Medieval Greek

As early as in the Hellenistic period, there was a tendency towards a state of diglossia between the Attic literary language and the constantly developing vernacular Koine. By late antiquity, the gap had become impossible to ignore. In the Byzantine era, written Greek manifested itself in a whole spectrum of divergent registers, all of which were consciously archaic in comparison with the contemporary spoken vernacular, but in different degrees.[8]

They ranged from a moderately archaic style employed for most every-day writing and based mostly on the written Koine of the Bible and early Christian literature, to a highly artificial learned style, employed by authors with higher literary ambitions and closely imitating the model of classical Attic, in continuation of the movement of Atticism in late antiquity. At the same time, the spoken vernacular language developed on the basis of earlier spoken Koine, and reached a stage that in many ways resembles present-day Modern Greek in terms of grammar and phonology by the turn of the first millennium AD. Written literature reflecting this Demotic Greek begins to appear around 1100.

Among the preserved literature in the Attic literary language, various forms of historiography take a prominent place. They comprise chronicles as well as classicist, contemporary works of historiography, theological documents, and saints' lives. Poetry can be found in the form of hymns and ecclesiastical poetry. Many of the Byzantine emperors were active writers themselves and wrote chronicles or works on the running of the Byzantine state and strategic or philological works.

Furthermore, letters, legal texts, and numerous registers and lists in Medieval Greek exist. Concessions to spoken Greek can be found, for example, in John Malalas's Chronography from the 6th century, the Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor (9th century) and the works of Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (mid-10th century). These are influenced by the vernacular language of their time in choice of words and idiom, but largely follow the models of written Koine in their morphology and syntax.

The spoken form of Greek was called γλῶσσα δημώδης (glōssa dēmōdēs 'vernacular language'), ἁπλοελληνική (haploellēnikē 'basic Greek'), καθωμιλημένη (kathōmilēmenē 'spoken') or Ῥωμαιϊκή (Rhōmaiïkē 'Roman language'). Before the 13th century, examples of texts written in vernacular Greek are very rare. They are restricted to isolated passages of popular acclamations, sayings, and particularly common or untranslatable formulations which occasionally made their way into Greek literature. Since the end of the 11th century, vernacular Greek poems from the literary realm of Constantinople are documented.

The Digenes Akritas, a collection of heroic sagas from the 12th century that was later collated in a verse epic, was the first literary work completely written in the vernacular. The Greek vernacular verse epic appeared in the 12th century, around the time of the French romance novel, almost as a backlash to the Attic renaissance during the dynasty of the Komnenoi in works like Psellos's Chronography (in the middle of the 11th century) or the Alexiad, the biography of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos written by his daughter Anna Komnena about a century later. In fifteen-syllable blank verse (versus politicus), the Digenes Akritas deals with both ancient and medieval heroic sagas, but also with stories of animals and plants. The Chronicle of the Morea, a verse chronicle from the 14th century, is unique. It has also been preserved in French, Italian and Aragonese versions, and covers the history of Frankish feudalism on the Peloponnese during the Latinokratia of the Principality of Achaea, a crusader state set up after the Fourth Crusade and the 13th century fall of Constantinople.

The earliest evidence of prose vernacular Greek exists in some documents from southern Italy written in the tenth century. Later prose literature consists of statute books, chronicles and fragments of religious, historical and medical works. The dualism of literary language and vernacular was to persist until well into the 20th century, when the Greek language question was decided in favor of the vernacular in 1976.

The persistence until the Middle Ages of a single Greek speaking state, the Byzantine Empire, meant that, unlike Vulgar Latin, Greek did not split into separate languages. However, with the fracturing of the Byzantine state after the turn of the first millennium, newly isolated dialects such as Mariupol Greek, spoken in Crimea, Pontic Greek, spoken along the Black Sea coast of Asia Minor, and Cappadocian, spoken in central Asia Minor, began to diverge. In Griko, a language spoken in the southern Italian exclaves, and in Tsakonian, which is spoken on the Peloponnese, dialects of older origin continue to be used today. Cypriot Greek was already in a literary form in the late Middle Ages, being used in the Assizes of Cyprus and the chronicles of Leontios Makhairas and Georgios Boustronios.

