Doric area, most internal differences did not hinder mutual understanding, though Filos, citing Bubenik, notes that there were certain cases where a bit of accommodation may have been necessary. The earliest epigraphic texts for Northwest Doric date to the 6th–5th century BC. These are thought to provide evidence for Northwest Doric features, especially

1764-489: Is of little use because Orikos is rather far from the center of Epirus. We do not know how many alphabets were in use in Epirus in the sixth to fourth centuries BCE. The diversity of alphabets among the Dodona lamellae merely reflects the diverse origins of the inquirers. Although the earliest oracular sources feature the "blue" alphabet elsewhere seen in Corinth and Attica, the later instances primarily manifest what would become

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1848-722: The Battle of Cynoscephalae in 197 BC, during the Second Macedonian War . However, it grew increasingly hostile to Roman involvement in Greek affairs and only a few years later sided with Antiochus III , the anti-Roman king of the Seleucid Empire , during the Roman-Syrian War . The defeat of Antiochus in 189 BC robbed the league of its principal foreign ally and made it impossible to stand alone in continued opposition to Rome. The league

1932-676: The Corinthian colonies of Potidaea , Epidamnos , Apollonia and Ambracia ; there, it further added words to what would become the Albanian language , probably via traders from a now-extinct "Adriatic Illyrian " intermediary. In the north, local epigraphical evidence includes the decrees of the Epirote League , the Pella curse tablet , three additional lesser known Macedonian inscriptions (all of them identifiable as Doric), numerous inscriptions from

2016-617: The Dorians . It expanded to all other regions during the Dorian invasion ( c.  1150 BC ) and the colonisations that followed. The presence of a Doric state ( Doris ) in central Greece, north of the Gulf of Corinth , led to the theory that Doric had originated in northwest Greece or maybe beyond in the Balkans . The dialect's distribution towards the north extends to the Megarian colony of Byzantium and

2100-533: The local Epirote alphabet, which was a "red" Euboean system, in which the letter ⟨Ψ⟩ indicated the velar aspirate /kʰ/ , which would later become /x/ , while /ps/ (for which ⟨Ψ⟩ was used in Attic's "blue" alphabet) was simply written ⟨ΦΣ⟩ , and ⟨X⟩ represented /ks/ . From the end of the fifth century BCE onwards, this local alphabet became increasingly consistent. Because Epirote distinguished between mid-close and mid-open round vowels, ⟨E⟩

2184-565: The "northerners" might have spoken one dialect at the time of the Dorian invasion; certainly, Doric could only have further differentiated into its classical dialects when the Dorians were in place in the south. Thus West Greek is the most accurate name for the classical dialects. Tsakonian , a descendant of Laconian Doric (Spartan), is still spoken on the southern Argolid coast of the Peloponnese, in

2268-697: The Aetolians alone and in 280 BC, they took control of Heraclea in Trachis , which gave them control over the crucial pass at Thermopylae . In 279 BC, they were victorious in battle against the Gauls , who had invaded Greece and were threatening the sanctuary of Delphi . After their victory they earned the appreciation of the rest of the Greeks and they were admitted as a new member into the Amphictyonic League . In 232 BC,

2352-549: The Aetolians forced them to retreat. In the course of the fourth century, the league offered passive support to more powerful states and was rewarded for it, receiving Aeolis from the Thebans in 367 BC and Naupactus from Philip II of Macedon in 338 BC. Sometime in this century, the Koinon tōn Aitōlōn (League of the Aetolians) was founded, but it is uncertain when. One suggestion is that

2436-462: The Aetolians took control of Parnassus , including the panhellenic sanctuary of Delphi , which they would continue to control for over a century. Demetrius Poliorcetes launched the Fifth Sacred War , 289-287 BC, in an attempt to remove them, but was defeated and driven from Macedonia altogether with the help of Pyrrhus of Epirus . A Sixth Sacred War , 281 BC, led by Areus I was rebuffed by

2520-461: The Aetolians were not highly regarded by other Greeks, who considered them to be semi-barbaric and reckless. Their League had a complex political and administrative structure, and their armies were easily a match for the other Greek powers. However, during the Hellenistic period , they emerged as a dominant state in central Greece and expanded by the voluntary annexation of several Greek city-states to

