Koine also was the original language of the New Testament of the Christian Bible as well as the medium for the teaching and spreading of Christianity. Koine Greek was unofficially a first or second language in the Roman Empire.
The Birth of Jesus1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to his own town to register. 4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
The Shepherds and the Angels 8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. (Luke 2:1-9 NIV) HistoryKoine Greek started taking shape as a common Greek dialect within the armies of Alexander the Great. As the allied Greek states under the leadership of Macedon conquered and colonised the known world, their newly formed common dialect was spoken from Egypt to the fringes of India. Even though Koine Greek was shaped during the late Classic Era, the symbolic starting point of the second period of the Greek language (known as Post-Classic) is set at the death of Alexander the Great and the beginning of the Hellenistic civilization in 323 BC. The closing of Post-Classic Greek and the passage into the next period of the Greek language, which is known as Medieval Greek, is symbolically assigned at the foundation of Constantinople by Constantine the Great in AD 330. In that respect, the Post-Classic period of Greek refers to the creation and evolution of Koine Greek throughout the entire Hellenistic and Roman eras of Greek history until the start of the Middle Ages.
The term KoineKoine (Κοινή), which is Greek for "Common", is a term that had been previously applied by ancient scholars to several forms of Greek speech. A school of scholars such as Apollonius Dyscolus and Aelius Herodianus maintained the term Koine to refer to the Proto-Greek language, while others would use it to refer to any vernacular form of Greek speech which deferred to the literary language. When Koine gradually became a language of literature, some people distinguished it in two forms: Hellenic (Greek), as the literary Post-Classic form, and Koine (common), as the spoken popular form. Others chose to refer to Koine as the Alexandrian dialect ("Περὶ τῆς Ἀλεξανδρέων διαλέκτου"), meaning "the dialect of Alexandria" (a term often used by modern Classicists).
RootsThe linguistic roots of the Common Greek dialect had been unclear since ancient times. During the Hellenistic age, most scholars thought of Koine as the result of the mixture of the four main Ancient Greek dialects, "ἡ ἐκ τῶν τεττάρων συνεστῶσα" (the composition of the Four). This view was supported in the early 19th century by Austrian linguist P. Kretschmer in his book "Die Entstehung der Koine" (1901), while the German scholar Wilamowitz and the French linguist Antoine Meillet, based on the intense Attic-Ionic elements of Koine - such as σσ instead of ττ and ρσ instead of ρρ (θάλασσα - θάλαττα, ἀρσενικός - ἀρρενικός) - considered Koine to be a simplified form of Ionic. The final answer that is academically accepted today was given by the Greek linguist G. N. Hatzidakis, who proved that, despite the "composition of the Four", the "stable nucleus" of Koine Greek is Attic. In other words, Koine Greek can be regarded as the result of the admixture of the three Ancient Greek dialects and Attic. The degree of importance of the non-Attic linguistic elements on Koine can vary depending on the region of the Hellenistic World. In that respect, the idioms of Koine spoken in the Ionian colonies of Asia Minor and Cyprus would have more intense Ionic characteristics than others. The literary Koine of the Hellenistic age resembles Attic in such a degree that it is often mentioned as Common Attic. Sources of KoineThe first scholars who studied Koine, both in Alexandrian and contemporary times, were classicists whose prototype had been the literary Attic language of the Classic period, and would frown upon on any other kind of Hellenic speech. Koine Greek was therefore considered a decayed form of Greek that was not worthy of attention. The reconsideration on the historical and linguistic importance of Koine Greek began only in the early nineteenth century, where renowned scholars conducted series of studies on the evolution of Koine throughout the entire Hellenistic and Roman period that it covered. The sources used on the studies of Koine have been numerous and of unequal reliability. The most significant ones, are the inscriptions of the Post-Classic periods and the papyri, for being two kinds of texts that have authentic content and can be studied directly. Other significant sources are the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and the New Testament. The teaching of the Testaments was aimed at the most common people, and for that reason they use the most popular language of the era. Information can also be drained from some Atticist scholars of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, who, in order to fight the evolution of the language, published works which compared the supposedly "correct" Attic against the "wrong" Koine by citing examples. For example Phrynichus Arabius during the second century AD wrote:
Βασίλισσα οὐδείς τῶν Ἀρχαίων εἶπεν, ἀλλὰ βασίλεια ἢ βασιλίς.