The Suda, an encyclopedia from the late 10th century, gives some indication of the vowel inventory. Following the antistoichic[Note 1] system, it lists terms alphabetically but arranges similarly pronounced letters side by side. In this way, for indicating homophony, αι is grouped together with ε /e̞/; ει and η together with ι /i/; ο with ω /o̞/, and οι with υ /y/. At least in educated speech, the vowel /y/, which had also merged with υι, likely did not lose lip-rounding and become /i/ until the 10th/11th centuries. Up to this point, transliterations into Georgian continue using a different letter for υ/οι than for ι/ει/η,[11] and in the year 1030, Michael the Grammarian could still make fun of the bishop of Philomelion for confusing ι for υ.[12] In the 10th century, Georgian transliterations begin using the letter representing /u/ (უ) for υ/οι, in line with the alternative development in certain dialects like Tsakonian, Megaran and South Italian Greek where /y/ reverted to /u/. This phenomenon perhaps indirectly indicates that the same original phoneme had merged with /i/ in mainstream varieties at roughly the same time (the same documents also transcribe υ/οι with ი /i/ very sporadically).[13]

In the original closing diphthongs αυ, ευ and ηυ, the offglide [u] had developed into a consonantal [v] or [f] early on (possibly through an intermediate stage of [β] and [ɸ]). Before [n], υ turned to [m] (εὔνοστος ['evnostos] → ἔμνοστος ['emnostos], χαύνος ['xavnos] → χάμνος ['xamnos], ἐλαύνω [e'lavno] → λάμνω ['lamno]), and before [m] it was dropped (θαῦμα ['θavma] → θάμα ['θama]). Before [s], it occasionally turned to [p] (ἀνάπαυση [a'napafsi] → ἀνάπαψη [a'napapsi]).[14]

Words with initial vowels were often affected by apheresis: ἡ ἡμέρα [i i'mera] → ἡ μέρα [i 'mera] ('the day'), ἐρωτῶ [ero'to] → ρωτῶ [ro'to] ('(I) ask').[15]

A regular phenomenon in most dialects is synizesis ("merging" of vowels). In many words with the combinations [ˈea], [ˈeo], [ˈia] and [ˈio], the stress shifted to the second vowel, and the first became a glide [j]. Thus: Ῥωμαῖος [ro'meos] → Ῥωμιός [ro'mɲos] ('Roman'), ἐννέα [e'nea] → ἐννιά [e'ɲa] ('nine'), ποῖος ['pios] → ποιός ['pços] ('which'), τα παιδία [ta pe'ðia] → τα παιδιά [ta pe'ðʝa] ('the children'). This accentual shift is already reflected in the metre of the 6th century hymns of Romanos the Melodist.[16] In many cases, the vowel o disappeared in the endings -ιον [-ion] and -ιος [-ios] (σακκίον [sa'cion] → σακκίν [sa'cin], χαρτίον [xar'tion] → χαρτίν [xar'tin], κύριος ['cyrios] → κύρις ['cyris]). This phenomenon is attested to have begun earlier, in the Hellenistic Koine Greek papyri.[17]

The shift in the consonant system from voiced plosives /b/ (β), /d/ (δ), /ɡ/ (γ) and aspirated voiceless plosives /pʰ/ (φ), /tʰ/ (θ), /kʰ/ (χ) to corresponding fricatives (/v, ð, ɣ/ and /f, θ, x/, respectively) was already completed during Late Antiquity. However, the original voiced plosives remained as such after nasal consonants, with [mb] (μβ), [nd] (νδ), [ŋɡ] (γγ). The velar sounds /k, x, ɣ, ŋk, ŋɡ/ (κ, χ, γ, γκ, γγ) were realised as palatal allophones ([c, ç, ʝ, ɲc, ɲɟ]) before front vowels. The fricative /h/, which had been present in Classical Greek, had been lost early on, although it continued to be reflected in spelling through the rough breathing, a diacritic mark added to vowels.[18]

