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The Aeolic dialect shows many archaisms in comparison to the other Ancient Greek dialects (Arcadocypriot, Attic, Ionic, and Doric varieties), as well as many innovations.
Aeolic Greek is widely known as the language of Sappho and of Alcaeus of Mytilene. Aeolic poetry, which is exemplified in the works of Sappho, mostly uses four classical meters known as the Aeolics: Glyconic (the most basic form of Aeolic line), hendecasyllabic verse, Sapphic stanza, and Alcaic stanza (the latter two are respectively named for Sappho and Alcaeus).
In Plato's Protagoras, Prodicus labelled the Aeolic dialect of Pittacus of Mytilene as "barbarian",[2] because of its difference from the Attic literary style:[3] "He didn't know to distinguish the words correctly, being from Lesbos, and having been raised with a barbarian dialect".
Similarly PIE/PGk *gʷ always became b and PIE *gʷʰ > PGk *kʰʷ always became ph (whereas in other dialects they became alternating b/d and ph/th before back/front vowels).
A Proto-Greek consonant cluster with h (from Indo-European *s) and a sonorant (r, l, n, m, w, y) changed to a double sonorant (rr, ll, nn, mm, ww, yy) in Lesbian and Thessalian (sub-dialects of Aeolic) by assimilation. In Attic/Ionic, Doric, and Boeotian Aeolic, the h assimilated to the vowel before the consonant cluster, causing the vowel to lengthen by compensatory lengthening.
PIE *h₁ésmi → Proto-Greek *ehmi → Lesbian-Thessalian emmi ~ Attic/Ionic ēmi (= εἰμί) "I am"
Loss of h
Lesbian Aeolic lost initial h- (psilosis "stripping") from Proto-Indo-European s- or y-. By contrast, Ionic sometimes retains it, and Attic always retains it.
In Thessalian and Boeotian (sub-dialects of Aeolic) and Doric, the Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Greek semi-vowel w (digamma) was retained at the beginning of a word.
PIE wekʷ-es- → Boeotian, Doric wépos ~ Attic-Ionic épos "word", "epic" (compare Latin vōx "voice")
Vowels
Long a
In Aeolic and Doric, Proto-Greek long ā remains. By contrast, in Attic, long ā changes to long ē in most cases; in Ionic, it changes everywhere.[5]
PIE *meh₂ter- → Aeolic, Doric mātēr ~ Attic/Ionic mētēr "mother"
Compensatory lengthening
Compensatory lengthening of a, e, o in Lesbian gives ai, ei, oi (in Attic, it would be ā, ei, ou) for example in the accusative plural of a and o stem nouns, or in many 3 Pl verb conjugations.
Boeotian
In Boeotian, the vowel-system was, in many cases, changed in a way reminiscent of the modern Greek pronunciation.
Attic/Ionic αι/ai/ ~ Boeotian η/eː/ ~ Modern Greek αι/e/
Attic/Ionic ει/eː/ ~ Boeotian ει/iː/ ~ Modern Greek ει/i/
Attic/Ionic οι/oi/ ~ Boeotian υ/yː/ ~ Mediaeval Greek and Old Athenaean οι/y/ ~ Modern Greek οι/i/
Accent
In Lesbian Aeolic, the accent of all words is recessive (barytonesis), as is typical only in the verbs of other dialects.[6]
Attic/Ionic potamós ~ Lesbian pótamos "river"
Morphology
Contracted or vowel-stem verbs that are thematic in Attic/Ionic are often athematic (-mi) in Aeolic.[7]
Ionic philéō, Attic philô ~ Aeolic phílēmi "I love"
In the Lesbian dialect this ending also extends to the thematic conjugation, where Attic/Ionic has -ein. All three of these Aeolic endings occur in Homer.
Below is a list of several words in the Aeolian dialect, written in the Greek alphabet, along with a transcription in the Latin alphabet. Each word is followed by its meaning and compared to similar words in other ancient Greek dialects. The "notes" section provides additional information, and if applicable, an etymology is given.
Derives from PIE *kleh₂u- 'lock', although Beekes suggests the original meaning must have been 'nail, pin, hook', as in, instruments to lock a door.[20]
μέσσυϊ μέσσος
messui messos
* Atticἐν μέσῳ 'in the middle' * Cret./Boet. μέττος
Identical to Sanskrit mádhya-, Latin medius, Gothic midjis, all from PIE *médʰ-io- 'in the middle'.[21]
ὀνάλαonala, ὀνάλουμαonalouma (Attic analōma expense cost) (on- in the place of Attic prefix ana-, ongrapsantas SEG 27:202
ΠετθαλιαPetthalia 'Thessalia'; Petthaloi 'Thessalians'; Koine thessalisti 'the Thessalian way'. Cf. Attic ἐντεθετταλίζομαιentethettalizomai become a Thessalian, i.e. wear the large Thessalian cloak (Thettalika ptera feathers), Eupolis.201.)
