Most of the Greek texts we have are written in literary style, and it is unlikley that they reflect the way people actually spoke.
However, I have seen it mentioned from time to time that there is a little bit of evidence of a more ‘everyday’ Greek, and I am curious about it, or any articles/ papers on the matter.
So far all I have is supposition - that either the day to day Greek of 5th and 4th Century Athens was probably a lot like Koine, or maybe that all the particles that we see in Plato’s dialogues actually reflect a kind of Athenian Valley Speak (Socrates: So, like, you’ll have to, well, totally forgive me, if I should, y’know, speak in the way I’m accustomed to. For sure.')
Is there perhaps more evidence left from the Koine period - Greek was the lingua franca across Europe for several hundred years, presumably more has survived (I did see in another thread someone mention lots of correspondence having been discovered in the last few centuries)?
Hi Andriko,
Yes papyrus evidence for everyday Greek doesn’t kick in before the 3rd cent. BCE, when koine begins to dominate. The papyri—private letters, public records, etc,etc., all discovered around the end of the 19the century and subsequently and still being published—illustrate the many ways in which Greek was actually used in post-classical times. Only those with archaizing literary pretensions are in Attic.
The main evidence for 5th-4th cent. Attic Greek, as you say, is the transmitted literary texts. Plato’s Greek is verisimilistic, and despite what you say is probably just about as close as we can get to real-life conversational Greek among the elite of Athens—particles and all! (And as CP indicates, Aristophanes, despite composing in verse, also provides exceptionally good access to Athenian vernacular in that period.)
The affectations of valley-speak (great parody, by the way!) are little more than fillers, mere style markers, and as such not really comparable with the particles in Attic, which are semantically rich, significantly affecting the sense, much as intonation does in vernacular English.
Can the following be an example of spoken language? Crat 424a : τοῦτο ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ, ὦ Σώκρατες, ὅπερ πάλαι ζητοῦμεν, οὗτος ἂν εἶναι ὁ ὀνομαστικός. Otherwise, I don’t know how to account for this acrobatics, namely changing the subject from the neutral τοῦτο to the masculine οὗτος along with the infinitive εἶναι depending on δοκεῖ which has a different subject. If put straightforwardly, it would be something like: τοῦτο ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ ἂν εἶναι ὁ ὀνομαστικός. So, οὗτος grammatically is not necessary, it may have been used for imitating the liveliness of the spoken language.
Thanks all, I will go through the colloquies thread.
Using particles in actual speech is something that I find interesting, given how complex they are, and how much forethought seems to be required to use them. Though I suspect if we were native speakers it would flow naturally - indeed, on the few occasions I try and ‘speak’ Attic, particles start to naturally turn up.
However, they also appear to be a way of ‘punctuating’ texts before punctuation - ways of indicating a new clause or phrase, at least, according to some things I have read.