Changes in the phonological system mainly affect consonant clusters that show sandhi processes. In clusters of two different plosives or two different fricatives, there is a tendency for dissimilation such that the first consonant becomes a fricative and/or the second becomes a plosive ultimately favoring a fricative-plosive cluster. But if the first consonant was a fricative and the second consonant was /s/, the first consonant instead became a plosive, favoring a plosive-/s/ cluster.[19] Medieval Greek also had cluster voicing harmony favoring the voice of the final plosive or fricative; when the resulting clusters became voiceless, the aforementioned sandhi would further apply. This process of assimilation and sandhi was highly regular and predictable, forming a rule of Medieval Greek phonotactics that would persist into Early Modern Greek. When dialects started deleting unstressed /i/ and /u/ between two consonants (such as when Myzithras became Mystras), new clusters were formed and similarly assimilated by sandhi; on the other hand it is arguable that the dissimilation of voiceless obstruents occurred before the loss of close vowels, as the clusters resulting from this development do not necessarily undergo the change to [fricative + stop], e.g. κ(ου)τί as [kti] not [xti].[20]

The resulting clusters were:

For plosives:

• [kp] → [xp]
• [kt] → [xt] (νύκτα ['nykta] → νύχτα ['nixta])
• [pt] → [ft] (ἑπτά [e'pta] → ἑφτά [e'fta])

For fricatives where the second was not /s/:

• [sθ] → [st] (Μυζ(η)θράς [myz(i)'θras] → Μυστράς [mi'stras])
• [sf] → [sp] (only occurred in Pontic Greek)[21]
• [sx] → [sk] (σχολείο [sxo'lio] → σκολειό [sko'ʎo])
• [fθ] → [ft] (φθόνος ['fθonos] → φτόνος ['ftonos])
• [fx] → [fk]
• [xθ] → [xt] (χθές ['xθes] → χτές ['xtes])

For fricatives where the second was /s/:

• [fs] → [ps] (ἔπαυσα ['epafsa] → ἔπαψα ['epapsa])

The disappearance of /n/ in word-final position, which had begun sporadically in Late Antiquity, became more widespread, excluding certain dialects such as South Italian and Cypriot. The nasals /m/ and /n/ also disappeared before voiceless fricatives, for example νύμφη ['nyɱfi] → νύφη ['nifi], ἄνθος ['an̪θos] → ἄθος ['aθos].[22]

A new set of voiced plosives [(m)b], [(n)d] and [(ŋ)ɡ] developed through voicing of voiceless plosives after nasals. There is some dispute as to when exactly this development took place but apparently it began during the Byzantine period. The graphemes μπ, ντ and γκ for /b/, /d/ and /ɡ/ can already be found in transcriptions from neighboring languages in Byzantine sources, like in ντερβίσης [der'visis], from Turkish: derviş ('dervish'). On the other hand, some scholars contend that post-nasal voicing of voiceless plosives began already in the Koine, as interchanges with β, δ, and γ in this position are found in the papyri.[23] The prenasalized voiced spirants μβ, νδ and γγ were still plosives by this time, causing a merger between μβ/μπ, νδ/ντ and γγ/γκ, which would remain except within educated varieties, where spelling pronunciations did make for segments such as [ɱv, n̪ð, ŋɣ][24]

Lexicographic changes in Medieval Greek influenced by Christianity can be found for instance in words like ἄγγελος [ˈaɲɟelos] ('messenger') → heavenly messenger → angel) or ἀγάπη [aˈɣapi] 'love' → 'altruistic love', which is strictly differentiated from ἔρως [ˈeros], ('physical love'). In everyday usage, some old Greek stems were replaced, for example, the expression for "wine" where the word κρασίον [kraˈsion] ('mixture') replaced the old Greek οἶνος [oînos]. The word ὄψον [ˈopson] (meaning 'something you eat with bread') combined with the suffix -αριον [-arion], which was borrowed from the Latin -arium, became 'fish' (ὀψάριον [oˈpsarion]), which after apheresis, synizesis and the loss of final ν [n] became the new Greek ψάρι [ˈpsari] and eliminated the Old Greek ἰχθύς [ikʰtʰýs], which became an acrostic for Jesus Christ and a symbol for Christianity.

