Hi,
I am looking for the best way to write ‘Ancient Greek’ in Ancient Greek. Wondering if it is different to how it is written in modern Greek - Ἑλληνική? Does it have the word ‘archaic’ before it, or does modern Greek have a qualifier and ‘Ancient Greek’ is simply Greek?
Thank you in advance!
Jessica
??? Obviously the term wasn’t used, but would have been the same as in modern Greek: ἀρχαῖα Ἑλληνικά.
Ἑλληνική is simply “Greek” and can be used for both the modern and ancient languages. If it didn’t have the breathing, Ελληνική, it would generally apply to the modern language (or at least be written by a modern), as the breathing mark has been officially dropped from the modern language since 1982. Modern Greeks can also write Νέα Ελληνική or Αρχαία Ελληνική to distinguish.
Still, just including the breathing mark isn’t really enough to distinguish things. Ἀρχαία Ἑλληνική with the breathing marks and the accent would be my choice, although it’s obviously oxymoronic to imagine an ancient calling their language “ancient Greek.”
It’s all a very fraught question, with high feelings involved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language_question
Re: Scribo
I believe that ἀρχαῖα would be the neuter plural, with ἀρχαία the feminine singular.
E.Hec 609, for example, shows that the final α is long.
σὺ δ’ αὖ λαβοῦσα τεῦχος, ἀρχαία λάτρι
EDIT 2: I see the Scribo is using the neuter plural for both. He very certainly knows something about modern Greek that I don’t.
Yes, it’s a tendency that arrises fairly early in Greek when describing languages. I suspect metonymically from e.g “Greek things” to including language. So, for example, Sanskrit can be Indike (though more usually he indike glossa) and then (ta) Indika.
Latin was, confusingly, referred to e.g as Romaika. I say confusing because as time went on, most remaining Romans were Greek speakers and thus Romaika began to refer to vernacular Greek (before, Arkhaia Hellenika, He Hellenike Glossa/Fone/Dialektos) and so Greek re-borrowed the word for Latin giving us Modern (ta) Latinika.
Or maybe ἡ παλαιὰ γλῶσσα (διάλεκτος) Ἑλληνική…
Logically, you can’t write “ancient Geek” in ancient Greek because no one in ancient Greece would have referred to the contemporary language as “ancient Greek” and no one in ancient Greece knew of any earlier stage of the language.
Technically true. This is the same problem we have when people ask us how to say things like “CEO of the Corporation” when there is no parallel concept. However, we can look at how they actually said stuff and then extrapolate. I will suggest that you can’t always go in reverse, i.e., how it’s said in modern Greek may not be the way the ancients would have said it. Better to look for as close a parallel as possible synchronic to the time period. We know how they described language, and we know how they referred to ancient things, so combining the two…
So it would simply be Ἑλλάς γλῶσσα.
How about:
ἀττική διάλεκτος (Attic Greek)
ἰωνική διάλεκτος (Ionic Dialect)
δωρική διάλεκτος (Doric Dialect)
αἰόλια διάλεκτος (Aeolian Dialect)