Determination of Dialect

[psilord]

So, I was messing around in the Agora, trying to decipher people’s writings when it dawned upon me I have no idea how to tell different greek dialects apart.

Does anyone have some pointers I could use to determine at a glance what particular dialect (Epic, Attic, Koine) was used to write a greek text? (Like case endings, certain conjugations, etc).

Thanks.

[chad]

Hi, Will has articles on a few dialects here giving the info you’ve requested:

http://www.aoidoi.org/articles/

I’ve also as you know generally been noting the Aeolic v Ionic endings in Homer in my pharr-c notes:

http://www.freewebs.com/mhninaeide/pharrnotes.pdf

btw you can generally spot Aeolic just from the sound and from the “vowely” words; I tried to write something in Aeolic in Sappho’s metre a while ago:

ὦ ’)αθανάα+, φιλότατά σ’ ἄμμιν,
λίσσομαί σε, μή σ’ ἄϊε ψόγοιο,
ἄλλ’ ’)ολύμπιον δρόμον εὖ σ’ ἄερρε
κεκροπίας τε.

[annis]

@psilord

Does anyone have some pointers I could use to determine at a glance what particular dialect (Epic, Attic, Koine) was used to write a greek text? (Like case endings, certain conjugations, etc).

The case endings and conjugations are indeed often the easiest way to quickly identify dialects. The definite article is a huge help.

I’ve never thought to lay this out systematically. To identify the dialect of a short text (a line or three) you’ll usually have to know all the dialects pretty well to start with, unless there’s a striking give-away.

Let me think on this for a bit.

[psilord]

@chad

http://www.freewebs.com/mhninaeide/pharrnotes.pdf

Um, I’ve been looking at that, and it is a little bit confusing still, especially in the context of the Pharr book, where it (I humbly say) might not be a relevant as you think for the learning of the language.

Also, for William’s stuff, it is more a catagorization of what is out there and not really the practical differences between them.

[chad]

hi, if you don’t find these online things useful you can give the book Buck, Greek Dialects a try.

I should add as well, my notes only relate to writing Greek, not to teaching it generally (that’s what Pharr does). Pharr’s grammar is more aimed at getting you through the Greek to English exercises (which I personally think should never be done). He doesn’t explain, where you e.g. have 2 or more possible options for a word ending in doing the English to Greek exercises, which one to use when writing Greek, which is what I try to show in my notes based on the history of the language, but if you don’t follow these patterns and just choose either optional ending it’s no probs I won’t mark you wrong, cheers, chad.

[psilord]

@chad

I should add as well, my notes only relate to writing Greek, not to teaching it generally (that’s what Pharr does). Pharr’s grammar is more aimed at getting you through the Greek to English exercises (which I personally think should never be done). He doesn’t explain, where you e.g. have 2 or more possible options for a word ending in doing the English to Greek exercises, which one to use when writing Greek, which is what I try to show in my notes based on the history of the language, but if you don’t follow these patterns and just choose either optional ending it’s no probs I won’t mark you wrong, cheers, chad.

I suspect it’ll be a while before I’m competent enough in greek to make subtle decisions in the context you mention.

Edit: I take the above back somewhat, your document did help a LOT in nu-movable determination and there are a lot of other useful things in there as well.