Several literary genres are conventionally written in a specific style and dialect that in which the genre originated regardless the origin of later authors4. Homeric Greek which is imitated in later Epic poems such as Argonautica and Dionysiaca is an artificial mixture of dialects close to Ionic Aeolic and Arcadocypriot5.

Archilochus of Paros is the oldest poet in Ionic proper. This dialect includes also the earliest Greek prose that of Heraclitus and Ionic philosophers Hecataeus and logographers Herodotus Democritus and Hippocrates. Elegiac poetry originated in Ionia and always continued to be written in Ionic67.

Attic Orators Plato Xenophon and Aristotle wrote in Attic proper Thucydides in Old Attic the dramatists in an artificial poetic language8 while the Attic Comedy contains several vernacular elements.

Doric is the conventional dialect of choral lyric poetry which includes the Laconian Alcman the Theban Pindar and the choral songs of Attic tragedy (stasima). Several lyric and epigrammatic poets wrote in this dialect such as Ibycus of Rhegium and Leonidas of Tarentum. The following authors wrote in Doric preserved in fragments: Epicharmus comic poet and writers of South Italian Comedy (phlyax play) Mithaecus food writer and Archimedes.

Aeolic is an exclusively poetic lyric dialect represented by Sappho and Alcaeus for Aeolic (Lesbian) and Corinna of Tanagra for Boiotic. Thessalic Northwest Doric Arcado-Cypriot and Pamphylian never became literary dialects and are only known from inscriptions and to some extent by the comical parodies of Aristophanes and lexicographers. Classification Ancient classification