"Basilissa (Queen), none of the Ancients said, but Basileia or Basilis".
Διωρία ἑσχάτως ἀδόκιμον, ἀντ' αυτοῦ δὲ προθεσμίαν ἐρεῖς.
"Dioria (deadline), badly illiteral, instead use Prothesmia".
Πάντοτε μὴ λέγε, ἀλλὰ ἑκάστοτε καὶ διὰ παντός.
"Pantote (always) do not say, but Ekastote and Dia pantos". Other sources can be based on random findings such as inscriptions on vases written by popular painters, mistakes made by Atticists due to their imperfect knowledge of pure Attic, or even some surviving Greco-Latin glossaries of the Roman period, e.g:
- "Καλήμερον, ἦλθες; - Bono die, venisti?" (Good day, you came?).
- "Ἐὰν θέλεις, ἐλθὲ μεθ' ἡμῶν. - Si vis, veni mecum." (If you want, come with us).
"Ποῦ; - Ubi?" (Where?). - "Πρὸς φίλον ἡμέτερον Λεύκιον. - Ad amicum nostrum Lucium." (To our friend Lucius).
- "Τί γὰρ ἔχει; - Quid enim habet?" (What does he have?—What is it with him?).
- "Ἀρρωστεῖ. - Aegrotat." (He's sick).
Finally, a very important source of information on the ancient Koine Greek is the Modern Greek language with all its dialects and its Koine form and idioms, which have preserved most of the ancient language's oral linguistic details that the written tradition has lost. For example the Pontic and Cappadocian dialects preserved the ancient pronunciation of η as ε (νύφε, συνέλικος, τίμεσον, πεγάδι etc), while the Tsakonic preserved the long α instead of η (ἁμέρα, ἀστραπά, λίμνα, χοά etc) and the other local characteristics of Laconic. Idioms from the Southern part of the Greek-speaking regions (Dodecanese, Cyprus etc), preserve the pronunciation of the double similar consonants (ἄλ-λος, Ἑλ-λάδα, θάλασ-σα), while others pronounce in many words υ as ου or preserve ancient double forms (κρόμμυον - κρεμ-μυον, ράξ - ρώξ etc). Linguistic phenomena like the above imply that those characteristics survived within Koine, which in turn had countless idiomatic variations in the Greek-speaking world.
Evolution from Ancient GreekThe study of all sources from the six centuries that are symbolically covered by Koine reveals linguistic changes from Ancient Greek on phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary and other elements of the spoken language. Most new forms start off as rare and gradually become more frequent until they are established. From the linguistic changes that took place in Koine, Greek gained such a resemblance with its Medieval and Modern successors that almost all characteristics of Modern Greek can be traced in the surviving texts of Koine. As most of the changes between Modern and Ancient Greek were introduced with Koine, today Koine Greek is largely intelligible to speakers of Modern Greek. PhonologyKoine Greek is phonologically a transition period: at the start of the period, the language was virtually identical to Classical Ancient Greek, whereas in the end the language had phonologically a lot more in common with Modern Greek than Ancient Greek.
The three most significant changes during this period were the loss of vowel length distinction, the substitution of the pitch accent system with a stress accent system, and the monophtongalization of most diphthongs. Remember that the diachronic descriptions below are reconstructions. One big caveat is the fact that at a given time, locutors from different places or background could have different
Loss of vowel quantity distinction
The ancient distinction between long and short vowels was gradually lost, so that all vowels became isochronic (equal or uniform in time).