2604-518: The Assembly are not clear. It consisted of delegates elected by each of the constituent communities of the league in proportion to their size. By the late third century BC it had around 1500 members - too large for it to have been in continuous session. A small portion of the council's members, known as the apokletoi ("Select-men"), conducted day-to-day business, such as sending and receiving embassies. The league's archons (magistrates) were elected by

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2688-400: The Corinthian dialect region were Corinth , Sicyon , Archaies Kleones , Phlius , the colonies of Corinth in western Greece: Corcyra , Leucas , Anactorium , Ambracia and others, the colonies in and around Italy: Syracuse, Sicily and Ancona , and the colonies of Corcyra : Dyrrachium , and Apollonia . The earliest inscriptions at Corinth date from the early sixth century BC. They use

2772-477: The Doric proper and Northwest Doric subgroups. Doric was spoken in a vast area, including northern Greece ( Acarnania , Aetolia , Epirus , western and eastern Locris , Phocis , Doris , and possibly ancient Macedonia ), most of the Peloponnese (Achaea, Elis, Messenia, Laconia, Argolid, Aegina, Corinth, and Megara), the southern Aegean ( Kythira , Milos , Thera , Crete , Karpathos , and Rhodes ), as well as

2856-504: The Elite), who managed financial and military matters respectively. There were a number of boularchoi (Council Commanders) who seem to have been a steering committee for the Council. When these first appear in the 260s, there were two of them, but by the end of the third century BC they had risen to six or more, presumably as a result of the continued expansion of the league's membership (and thus of

2940-558: The Greek North-West (Locrian, Aetolian, Phocidian, Epirote). Brian D. Joseph acknowledges the closeness of Macedonian to Greek (even contemplating to group them into a "Hellenic branch" of Indo-European), but retains that "[t]he slender evidence is open to different interpretations, so that no definitive answer is really possible". Johannes Engels has pointed to the Pella curse tablet , written in Doric Greek: "This has been judged to be

3024-571: The Illyrians under Agron attacked the Aetolians, and managed to take many prisoners and booty. In 229 BC, the Aetolians participated in a naval battle off the island of Paxos in a coalition with Korkyra and the Achaean League , and were defeated by a coalition of Illyrians and Acarnanians ; as a result, the Korkyreans were forced to accept an Illyrian garrison in their city, which was put under

3108-618: The Ionian Sea, and in the Achaean colonies of Magna Graecia in Southern Italy (including Sybaris and Crotone ). This strict Doric dialect was later subject to the influence of mild Doric spoken in Corinthia . It survived until 350 BC. By Hellenistic times, under the Achaean League , an Achaean Doric koine appeared, exhibiting many peculiarities common to all Doric dialects, which delayed

3192-751: The League. Still, the Aetolian League had to fight against Macedonia and were driven to an alliance with Rome , which resulted in the final conquest of Greece by the Romans. The Aetolians were a recognised ethnic group with a religious centre at Thermos from at least the seventh century BC. During the Peloponnesian War , the Aetolians were initially neutral, but when the Athenians tried to invade Aetolia in 426 BC ,

3276-632: The Northwest Greek-speaking Argead Macedonians hailing from Argos Orestikon , who founded the kingdom of Lower Macedonia . However, according to Hatzopoulos, B. Helly expanded and improved his own earlier suggestion and presented the hypothesis of a (North-)' Achaean ' substratum extending as far north as the head of the Thermaic Gulf , which had a continuous relation, in prehistoric times both in Thessaly and Macedonia , with

3360-657: The Northwest Greek-speaking populations living on the other side of the Pindus mountain range, and contacts became cohabitation when the Argead Macedonians completed their wandering from Orestis to Lower Macedonia in the 7th c. BC. According to this hypothesis, Hatzopoulos concludes that the Macedonian Greek dialect of the historical period, which is attested in inscriptions, is a sort of koine resulting from

3444-532: The Proto-Indo-European aspirates were devoiced to voiceless aspirates /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ , written ⟨ɸ θ χ⟩ (though these would later become fricatives in Attic Koine around the first century CE). As with Macedonian, this phenomenon is sometimes attributed to non-Greek substrate and adstrate influence, with some linguists attributing such an influence on Epirote to Illyrian. Filos, however, notes, that