The ancients classified the language into three gene or four dialects Ionic (Attic) Aeolic Doric and later a fifth one Koine910. Grammarians focus mainly on the literary dialects and isolated words. Historians may classify dialects on mythological/historical reasons rather than linguistic knowledge . According to Strabo Ionic is the same as Attic and Aeolic the same as Doric - Outside the Isthmus all Greeks were Aeolians except the Athenians the Megarians and the Dorians who live about Parnassus - In the Peloponnese Achaeans were also Aeolians but only Eleans and Arcadians continued to speak Aeolic11. However for most ancients Aeolic was synonymous with literary Lesbic12. Stephanus of Byzantium characterized Boeotian as Aeolic and Aetolian as Doric13. Remarkable is the ignorance of sources except lexicographers on Arcadian Cypriot and Pamphylian. Finally unlike modern Greek14 and English ancient Greek common terms for human speech ( 'glssa'15 'dialektos'16 'phn'17 and the suffix '-isti' ) may be attributed interchangeably to both a dialect and a language. However the plural 'dialektoi' is used when comparing dialects and peculiar words are listed by the grammarians under the terms 'lexeis'18 or 'glssai'19. Modern classification The dialects of Classical Antiquity are grouped slightly differently by various authorities. Pamphylian is a marginal dialect of Asia Minor and is sometimes left uncategorized. Note that Mycenaean was only deciphered in 1952 and is therefore missing from the earlier schemes presented here. Northwestern Southeastern Ernst Risch Museum Helveticum (1955): Northern Greek Doric/North-Western Greek Aeolic Pamphylian Southern Greek Ionic-Arcadian-Cyprian-Mycenaean Alfred Heubeck: Northwestern group Doric/North-Western Greek Aeolic Southeastern group Ionic-Attic Arcadocypriot Western Central Eastern A. Thumb E. Kieckers Handbuch der griechischen Dialekte (1932): Western Greek Doric dialects dialect of Achaia dialect of Elis North-Western Greek Central Greek Aeolic Boiotic Thessalic Lesbian Arcadocyprian Eastern Greek Ionic Attic Pamphylian W. Porzig Die Gliederung des indogermanischen Sprachgebiets (1954): Western Greek North-Western Greek Doric Aeolic Eastern Greek Ionic-Attic Arcadocyprian East Greek West Greek C.D. Buck The Greek Dialects (1955)20: East Greek The Attic-Ionic Group Attic Ionic East Ionic Central Ionic West Ionic or Euboean The Arcado-cyprian Group Arcadian Cyprian Pamphylian The Aeolic Group Lesbian Thessalian Boeotian West Greek The NorthWest Greek Group Phocian (including Delphian) Locrian Elean The Northwest Greek koine The Doric Group Laconian and Heraclean Messenian Megarian Corinthian Argolic Rhodian Coan Theran and Cyrenaean Cretan Sicilian Doric Phonology The Ancient Greek dialects differed mainly in vowels. Loss of intervocalic s consonantal i and w from Proto-Greek brought two vowels together in hiatus a circumstance often called "collision of vowels".21 Over time Greek speakers would change pronunciation to avoid such collision and the way in which vowels changed determined the dialect. For example the word for the "god of the sea" (regardless of the culture and language from which it came) was in some prehistoric form *poseidwn (genitive *poseidwonos). Loss of the intervocalic *w left poseidn which is found in both Mycenaean and Homeric dialects. Ionic Greek changed the *a to an e (poseiden) while Attic Greek contracted it to poseidn. Additional dialectization:citation needed Corinthian: potedwoni > potedni and potedn Boeotian: poteidoni Cretan Rhodian and Delphian: poteidn Lesbian: poseidn Arcadian: posoidnos Laconian: pohoidn These changes appear designed to place one vowel phoneme where there two a process called "contraction" if a third phoneme is created and "hyphaeresis" ("taking away") if one phoneme is dropped and the other kept. Sometimes the two phonemes are kept or are kept and modified as in the Ionic poseiden. Another principle of vocalic dialectization follows the Indo-European ablaut series or vowel grades. Indo-European could interchange e (e-grade) with o (o-grade) or not use either (zero-grade). Similarly Greek inherited the series (for example) ei oi i which are e- o- and zero-grades of the diphthong respectively. They could appear in different verb forms: leipo "I leave" leloipa "I have left" elipon "I left" or be used as the basis of dialectization: Attic deiknumi "I point out" but Cretan diknumi. Post-Hellenistic Main article: Varieties of Modern Greek The ancient Greek dialects were a result of isolation and poor communication between communities living in broken terrain. No general Greek historian fails to point out the influence of terrain on the development of the city-states. Often in the development of languages dialectization results in the dissimilation of daughter languages. This phase did not occur in Greek; instead the dialects were replaced by standard Greek. Increasing population and communication brought speakers more closely in touch and united them under the same authorities. Attic Greek became the literary language everywhere. Buck says22: " long after Attic had become the norm of literary prose each state employed its own dialect both in private and public monuments of internal concern and in those of a more interstate character such as treaties." In the first few centuries BCE regional dialects replaced local ones: North-west Greek koine Doric koine and of course Attic koine. The latter came to replace the others in common speech in the first few centuries AD. After the division of the Roman Empire into east and west the earliest modern Greek prevailed. The dialect distribution was then as follows: Attic Greek Koin Byzantine Greek language Modern Greek Demotic Greek Katharevousa Yevanic Cypriot Greek Cretan Greek Griko (possibly with Doric elements) Pontic Greek Cappadocian Greek Romano-Greek Tsakonian Doric Greek Tsakonian According to some scholars Tsakonian is the only