GREEK GRAMMAR

FOR COLLEGES

HERBERT WEIR SMYTH

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4 INTRODUCTION

Alexandria in Egypt as a centre of learning until the Roman con-

quest of the East; and lasted to the end of the ancient world (sixth
century A.n.). It was the language used by persons speaking Greek
from Gaul to Syria, and was marked by numerous varietiesc In its .
spoken form the Koine consisted of the spoken form of Attic inter-
mingled with a considerable number of Ionic words and some loans
from other dialects, but with Attic orthography. The literary form,
a compromise between Attic literary usage and the spoken language,
was an artificial and almost stationary idiom from which the living
speech dlew farther and farther apart:
In the Koine are composed the writings of the historians Polybius (about
205-about 120 B.~. ), Diodorus (under Augustus), Plutarch (about 46-about
120 A.D.), Arrian (about 95-175 A.n.), Cassius Dio (about 150-about 235 A.n. ),
the rhetoricians Dionysius of Halicarnassus (under Augustus), Lucian (about
120-about 180 A.D. ), and the geographer Strabo (about 64 n.o.-19 A.n.). Jose-
phus, the Jewish historian (37 A.n.-about 100), also used the Koine.
N. 1.-The name .Atticist is given to those reactionary writers in the Koine
dialect (e.g. Lucian) who aimed at reproducing the purity of the earlier Attic.
The Atticists flourished chiefly in the second century A.D.
N. 2. - Some writers distinguish, as a form of the Koine, the Hellenistic, a
name restricted by them to the language of the New Testament and of the
Septuagint (the partly literal, partly tolerably free, Greek translation of the Old
Testament made by Grecized Jews at Alexandria and begun under Ptolemy
Philadelphus 285-247 n.c. ). The word Ifellenistic is derived from 'El\l\17vtuT1)s
(from el\l\17vltw speak Greek), a term applied to persons not of Greek birth
(especially Jews), who had learned Greek. The New Testament is composed in
the popular language of the time, which in that work is more or less influenced
by classical models. No aocuril-te distinction can be drawn between the Koine
and Hellenistic.
G. Modern Greek appears in literature certainly as early as the
eleventh century, when the literary language, which was still em-
ployed by scholars and churchmen, was no longer understood by the
common people. During the middle ages and until about the time of
the Greek Revolution (1821-1831 ), the language. was called Romaic
('PwJl-ai:K'lj), from the fact that the people claimed the name of
Romans ('Pw.al:ot), since the capital of the Roman Empire had been
transferred to Constantinople. The natural language of the modern
GTeeks is the outcome of a continua.1 development of the Koine in its
spoken form. At the present day the dialect of a Greek peasant is
still organically the same as that of the age of Demosthenes; while
the written language, and w a less extent the spoken language at
cultivated Athenians and of those who have been influenced by the
University at Athens, have been largely assimilated to the ancient
idiom. Modern Greek, while retaining in general the orthography
of the classical period, is very different in respect of pronundation.