Ancient Greek: the alphabet. History of Ancient Greek Language

Ancient Greek language belongs to the category of "dead": today one can not find a person who would use it in everyday conversation. However, it can not be called forgotten and irretrievably lost. Separate words in the ancient Greek language can be heard in any part of the world. Learning its alphabet, grammar and pronunciation rules is not uncommon in our days.

From the depths of centuries

The history of the ancient Greek language began with the invasion of the territory of the future Hellas of the Balkan tribes. It happened between the 21st and 17th centuries. BC. They brought with them a so-called Proto-Greek language, which will give a little later the beginning of the Mycenaean dialects of the classical period, and then the Koine (Alexandrian dialect) and the modern form of the Greek. He emerged from the Indo-European and in the time of the birth, flowering and fall of the great state underwent considerable changes.

Written evidence

Up to the Dorian invasion of the Bronze Age, throughout the XVI to XI century BC. In Greece and Crete, the Mycenaean language was used. Today it is considered the most ancient version of the Greek. To this day, Mycenaean has survived in the form of inscriptions on clay tablets, discovered on the island of Crete. Unique samples of texts (a total of about 6 thousand) contain mainly business records. Despite the seemingly insignificant information recorded in them, the plaques revealed to scientists a lot of information about a bygone era.

Dialects

The Ancient Greek language in each tribe acquired its own characteristics. Over time, there were several of his dialects, which are traditionally divided into four groups:

• East: this includes Ionian and Attic dialects;

• Western: Dorian dialect;

• Arcade-Cypriot or South-Achaean;

• Aeolian or North-Achaean.

In the Hellenistic era, which began after the conquests of Alexander the Great, on the basis of the Attic dialect a koine, a Greek language, spread throughout the entire eastern Mediterranean. Later, it is from this that most dialects will "grow up".

Alphabet

Today, one way or another, but almost all know the ancient Greek language. The letter "may" ("tau"), as well as the letters "beta", "alpha", "sigma" and so on are used in mathematics, physics and other sciences. It should be noted that the alphabet, like the language itself, did not come from the air. He was in the X or IX c. BC. E. Was borrowed from the Phoenician (Canaanite) tribes. The original values of the letters were lost in time, but their names and order were preserved.

In Greece at that time there were several cultural centers, and each of them introduced its own characteristics into the alphabet. Among these local variants, the most important were Miletus and Chalcis. The first one will be used later in Byzantium. It is his Cyril and Methodius will be the basis of the Slavic alphabet. The Chalcis variant was perceived by the Romans. He is the progenitor of the Latin alphabet, which is still used throughout Western Europe.

Ancient Greek language today

The reason for encouraging a large number of people today to study the "dead" language of the ancient Greeks seems to be unobvious. And nevertheless, it is. For philologists dealing with comparative linguistics and related subjects, understanding the Ancient Greek is part of the profession. The same can be said about culturologists, philosophers and historians. For them, the ancient Greek language is the language of numerous original sources. Of course, all this literature can be read and translated. However, anyone who has at least once compared the original and its "adapted" for the local language version, knows how different the versions are usually. The reason for the differences lies in the worldview, the peculiarities of history and the perception of peoples. All these nuances are reflected in the text, transform it and generate those very untranslatable expressions, the fullness of the meaning of which can be understood only after studying the original language.

It would be superfluous to know the Ancient Greek for archaeologists and numismatists. Understanding the language makes dating easier, and in some cases helps quickly identify a fake.

Borrowings

Ancient Greek words in Russian are found in large numbers. Often we do not even suspect of their origin, which indicates the antiquity and habituality. Names Elena, Andrey, Tatyana and Fedor came to us from Ancient Greece after the adoption of Christianity. In times of strong trade and other ties with the Hellenes and Byzantines in the language of the Slavic tribes, many new words appeared. Among them you can name "pancakes", "sail", "vinegar", "doll". Today, these and similar words are so familiar that it is difficult to believe in their foreign origin.

The scientific literature of various fields of knowledge is also literally full of borrowings from the Ancient Greek. From the territory of Hellas came to us the names of various disciplines (geography, astronomy, etc.), political and social (monarchy, democracy), as well as medical, musical, literary and many other terms. At the heart of the new words denoting objects and phenomena that did not yet exist in ancient times, Greek roots lie or they are formed with the help of Greek prefixes (telephone, microscope). Other terms are used today, having lost their original meaning. Thus, cybernetics in Greece of the past epochs was called the ability to control a ship. In a word, and after so many centuries the language of the ancient inhabitants of the Peloponnese remains in demand.