The date of this transition is discussed by scholars. From the 2nd century BC, errors in non-literary Egyptian papyri suggest stress accent and loss of vowel length distinction, but it may be a peculiarity of Egyptian speech, all the more since non-native speakers of Greek were more likely to discard tonal accent and vowel length if their native language did not feature them. The widespread confusion between ο and ω in Attic inscriptions starting in the 2nd century AD may be caused by a loss of vowel length distinction, but might be caused by a mere loss of vowel quality distinction, too. However, for phonological reasons, this transition is likely to be linked to the transition to stress accent and therefore to have occurred by the 3rd century AD. Transition to stress accent The means of accenting words changed from pitch to stress, meaning that the accented syllable is not pronounced in a musical tone but louder and/or stronger.
The date of this transition is discussed by scholars. From the 2nd century BC, errors in non-literary Egyptian papyri suggest stress accent and loss of vowel length distinction, but as already noted above it may be a peculiarity of Egyptian speech. More evidence of stress accent appears in poetry starting from the late 2nd century AD – early 3rd century AD.
Diphthongs
Before consonant, diphthong ει had started to become monophtongal in Attic as early as the 6th century BC, and pronounced like ε̄, probably as [eː]. From the late 4th century BC in Attic, pseudo-diphthong ει (now notating both etymological ει and etymological ε̄) came to be pronounced like ῑ, probably as [iː] (with the quality that the digraph still has in modern Greek [see also greek alphabet]).
Before vowel, diphthong ει did not follow the same evolution as pre-consonantic ει. One theory to explain this difference is that pre-vocalic ει may have kept a diphtongal value [ej] until the 4th century BC, the [j] being progressively perceived as a glide from [e] to the next voyel. From the late 4th century BC, pre-vocalic diphthong ει came to be confused with η, which implies that, unlike before consonant, it conserved a value of [eː], with probably a loss of openness distinction with η; for later evolution, refer to η below.
Starting from the 6th century in Attic, diphthong ου had been monophtongalized and confused with ο̄. While its initial value had probably been [oː], it must have evolved to [uː] quite early (possibly in the 6th century BC, and at any rate before 350 BC); this later value was preserved through modern times, as far as vowel quality is concerned. Short-first-element ι diphthongsDiphthong αι must have kept a diphtongal value until Roman times, as it is transcribed as æ in Latin, and Latin æ is transcribed as αι, too. At a later date, diphthong αι probably evolved to a [ɛː], as it had earlier in Boetian; the confusion between αι and ε starting from c. 125 AD in Attic suggests that this transition took place in the early 2nd century AD in Attic. The transition to [e] (i.e. loss of openness distinction with ε) is thought to have taken place later, because while both η and αι are confused with ε, αι is not confused with η.
Diphthong οι was monophtongalized as [yː] or [y] (depending on when the loss of vowel length distinction took place), which is attested by a υ spelling for οι found in a text dated from early 2nd century AD and another from c. 240 AD. (Look up note on evolution of υ for subsequent evolution.) Koine Greek initially seems to feature diphthong υι, which had been progressively monophtongalized to [yː] (written υ for ῡ) in Attic from the 6th century BC to the 4th century BC but retained in other Greek dialects. It was later monophtongalized as [yː] or [y] (depending on when the loss of vowel length distinction took place). I have not found any reference on when this change took place, but this transition may be phonologically linked to, and at any rate is quite unlikely to have taken place after, the similar transition of οι to [yː]/[y]. (Look up note on evolution of υ for subsequent evolution.)
Short-first-element υ diphthongsIt is mostly unknown when diphthongs αυ and ευ lost their ancient value of [au] and [eu] and acquired their modern pronunciation of [av] and [ev] (partially assimilated to [af], [ef] before voiceless consonants θ, κ, ξ, π, ς, τ, φ, χ, and ψ). Jewish catacombs inscriptions still show a diphtongal value in the 2nd–3rd century AD, so this transition may be a late development. This development may be connected to the change of β from [b] to [v], but the date of this transition is unknown as well.