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3528-467: The assembly each year at the Thermica. The chief executive was the strategos (General), who commanded the league's armies, received all diplomatic contacts from other states in first instance, and presided over meetings of the assembly, the council, and the select-men. The office could be held multiple times, but only after an interval of, probably, four years. The hipparchos (Cavalry Commander), originally

3612-491: The athematic dative plural -ois , the third person imperative -nton , and the mediopassive participle forms in -ei-. Likewise, the uncontracted Doric -eo- sequence is barely attested in Epirus, because it was usually sidelined by the contraction of -ou-- , though it does appear in anthroponyms in Epirus. Méndez Dosuna argued for a distinction of four subgroups within Northwest Doric, in which Epirote, Eastern Locrian, Epizephyrian Locrian and Acarnian were "Medial Northwest" (on

3696-405: The attribution of ⟨β⟩ , ⟨ð⟩ and ⟨ɣ⟩ for specifically voiced stops is not secure. Other proposed phonological characteristics based on inscriptions include: Epirote, like Corinthian, belonged to Doris mitior , having an arsenal of seven long vowels and five short vowels. Epirote had a phonemic difference between a long front mid-open vowel /ɛ:/ and

3780-415: The boundaries of Epirus proper, into former Illyrian territory. Though the distribution of texts would remain skewed in favor of Dodona and the coast, the peak of Epirote texts would occur in the late Hellenistic period, when the impact of the supraregional Northwest Doric koina began to be felt. Although the distribution remains skewed, texts from outside Dodona and Ambracia become markedly more common between

3864-446: The coast were gradually integrated into the emerging pan-Epirote political formations, resulting in increasing linguistic homogenization of the region. While the origins of Epirotic Greek are disputed, it is more certain that during the attested period, with its better studied corpora, there was a degree of bilingualism in the borderlands of Epirus that was likely not symmetrical in nature, and that Epirotic Greek expanded northward beyond

3948-820: The coastline; the impact of Latin became especially strong in Southern Illyria's urban centers of Dyrrhachium and Apollonia, and was far heavier than that of Epirus proper. The following is one of the earliest public inscriptions in Epirote Greek. It is an honorary decree in which the Molossian citizenship is awarded to a certain Simias from Apollonia and his family: Ἀριστομάχου Ὄμ|φαλος, γραμματ|ιστᾶ δὲ Μενεδά|μου Ὄμφαλος ἔδω|<μ>καν ἰσοπολιτε||ίαν Μολοσσῶν τ|ὸ κοινὸν Σιμίαι Ἀ|πολλωνιάται κα|τοικοῦντι ἐν Θε|πτίνωι, αὐτῶι κα||15[ὶ] γενεᾶι (-αῖ) καὶ γέν|[ει ἐκ] γενεᾶς. The following

4032-679: The colonies of some of those regions in Cyrene , Magna Graecia , the Black Sea , the Ionian Sea and the Adriatic Sea . It was also spoken in the Greek sanctuaries of Dodona , Delphi , and Olympia , as well as at the four Panhellenic festivals; the Isthmian , Nemean , Pythian , and Olympic Games . By Hellenistic times, under the Achaean League , an Achaean Doric koine appeared, exhibiting many peculiarities common to all Doric dialects, which delayed

4116-678: The command of Demetrius of Pharos. In the Social War , 220-217 BC, the Aetolian League fought against the Kingdom of Macedonia . Philip V of Macedon invaded Aetolia and sacked the city of Thermos as a response to the Aetolians' invasion at the city of Dodona in Epirus. The league was the first Greek ally of the Roman Republic , siding with the Romans during the First Macedonian War , 215-205 BC, and helping to defeat Philip V of Macedon at

4200-481: The earliest evidence (epigraphic, etc.). On the other side, Hammond (1982) argued the converse, wherein it was southward and eastward Illyrian expansions that intruded upon an originally Greek Epirus. Filos (2017) notes that due to the limitations of our linguistic knowledge of Epirus during the relevant period, which is entirely lacking except for the onomastic evidence of anthronyms, tribe names, and toponyms, any assumptions either way about which element (Illyrian, Greek)

4284-493: The first century CE. Our understanding of Epirote phonology is limited; epigraphic data, glosses, and contemporary sources are often uncorroborated. However the existing evidence from the limited inscriptions is still considered to have certain insights. Epirote shared with Thessalian, Elean and Macedonian an "oddity" of cases where voiced stops ( /b d g/ , written ⟨β ð ɣ⟩ ) appear to be correspond to Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirates, /bʰ dʰ ɡʰ/ . In most Greek,

