Ionic-Attic
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The Ionic-Attic group was one of the primary dialect divisions of the ancient Greek language. During the Hellenistic period, starting around the end of the 4th century BCE, Greek began to unify into a common dialect known as Koine. Before this, over the preceding 10 centuries, numerous distinct Greek dialects existed, differing in phonetic and morphological details but generally remaining mutually intelligible.12
The Ionic-Attic group included dialects spoken in Attica (the region around Athens) and Euboea, as well as in the northern Cyclades and Asiatic Ionia. While Attic became the dominant dialect for prose and literature, especially in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, with writers like Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle using it, other dialects also had significant literary traditions. The Greek language itself has roots in Indo-European but also incorporated borrowings from pre-Hellenic populations. The phonetic and morphological characteristics of Ancient Greek varied significantly between dialects and time periods.1345
- Greek language - History and development
- Greek language - Phonology
- Greek literature - Hellenistic and Greco-Roman periods
- Greek literature - Classical period, 5th and 4th centuries bc
- Greek language - Vocabulary
- ancient Greek civilization: Top Questions
- classical scholarship - Classical scholarship in the 20th century
- Greek
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Greek literatureArchaic period, to the end of the 6th century bc…the Aegean Islands and of Ionia on the coast of Asia Minor. Archilochus of Paros, of the 7th century bc, was the earliest Greek poet to employ the forms of elegy (in which the epic verse line alternated with a shorter line) and of personal lyric poetry. His work was…
Read More…the Aegean Islands and of Ionia on the coast of Asia Minor. Archilochus of Paros, of the 7th century bc, was the earliest Greek poet to employ the forms of elegy (in which the epic verse line alternated with a shorter line) and of personal lyric poetry. His work was…
Read More- Greek literatureLate forms of prose
…city: to what extent was Attic prose a norm that writers and especially orators were bound to follow? Many had shunned it in favour of a more ornamental Asiatic style. But at the end of the 1st century ad there was a revival of the Attic dialect. Speeches and essays…
Read More…city: to what extent was Attic prose a norm that writers and especially orators were bound to follow? Many had shunned it in favour of a more ornamental Asiatic style. But at the end of the 1st century ad there was a revival of the Attic dialect. Speeches and essays…
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