Long-first-element ι diphthongsDiphthong ῃ had started to become monophtongal in Attic at least as early as the 4th century BC as it was often written ει and probably pronounced [eː]. In Koine Greek, most ῃ were therefore subjected to the same evolution as other classical [eː] and came to be pronounced [iː]. However, in some inflexional endings (mostly 1st declension dative singular and subjonctive 3S), the evolution was partially reverted from c. 200 BC, probably by analogy of forms of other cases/persons, to η and was probably pronounced [eː] at first (look up note on evolution of η for subsequent evolution). Other long-first-element ι diphthongs (ᾳ and ῳ became monophtongal by the 2nd century BC, as they were written α and ω; the former was probably pronounced [aː], while the later may have been pronounced [ɔː] at first if openness distinction had not been lost yet, and was eventually pronounced [oː] at any rate (look up discussion of single vowels ο and ω below for details).
Long-first-element υ diphthongsWhen augmented from ευ in verbs, diphthong ηυ had been altered to ευ from the 4th century BC. Other long-first-element υ diphthongs (ᾱυ, ηυ and ωυ) had become monophtongal from the 1st century BC, as they were written as α, η and ω; the first was probably pronounced [aː], while the two later may have been pronounced [ɛː] and [ɔː] at first if openness distinction had not been lost yet ([eː] and [oː] otherwise), and were eventually pronounced [iː] and [oː] at any rate (look up discussions of single vowels ο and ω and single vowel η below for details).
Single vowel qualityApart from η, simple vowels have better preserved their ancient pronunciation than diphthongs. As noted above, at the start of the Koine Greek period, pseudo-diphthong ει before consonant had a value of [iː], whereas pseudo-diphthong ου had a value of [υː]; these vowel qualities have remained unchanged through Modern Greek. Diphthong ει before vowel had been generally monophtongalized to a value of [eː] and confused with η, thus sharing later developments of η.
The quality of vowels α, ε̆ and ι have remained unchanged through Modern Greek, as [a], [e] and [i]. Vowels ο and ω started to be regularly confused in Attic inscriptions starting in the 2nd century AD, which may indicate that the quality distinction was lost around this time. However, this may as well indicate the loss of length distinction, with an earlier or simultaneous loss of quality distinction. Indeed, the fact that some less systematic confusion is found in Attic inscriptions from the 4th century BC may alternatively point to a loss of openness distinction in the 4th century BC, and the systematization of the confusion in the 2nd century AD would then have been caused by the loss of length distinction. The quality distinction between η and ε may have been lost in Attic in the late 4th century AD, when pre-consonantic pseudo-diphthong ει started to be confused with ι and pre-vocalic diphthong ει with η. C. 150 AD, Attic inscriptions started confusing η and ι, indicating the appearance of a [iː] or [i] (depending on when the loss of vowel length distinction took place) pronunciation that is still in usage in standard Modern Greek; however, it seems that some locutors retained the [eː]/[e] pronunciation for some time, as Attic inscriptions continued to in parallel confuse η and ε, and transcriptions into Gothic and, to some extent, old Armenian transcribe η as e.
Koine Greek adopted for vowel υ the pronunciation [y] of Ionic-Attic. Confusion of υ with ι appears in Egyptian papyri from the 2nd century AD, suggesting a pronunciation of [i], but this is probably a regional trait. Transcriptions into Gothic and, to some extent, Armenian suggest that υ still retained a [y] pronunciation, and the transition to [i] in mainstream Greek is thought to have taken place at the end of the 1st millennium.
Loss of aspirateThe aspirate breathing (aspiration), which was already lost in the Ionic idioms of Asia Minor and the Aeolic of Lesbos, later stopped being pronounced in Koine Greek. Transcriptions into foreign languages and consonant changes before aspirate testify that this transition must not have occurred before the 2nd century AD, but transcriptions into Gothic show that it was at least well under way in the 4th century AD. ConsonantsAmong consonants, only φ, θ, and ζ are certain to have changed from Classical Greek. Consonants β, γ, δ (and, with lesser probability, χ) may have changed, too, but there is no clear evidence of this in the Koine Greek period. Consonant ζ, which had probably a value of [zd] in Classical Attic (though some scholars have argued in favor of a value of [dz], and the value probably varied according to dialects – see Zeta (letter) for further discussion), acquired the sound [z] that it still has in Modern Greek, seemingly with a geminate pronunciation [zː] at least between vowels. Attic inscriptions suggest that this pronunciation was already common by the end of the 4th century.