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4368-452: The fourth century BCE. Over time, it drove all other Greek alphabets, in Epirus and elsewhere, out of usage. Epirote features a rather "Doric" contract future as seen in the third person active plural praksounti and the future mediopassive lachoumai . Whereas the Northwest Doric koina frequently used ἐν + accusative formations, Epirote preferred εἰς + accusative formations instead. The archaic formation of ἀνά + dative, which

4452-497: The group from Doric proper) group is closely related to Doric proper. Whether it is to be considered a part of the southern Doric Group or the latter a part of it or the two considered subgroups of West Greek, the dialects and their grouping remain the same. West Thessalian and Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Doric influence. While Northwest Doric is generally seen as a dialectal group, dissenting views exist, such as that of Méndez-Dosuna, who argues that Northwest Doric

4536-673: The interaction and the influences of various elements, the most important of which are the North- Achaean substratum, the Northwest Greek idiom of the Argead Macedonians , and the Thracian and Phrygian adstrata. Achaean Doric most probably belonged to the Northwest Doric group. It was spoken in Achaea in the northwestern Peloponnese, on the islands of Cephalonia and Zakynthos in

4620-663: The league to implode. Over the next decade it seems to have been reconstituted and in the later years of Alexander's reign the Aetolians seized Oeniadae against his will. The Aetolian League joined the Athenians in the Lamian war against Antipater which broke out after Alexander's death in 323 BC and continued to oppose Macedonian power throughout the Wars of the Diadochi , participating in invasions of Macedon in 320, 316/5 and 313 BC. Around 301 BC,

4704-521: The league was founded by Epaminondas in 367 BC. Grainger believes that it was founded much later, around the time of the rise of Philip II of Macedon. Archaeology indicates that settlements in Aetolia began to grow in size and complexity over the course of this century. After the death of Philip II in 336 BC, the Aetolians joined the Thebans in opposing Alexander the Great and the stress of their defeat caused

4788-454: The modern prefectures of Arcadia and Laconia . Today it is a source of considerable interest to linguists, and an endangered dialect. Laconian was spoken by the population of Laconia in the southern Peloponnese and also by its colonies, Taras and Herakleia in Magna Graecia . Sparta was the seat of ancient Laconia. Laconian is attested in inscriptions on pottery and stone from

4872-537: The most important ancient testimony to substantiate that Macedonian was a north-western Greek and mainly a Doric dialect". Miltiades Hatzopoulos has suggested that the Macedonian dialect of the 4th century BC, as attested in the Pella curse tablet , was a sort of Macedonian 'koine' resulting from the encounter of the idiom of the ' Aeolic '-speaking populations around Mount Olympus and the Pierian Mountains with

4956-410: The one by Hesychius of Alexandria , whose work preserved many dialectal words from throughout the Greek-speaking world. Where the Doric dialect group fits in the overall classification of ancient Greek dialects depends to some extent on the classification. Several views are stated under Greek dialects . The prevalent theme of most views listed there is that Doric is a subgroup of West Greek . Some use

5040-414: The other hand, southern Greek dialects were spoken by some of the coastal colonies established by southern Greeks, while in the north, there was a language border with Illyrian . There is earlier attestation of texts from the southern Greek colonies on the coast, but these spoke different varieties of Greek (Corinthian in Ambracia, Elean in Pandosia, etc.). The variety manifested in the early texts of Dodona

5124-424: The other hand, the "most Northwest" were Delphic, Aetolian, Elean, and West Locrian). Dosuna argues that North-West Greece was an area of dialectal convergence that became increasingly homogenous from the fifth century BCE onwards, coinciding with the rise of different koinai and political integration. Epirote is considered to be under-investigated. Speaking in a broad sense of the history of Epirus, as of 2018,

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5208-445: The other magistrates at the Thermica, but their relative rank is not clear. The Aetolian League acquired a reputation for piracy and brigandage . Though some historians recognize a pro- Achaean bias in the portrayal of the League by Polybius , many modern historians also accept his portrayal as largely justified. For example, Walbank is explicit in seeing the Aetolians as systematically using piracy to supplement their income due to