ταγεύωtageuō to be tagos archon in Thessaly ταγευόντουν τοῦμ Πετθαλοῦν
Adrados, Francisco Rodríguez (2005). "The Specific Literary Languages: Lesbian, Boeotian and Syracusan". A History of the Greek Language. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. pp. 118–125. doi:10.1163/9789047415596_009. ISBN978-90-474-1559-6.
Bakker, Egbert J., ed. 2010. A companion to the Ancient Greek language. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Beek, Lucien van (2022). "Greek". In Thomas Olander (ed.). The Indo-European Language Family. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 173–201. doi:10.1017/9781108758666.011. ISBN978-1-108-75866-6.
Colvin, Stephen C. 2007. A historical Greek reader: Mycenaean to the koiné. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dosuna, J. Mendes (2007). "The Aeolic dialects". In Christidis, Anastasios-Phoivos (ed.). A history of Ancient Greek: From the beginnings to Late Antiquity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 460–474. ISBN9780521833073.
Miller, D. Gary (2014). "4. Greece, Greek, and Its Dialects". Ancient Greek Dialects and Early Authors: Introduction to the Dialect Mixture in Homer, with Notes on Lyric and Herodotus. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 25–33. doi:10.1515/9781614512950.25. ISBN978-1-61451-493-0.
Horrocks, Geoffrey. 2010. Greek: A history of the language and its speakers. 2nd ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Scarborough, Matthew (2023). "The Problem of Aeolic in Ancient Greek Dialectology". The Aeolic Dialects of Ancient Greek. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. pp. 1–39. doi:10.1163/9789004543713_002. ISBN978-90-04-54371-3.
Scarborough, Matthew (2023b). "The Peripheral Aeolic Isoglosses". The Aeolic Dialects of Ancient Greek. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. pp. 130–211. doi:10.1163/9789004543713_005. ISBN978-90-04-54371-3.
Palmer, Leonard R. 1980. The Greek language. London: Faber & Faber.
Miller, D. Gary (2014). "19. Boeotian and Thessalian". Ancient Greek Dialects and Early Authors: Introduction to the Dialect Mixture in Homer, with Notes on Lyric and Herodotus. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 219–233. doi:10.1515/9781614512950.219. ISBN978-1-61451-493-0.
Pantelidis, Nikolaos. "Boeotian and its Neighbors: A Central Helladic Dialect Continuum?" In: Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea. Edited by Georgios Giannakis, Emilio Crespo and Panagiotis Filos. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2018. pp. 167–188. doi:10.1515/9783110532135-010
Page, Denis L. 1953. Corinna. London: Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies.
West, Martin L. 1990. "Dating Corinna." Classical Quarterly 40 (2): 553–57.
On the Lesbian dialect
Bowie, Angus M. 1981. The poetic dialect of Sappho and Alcaeus. New York: Arno.
Finkelberg, Margalit. "Lesbian and Mainland Greece". In: Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea. Edited by Georgios Giannakis, Emilio Crespo and Panagiotis Filos. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2018. pp. 447–456. doi:10.1515/9783110532135-023
Hodot, René (2018). "Lesbian, in Space, Time, and its Uses". In Georgios Giannakis; Emilio Crespo; Panagiotis Filos (eds.). Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 457–470. doi:10.1515/9783110532135-024.
Miller, D. Gary (2014). "20. Lesbian". Ancient Greek Dialects and Early Authors: Introduction to the Dialect Mixture in Homer, with Notes on Lyric and Herodotus. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 234–254. doi:10.1515/9781614512950.234. ISBN978-1-61451-493-0.
Tribulato, Olga (2021). "Sappho's Dialect". In P. J. Finglass; Adrian Kelly (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Sappho. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 135–46. doi:10.1017/9781316986974.011. ISBN978-1-316-98697-4.
On the Thessalian dialect
Chadwick, John (1992). "The Thessalian Accent". Glotta. 70 (1/2): 2–14. JSTOR40266905. Accessed 23 Mar. 2024.
Helly, Bruno. "Some Materials for a Historical Grammar of the Thessalian Dialect". In: Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea. Edited by Georgios Giannakis, Emilio Crespo and Panagiotis Filos. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2018. pp. 351–374. doi:10.1515/9783110532135-018
Miller, D. Gary (2014). "19. Boeotian and Thessalian". Ancient Greek Dialects and Early Authors: Introduction to the Dialect Mixture in Homer, with Notes on Lyric and Herodotus. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 219–233. doi:10.1515/9781614512950.219. ISBN978-1-61451-493-0.
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