Digraph -σσ- is much more frequent than Attic -ττ- in Koine Greek.
Consonants φ, θ, which were initially pronounced as aspirates [pʰ] and [tʰ], developed into fricatives [f]. On the other hand, there is no specific evidence of the transition of consonant χ from aspirate [kʰ] to fricative [x]/[ç] in the Koine Greek period. There is evidence for fricative θ in Laconian in the 5th century, but this is unlikely to have influenced Koine Greek which is largely based on Ionic-Attic. The first clear evidence for fricative φ and θ in Koine Greek dates from the 1st century AD in Pompeian inscriptions. Jewish catacomb inscriptions of the 2nd–3rd century AD suggest a pronunciation of [f] for φ, [tʰ] for θ and [kʰ] for χ, which would testify that the transition of θ to affricate was not yet general at this time, and suggests that the transition of φ to affricate may have happened before the transition of θ and χ. Armenian transcriptions transcribe χ as [kʰ] until the 10th century AD, so it seems that χ was pronounced as aspirate by at least some locutors until then. It is not known with accuracy when consonants β, γ and δ, which were originally pronounced as [b], [g], [d], acquired the value of [v], [ɣ] and [ð] that they have in Modern Greek. Though some evidence of fricative γ after a front vowel go as far back as the 4th century BC, it does not seem to have been a standard pronunciation, and it is not known if modern pronunciation derives from this. Ancient grammarians describe the plosive nature of these letters, β is transcribed as b, not v, in Latin, and Cicero still seems to identify β with Latin b. Evidence from non-literary papyri suggests a fricative pronunciation in some contexts (mostly intervocalic) from about the 1st century AD; however, it may be a dialectal trait, possibly caused by foreign influences through non-native speakers. The first evidence of a fricative value in mainstream Greek is the fact that Cyrillic в, part of an alphabet developed in the 9th century AD, has a value of [v]. It is not before the 10th century AD that transcriptions of β as fricative v or γ as voiced velar l are found in Armenian, which suggests that the transition took place at the end of the 1st millennium, but previous transcriptions may have been learned transcriptions.
Biblical Koine"Biblical Koine" refers to the varieties of Koine Greek used in the Christian [Bible] and related texts. Its main sources are:
- the Septuagint, a 3rd century B.C. Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, which includes the Deuterocanonical books, a series of books that were not part of the Hebrew scriptures but considered part of the Bible by Greek-speaking Jews of the era, and later accepted as part of the Old Testament by some Christians. Most of the texts are translations, but there are some portions and texts composed in Greek. Sirach, for instance, has been found in Hebrew, but the additions to Daniel are almost certainly composed in Greek;
- the New Testament, composed originally in Greek (although some books may have had a Hebrew-Aramaic substrate and contain some Semitic influence on the language).
There has been some debate to what degree Biblical Greek represents the mainstream of contemporary spoken Koine and to what extent it contains specifically Semitic substratum features (cf. Aramaic primacy). These could have been induced either through the practice of translating closely from Hebrew or Aramaic originals, or through the influence of the regional non-standard Greek spoken by the originally Aramaic-speaking Jews. Some of the features discussed in this context are the Septuagint's normative absence of the particles μεν and δε, and the use of εγενετο to denote "it came to pass." Some features of Biblical Greek that are thought to have originally been non-standard elements eventually found their way into the main of the Greek language. New Testament Koine GreekThe Koine Greek in the table represents the New Testament Koine Greek, deriving to some degree from the dialect spoken in Iudaea and Galilaea during the 1st century and similar to the dialect spoken in Alexandria, Egypt. Note, the realizations of certain phonemes differ from the more standard Attic dialect of Koine. Note the uvular |