5292-450: The phonology and morphophonology, but most of the features thus attributed to Northwest Doric are not exclusive to it. The Northwest Doric dialects differ from the main Doric Group dialects in the below features: Four or five dialects of Northwestern Doric are recognised. This dialect was spoken in Phocis and in its main settlement, Delphi . Because of that it is also cited as Delphian. Plutarch says that Delphians pronounce b in

5376-495: The place of p ( βικρὸν for πικρὸν ) Locrian Greek is attested in two locations: The dialect of Elis (earliest c.  600 BC ) is considered, after Aeolic Greek , one of the most difficult for the modern reader of epigraphic texts. Spoken at the Dodona oracle, (earliest c.  550 –500 BC) firstly under control of the Thesprotians ; later organized in the Epirote League (since c.  370 BC ). Most scholars maintain that ancient Macedonian

5460-450: The seventh century BC. A dedication to Helen dates from the second quarter of the seventh century. Taras was founded in 706 and its founders must already have spoken Laconic. Many documents from the state of Sparta survive, whose citizens called themselves Lacedaemonians after the name of the valley in which they lived. Homer calls it "hollow Lacedaemon", though he refers to a pre-Dorian period. The seventh century Spartan poet Alcman used

5544-412: The size of the Council). From 278 the league sent delegates to the Amphictyonic League (Delphic Amphictyony), gradually increasing over time until the league held a majority of the seats on the council, which increasingly became an instrument of Aetolian power projection. From the 260s, the secretary of the Amphictyonic council was always an Aetolian. These delegates seem to have been elected along with

5628-650: The south of the Thyamis River . Further destruction was inflicted by king Mithridates VI's Thracian mercenaries in 88-87 BCE as well as during cases (such as 31 BCE) where Epirus served as a theatre for Roman civil wars. Such depopulation was followed by the settlement by Latin speakers. Although the Greek language was not effaced from the region as a result of these changes and continued to demonstrate vitality, language contact effects are demonstrated, including interference, accommodation, code-switching, hybridization, and Greco-Latin interaction in onomastics and funerary inscriptions. Latinized place names became especially common on

5712-453: The spread of the Attic -based Koine Greek to the Peloponnese until the 2nd century BC. The Northwest Doric koine refers to a supraregional North-West common variety that emerged in the third and second centuries BC, and was used in the official texts of the Aetolian League . Such texts have been found in W. Locris, Phocis, and Phtiotis, among other sites. It contained a mix of native Northwest Doric dialectal elements and Attic forms. It

5796-415: The spread of the Attic -based Koine Greek to the Peloponnese until the 2nd century BC. The only living descendant of Doric is the Tsakonian language which is still spoken in Greece today; though critically endangered, with only a few hundred – mostly elderly – fluent speakers left. It is widely accepted that Doric originated in the mountains of Epirus in northwestern Greece , the original seat of

5880-605: The state of Epirus. The Northwest Doric koine was thus both a linguistic and a political rival of the Attic-Ionic koine. Proto-Greek long *ā is retained as ā , in contrast to Attic developing a long open ē ( eta ) in at least some positions. In certain Doric dialects (Severe Doric), *e and *o lengthen by compensatory lengthening or contraction to eta or omega , in contrast to Attic ei and ou ( spurious diphthongs ). Contraction: Proto-Greek *ae > Doric ē ( eta ) ~ Attic ā . Proto-Greek *eo, *ea > some Doric dialects' io, ia . Proto-Greek short *a > Doric short

5964-413: The terms Northern Greek or Northwest Greek instead. The geographic distinction is only verbal and ostensibly is misnamed: all of Doric was spoken south of "Southern Greek" or "Southeastern Greek." Be that as it may, "Northern Greek" is based on a presumption that Dorians came from the north and on the fact that Doric is closely related to Northwest Greek . When the distinction began is not known. All

6048-442: The text to be written in an elliptic style. A number of scholars have asserted a possible partial Hellenization of pre-classical Epirus, wherein Greek elites would have engendered a language shift by elite dominance over an originally non-Greek-speaking population, including Nilsson (1909), Crossland (1982), and Kokoszko & Witczak (2009) However, such views largely relied on subjective ancient testimonies and are not supported by

6132-547: The third century BCE and the Roman conquest in 167 BCE. The Northwest Doric koina was a supraregional North-West common variety that emerged in the third and second centuries BCE, and was used in the official texts of the Aetolian League . It contained a mix of native Northwest Doric dialectal elements and Attic forms. It was apparently based on the most general features of Northwest Doric, eschewing less common local traits. Its rise