Especially at the beginning of the Byzantine Empire, Medieval Greek borrowed numerous words from Latin, among them mainly titles and other terms of the imperial court's life like Αὔγουστος [ˈavɣustos] ('Augustus'), πρίγκιψ [ˈpriɲɟips] (Latin: princeps, 'Prince'), μάγιστρος [ˈmaʝistros] (Latin: magister, 'Master'), κοιαίστωρ [cyˈestor] (Latin: quaestor, 'Quaestor'), ὀφφικιάλος [ofiˈcalos] (Latin: officialis, 'official'). In addition, Latin words from everyday life entered the Greek language, for example ὁσπίτιον [oˈspition] (Latin: hospitium, 'hostel', therefore "house", σπίτι [ˈspiti] in Modern Greek), σέλλα [ˈsela] ('saddle'), ταβέρνα [taˈverna] ('tavern'), κανδήλιον [kanˈdilion] (Latin: candela, 'candle'), φούρνος [ˈfurnos] (Latin: furnus, 'oven') and φλάσκα [ˈflaska] (Latin: flasco, 'wine bottle').

Other influences on Medieval Greek arose from contact with neighboring languages and the languages of Venetian, Frankish and Arab conquerors. Some of the loanwords from these languages have been permanently retained in Greek or in its dialects:

• κάλτσα [ˈkaltsa] from Italian: calza 'stocking'
• ντάμα [ˈdama] from French: dame 'dame'
• παζάρι [paˈzari] from Turkish: pazar (itself derived from Persian), 'market, bazaar'
• χατζι- [xadzi-] from Arabic: hajji "Mecca pilgrim", used as a name affix for a Christian after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Manuscript of the Anthology of Planudes (c. 1300)

The first Greek script, a cursive script, developed from quick carving into wax tablets with a slate pencil. This cursive script already showed descenders and ascenders, as well as combinations of letters.

In the third century, the Greek uncial developed under the influence of the Latin script because of the need to write on papyrus with a reed pen. In the Middle Ages, uncial became the main script for the Greek language.

A common feature of the medieval majuscule script like the uncial is an abundance of abbreviations (e.g. ΧϹ for "Christos") and ligatures. Several letters of the uncial (ϵ for Ε, Ϲ for Σ, Ѡ for Ω) were also used as majuscules especially in a sacral context. The lunate sigma was adopted in this form as "С" in the Cyrillic script.

The Greek uncial used the interpunct in order to separate sentences for the first time, but there were still no spaces between words.

The Greek minuscule script, which probably emerged from the cursive writing in Syria, appears more and more frequently from the 9th century onwards. It is the first script that regularly uses accents and spiritus, which had already been developed in the 3rd century BC. This very fluent script, with ascenders and descenders and many possible combinations of letters, is the first to use gaps between words. The last forms which developed in the 12th century were Iota subscript and word-final sigma (ς). The type for Greek majuscules and minuscules that was developed in the 17th century by a printer from the Antwerp printing dynasty, Wetstein, eventually became the norm in modern Greek printing.

The first excerpt is from the Alexiad of Anna Komnena, recounting the invasion by Bohemond I of Antioch, son of Robert Guiscard, in 1107. The writer employs much ancient vocabulary, influenced by Herodotean Ionic, though post-classical terminology is also used (e.g. δούξ, from Latin: dux). Anna has a strong command of classical morphology and syntax, but again there are occasional 'errors' reflecting interference from the popular language, such as the use of εἰς + accusative instead of classical ἐν + dative to mean 'in'. As seen in the phonetic transcription, although most major sound changes resulting in the Modern Greek system (including the merger of υ/οι /y/ with /i/) are assumed complete by this period, learned speech likely resisted the loss of final ν, aphaeresis and synizesis.[25]

Ὁ δὲ βασιλεὺς, ἔτι εἰς τὴν βασιλεύουσαν ἐνδιατρίβων, μεμαθηκὼς διὰ γραφῶν τοῦ δουκὸς Δυρραχίου τὴν τοῦ Βαϊμούντου διαπεραίωσιν ἐπετάχυνε τὴν ἐξέλευσιν. ἀνύστακτος γὰρ ὤν ὁ δοὺξ Δυρραχίου, μὴ διδοὺς τὸ παράπαν ὕπνον τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς, ὁπηνίκα διέγνω διαπλωσάμενον τὸν Βαϊμούντον παρὰ τὴν τοῦ Ἰλλυρικοῦ πεδιάδα καὶ τῆς νηὸς ἀποβεβηκότα καὶ αὐτόθι που πηξάμενον χάρακα, Σκύθην μεταπεψάμενος ὑπόπτερον δή, τὸ τοῦ λόγου, πρὸς τὸν αὐτοκράτορα τὴν τούτου διαπεραίωσιν ἐδήλου.