modern Greek dialect that descends from Doric rather than the Koine23. Others believe it to be the descendant of the local Laconian and thus Doric-influenced variant of the Koinecitation needed. Notes Roger D. Woodard (2008) "Greek dialects" in: The Ancient Languages of Europe ed. R. D. Woodard Cambridge: Cambridge University Press p. 51. Sometimes called the Greek Dark Ages because writing disappeared from Greece until the adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet. It is as yet undetermined whether Macedonian was a separate yet sibling language which was most closely related to Greek a dialect of Greek or an independent Indo-European language not especially close to Greek. Greek mythology and poetics By Gregory Nagy Page 51 ISBN 978-0-8014-8048-5 (1992) Homer and the epic: a shortened version of The songs of Homer By Geoffrey Stephen Kirk Page 76 (1965) A History of Greek Literature: From the Earliest Period to the Death of by Frank Byron Jevons (1894) Page 112 A History of Classical Greek Literature: Volume 2. The Prose Writers (Paperback) by John Pentland Mahaffy Page 194 ISBN 1-4021-7041-6 Helen By Euripides William Allan Page 43 ISBN 0-521-54541-2 (2008) New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity: Volume 5 Linguistic Essays With Cumulative Indexes to Vols. 1-5 Page 30 ISBN 0-8028-4517-7 (2001) History Of The Language Sciences By Sylvain Auroux Page 440 ISBN 3-11-016736-0 (2000) Strabo 8.1.2 14.5.26 Mendez Dosuna The Aeolic dialects Stephanus of Byzantium Ethnika s.v. Ionia glossa: language dialektos: dialect fon : voice LSJ glssa LSJ:dialektos LSJ phn LSJ lexis Ataktoi Glssai (Disorderly Words) by Philitas of Cos First published in 1928 it was revised and expanded by Buck and republished in 1955 the year of his death. Of the new edition Buck said (Preface): "this is virtually a new book." There have been other impressions but of course no further changes to the text. The 1955 edition was at the time and to some degree still is the standard text on the subject in the United States. This part of the table is based on the Introduction to the 1955 edition. An example of a modern use of this classification can be found at columbia.edu as Richard C. Carrier's The Major Greek Dialects Two vowels together are not to be confused with a diphthong which is two vowel sounds within the same syllable (often spelled with two letters). Greek diphthongs were typically inherited from Proto-Indo-European. Greek Dialectspage needed Medieval and modern Greek By Robert Browning Page 124 ISBN 0-521-29978-0 (1983) v d eAges of Greek c. 3rd millenium BC c. 16001100 BC c. 800300 BC c. 300 BC  AD 330 c. 3301453 since 1453 Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Greek Koine Greek Medieval Greek Modern Greek v d eAncient Greece Outline       Timeline Periods Cycladic civilization  Minoan civilization  Mycenaean civilization  Greek Dark Ages  Archaic period  Classical Greece  Hellenistic Greece  Roman Greece Geography Aegean Sea  Hellespont  Macedonia  Sparta  Athens  Corinth  Thebes  Thermopylae  Ionian Sea  Ionia  Aeolis  Doris  Antioch  Alexandria  Pergamon  Miletus  Ephesus  Delphi  Delos   Olympia  Troy  Rhodes  Crete  Peloponnesus  Epirus  Cyprus  Pontus  Magna Graecia  Ancient Greek Colonies Politics Apella  Ecclesia  Heliaia  Boule  Agora  Graph paranmn  Areopagus  League of Corinth  Diadochi Rulers Kings of Sparta  Kings of Athens  Archons of Athens  Kings of Macedon  Kings of Pontus  Kings of Paionia  Roman Emperors  Kings of Kommagene  Kings of Lydia  Attalid Kings of Pergamon  Diadochi   Kings of Argos  Tyrants of Syracuse Life Agriculture  Clothing  Cuisine  Democracy  Economy  Education  Festivals  Homosexuality  Law  Marriage  Mourning ritual  Olympic Games  Pederasty  Philosophy  Prostitution  Religion  Slavery  Warfare  Wine Military Wars  Army of Macedon  Antigonid Macedonian army  Pezhetairoi  Hoplite  Seleucid army  Hellenistic armies  Phalanx formation  Peltast  Sarissa  Xyston  Sacred Band of Thebes People Philosophers Anaxagoras  Anaximander  Anaximenes  Antisthenes  Aristotle  Democritus  Diotima of Mantinea  Diogenes of Sinope  Epicurus  Empedocles  Heraclitus  Hypatia  Leucippus  Gorgias  Parmenides  Plato  Protagoras  Pythagoras  Socrates  Thales  Themistoclea  Zeno Authors Aeschylus  Aesop  Aristophanes  Euripides  Herodotus  Hesiod  Homer  Lucian  Menander  Pindar  Plutarch  Polybius  Sappho  Sophocles  Thucydides  Xenophon Others Alexander the Great  Alcibiades  Archimedes  Aspasia  Demosthenes  Euclid  Hipparchus  Hippocrates  Leonidas  Lycurgus  Milo of Croton  Pericles  Ptolemy  Solon  Themistocles Buildings Parthenon  Temple of Artemis  Acropolis  Ancient Agora  Temple of Zeus at Olympia  Temple of Hephaestus  Samothrace temple complex Arts Architecture  Coinage  Literature  Music  Pottery  Sculpture  Theatre Sciences Astronomy  Mathematics  Medicine  Technology Language Proto-Greek  Mycenaean  Homeric  Dialects (Aeolic  Arcadocypriot  Attic  Doric  Ionic  Locrian  Macedonian  Pamphylian)  Koine Writing Linear A  Linear B  Greek alphabet Lists Ancient Greek tribes  Greeks  Thracian Greeks  Cities in Epirus  Ancient Macedonians  Playwrights  Theatres  Poets  Tyrants  Philosophers  Cities  Mythological figures  Place names Portal External links Overviews Griechische Dialekte und ihre Verteilung Titus site in German. List map table of features. Dialects of Greek Kelley L. Ross. Map and brief description. Greek. Ethnologue report on modern Greek dialects and koine. Brief entries catalog style. Excerpts from Margalit Finkelburg Greeks and Pre-Greeks: Aegean Prehistory and Greek Heroic TraditionPDF (162 KiB). One of the topics is the origin of the dialects. Inscriptions Searchable Greek Inscriptions. A considerable corpus of ancient Greek inscriptions in various dialects published by The Packard Humanities Institute. Inscriptions Listed by Region Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents site.