6216-502: The whole of central Greece with the exception of Attica and Boeotia . At its peak, the league's territory included Locris , Malis , Dolopes, parts of Thessaly , Phocis , and Acarnania . In the latter part of its power, certain Greek city-states joined the Aetolian League such as the Arcadian cities of Mantineia , Tegea , Phigalia and Kydonia on Crete . During the classical period

6300-554: Was a Greek dialect, probably of the Northwestern Doric group in particular. Olivier Masson , in his article for The Oxford Classical Dictionary , talks of "two schools of thought": one rejecting "the Greek affiliation of Macedonian" and preferring "to treat it as an Indo-European language of the Balkans" of contested affiliation (examples are Bonfante 1987, and Russu 1938); the other favouring "a purely Greek nature of Macedonian as

6384-525: Was a confederation of tribal communities and cities in ancient Greece centered in Aetolia in Central Greece . It was probably established during the early Hellenistic era , in opposition to Macedon and the Achaean League . Two annual meetings were held at Thermon and Panaetolika. The league occupied Delphi from 290 BC and steadily gained territory until, by the end of the 3rd century BC, it controlled

6468-413: Was apparently based on the most general features of Northwest Doric, eschewing less common local traits. Its rise was driven by both linguistic and non-linguistic factors, with non-linguistic motivating factors including the spread of the rival Attic-Ionic koine after it was recruited by the Macedonian state for administration, and the political unification of a vast territories by the Aetolian League and

6552-444: Was driven by both linguistic and non-linguistic factors, with non-linguistic motivating factors including the spread of the rival Attic-Ionic koine after it was recruited by the Macedonian state for administration, and the political unification of a vast territories by the Aetolian League and the state of Epirus. The Northwest Doric koina was thus both a linguistic and a political rival of the Attic-Ionic koina. The Northwest Doric koina

6636-427: Was forced to sign a peace treaty with Rome that made it a subject ally of the republic. Although it continued to exist in name, the power of the league was broken by the treaty and it never again constituted a significant political or military force. The league had a federal structure, which could raise armies and conduct foreign policy on a common basis. It also implemented economic standardization, levying taxes, using

6720-408: Was intrusive is "tantamount to plain guesswork", but one may reasonably assume a degree of bidialectalism along its coastline (cf. Corinthian and Elean colonies) and of bilingualism in its northern part which interacted with Illyria likely did exist, but this is hardly traceable nowadays. Filos does not posit which languages were specifically substrate, adstrate or superstrate . According to Crossman it

6804-475: Was limited by the infrequency with which it met. Two meetings took place a year, one at the Thermica festival which was held at Thermos on the autumnal equinox and another in spring at the Panaetolica festival which took place at a different site each year. Emergency meetings could also be called. The exact competencies of the Council, referred to as a boula or synedrion in different documents, relative to

6888-543: Was much more evident among the adjacent Illyrian tribes. On the Epirote coast, colonies of southern Greek provenance often spoke different dialects of Greek, but their incorporation into Epirote polities brought linguistic homogenization. Epirote also experienced interaction with other NW Doric varieties, as well as Macedonian, as adstrates. The war with Rome, ending in the Roman conquest of Epirus in 167 BCE, featured large-scale destruction and depopulation of Epirus, especially to

6972-470: Was politically linked to the Aetolian league, which had long had a mutually hostile relationship with Epirus. As such, some have argued that Epirotic during the Hellenistic period was marked by a tendency to avoid the use of features that marked an "Aetolian" identity, such as the use of ἐν + accusative. Despite its success in halting the spread of Attic for a time, the Northwest Doric koina would ultimately be

7056-589: Was used for /e:/, while the mid-open /ɛ:/ was represented by a vowel letter [REDACTED] (despite its resemblance to beta ), and was also used for the short front mid vowel /e/ . On the other hand, ⟨O⟩ was used for all three mid back vowels, regardless of length or whether they were mid-open or mid-close . For /i/ , ⟨I⟩ was not used, but ⟨ϟ⟩ or variously ⟨Σ⟩ were instead. Many of these characteristics were shared with Corinth, or with Corfu. The Attic alphabet made its appearance in Epirote texts (again) in

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