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| Hellenic
Greek
|
|
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
Greece, Cyprus, and the Black Sea |
| Genetic classification: |
Indo-European Hellenic |
| Subdivisions: |
—
|
| ISO 639-5: | grk |
Hellenic, as a technical term in historical linguistics, is the branch of the Indo-European language family that includes Greek (in other contexts, "Hellenic" and "Greek" are mostly used as synonyms). While according to most traditional classifications, Hellenic contains only Greek as a single language alone in its branch, and is as such equivalent to Greek language the term is also sometimes used to group together Greek proper, as in the Ancient Greek dialects, and the Ancient Macedonian language, and perhaps also the Phrygian language. Greco-Phrygian isn't however normally discussed under "Hellenic" but under the wider Graeco-Armenian hypothesis.
A family under this name has been suggested to group together Greek proper and ancient Macedonian language, which is barely attested and whose degree of relatedness to Greek is not well known.[1][2] In addition, some linguists make a distinction among the modern descendants of ancient Greeks, distinguishing mainstream modern Greek in a narrow sense from certain other, divergent varieties deemed separate languages on the basis of a lack of mutual intelligibility. Greek linguistics traditionally treats all of these as dialects of a single language.[3][4][5]
An entirely different issue is the question of whether Greek should be considered a single language, or a family of several languages. Separate language status is most often posited for Tsakonian,[6] which is thought to be uniquely a descendant of Doric rather than Attic Greek, followed by Pontic and the extinct Cappadocian Greek of Anatolia.[7] The Griko or Italiot varieties of southern Italy are also not readily intelligible to speakers of standard Greek;[8] separate status is sometimes also argued for Cypriot, though this is not as easily justified.[9] In contrast, Yevanic (Jewish Greek) is mutually intelligible with standard Greek but is considered a separate language for ethnic and cultural reasons.[9]
| Hellenic |
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Classification
Hellenic constitutes a branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient languages which might have been most closely related to it, ancient Macedonian[10] and Phrygian,[11] are not well enough documented to permit detailed comparison. Phrygian is sometimes linked instead with Thracian, but with "heavy Greek influence".[12] Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian[13] (see also Graeco-Armenian) and the Indo-Iranian languages[14] (see Graeco-Aryan).[15]
See also
References
- ^ B. Joseph (2001): "Ancient Greek". In: J. Garry et al. (eds.) Facts about the world's major languages: an encyclopedia of the world's major languages, past and present. Online paper
- ^ Linguist List
- ^ G. Horrocks (1997), Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers, London: Longman.
- ^ Browning (1983), Medieval and Modern Greek, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ P. Trudgill (2002), Ausbau sociolinguistics and identity in Greece, in: P. Trudgill, Sociolinguistic variation and change, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- ^ e.g. Christopher Mosely, 2007, Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages
- ^ Ethnologue, family tree for Greek.
- ^ N. Nicholas (1999), The story of pu: The grammaticalisation in space and time of a Modern Greek complementiser. PhD disseration, University of Melbourne. p.482f. [1]
- ^ a b Thorsten Roelcke, 2003, Variationstypologie
- ^ Roger D. Woodard, "Introduction," The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-18), pp. 12-14.
Benjamin W. Fortson, IV, Indo-European Language and Culture (2004, Blackwell), pg. 405. - ^ Johannes Friedrich, Extinct Languages (1957, Philosophical Library), pg. 146-147.
Claude Brixhe, "Phrygian," The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge University Press, pp. 777-788), pg. 780.
Benjamin W. Fortson IV, Indo-European Language and Culture (2004, Blackwell), pg. 403. - ^ Philip Baldi, An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages (1983, Southern Illinois University Press), pg. 167.
- ^ James Clackson, Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction (2007, Cambridge University Press), pp. 11-12.
- ^ Benjamin W. Fortson IV, Indo-European Language and Culture (2004, Blackwell), pg. 181.
- ^ Henry M. Hoenigswald, "Greek," The Indo-European Languages, ed. Anna Giacalone Ramat and Paolo Ramat (1998, Routledge, pp. 228-260), pg. 228.
BBC: Languages across Europe: Greek
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