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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:

koine


Newly formed compromise language that usually arises from a leveling of features distinguishing dialects of a common base language, or of features distinguishing several closely related languages. The new language is hence deregionalized and does not reflect social or political dominance of any one group of speakers. The classical example of a koine (as well as the source of the term) is Hellenistic Greek, which developed from Attic Greek through replacement of the most distinctively Attic features by features of Ionic or other dialects. A koine may serve as a lingua franca and often forms the basis of a new standard language.

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Classical Literature Companion: koinē

koinē, the Greek ‘common dialect’; see DIALECTS (I) 3.

 
 

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Classical Literature Companion. The Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. Copyright © 1993, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more

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