[o ðe vasiˈlefs, ˈeti is tim vasiˈlevusan enðjaˈtrivon, memaθiˈkos ðja ɣraˈfon tu ðuˈkos ðiraˈçiu tin du vaiˈmundu ðjapeˈreosin epeˈtaçine tin eˈkselefsin. aˈnistaktos ɣar on o ðuks ðiraˈçiu, mi ðiˈðus to paˈrapan ˈipnon tis ofθalˈmis, opiˈnika ˈðjeɣno ðjaploˈsamenon tom vaiˈmundon para tin du iliriˈku peˈðjaða ce tiz niˈos apoveviˈkota ce afˈtoθi pu piˈksamenon ˈxaraka, ˈsciθin metapemˈpsamenos iˈpopteron ði, to tu ˈloɣu, pros ton aftoˈkratora tin ˈdutu ðjapeˈreosin eˈðilu.]

'When the emperor, who was still in the imperial city, learned of Bohemond's crossing from the letters of the duke (military commander) of Dyrráchion, he hastened his departure. For the duke had been vigilant, having altogether denied sleep to his eyes, and at the moment when he learned that Bohemond had sailed over beside the plain of Illyricum, disembarked, and set up camp thereabouts, he sent for a Scythian with "wings", as the saying goes, and informed the emperor of the man's crossing.'

The second excerpt is from the epic of Digenes Akritas (manuscript E), possibly dating originally to the 12th century. This text is one of the earliest examples of Byzantine folk literature, and includes many features in line with developments in the demotic language. The poetic metre adheres to the fully developed Greek 15-syllable political verse. Features of popular speech like synezisis, elision and apheresis are regular, as is recognized in the transcription despite the conservative orthography. Also seen is the simplification of διὰ to modern γιὰ. In morphology, note the use of modern possessive pronouns, the concurrence of classical -ουσι(ν)/-ασι(ν) and modern -ουν/-αν 3rd person plural endings, the lack of reduplication in perfect passive participles and the addition of ν to the neuter adjective in γλυκύν. In other parts of the poem, the dative case has been almost completely replaced with the genitive and accusative for indirect objects.[26]

Καὶ ὡς εἴδασιν τὰ ἀδέλφια της τὴν κόρην μαραμένην,
ἀντάμα οἱ πέντε ἐστέναξαν, τοιοῦτον λόγον εἶπαν:
'Ἐγείρου, ἠ βεργόλικος, γλυκύν μας τὸ ἀδέλφιν˙
ἐμεῖς γὰρ ἐκρατοῦμαν σε ὡς γιὰ ἀποθαμένην
καὶ ἐσὲν ὁ Θεὸς ἐφύλαξεν διὰ τὰ ὡραῖα σου κάλλη.
Πολέμους οὐ φοβούμεθα διὰ τὴν σὴν ἀγάπην.'

[c os ˈiðasin t aˈðelfja tis tiŋ ˈɡorin maraˈmeni(n) anˈdama i ˈpende ˈstenaksan, tiˈuto(n) ˈloɣon ˈipa(n): eˈjiru, i verˈɣolikos, ɣliˈci(m) mas to aˈðelfi(n); eˈmis ɣar ekraˈtuman se os ja apoθaˈmeni(n) c eˈsen o ˈθjos eˈfilakse(n) (ð)ja t oˈrea su ˈkali. poˈlemus u foˈvumeθa ðiˈa ti ˈsin aˈɣapi(n)]

'And when her brothers saw the girl withered, the five groaned together, and spoke as follows: "Arise, lissom one, our sweet sister; we had you for dead, but you were protected by God for your beautiful looks. Through our love for you, we fear no battles.'