Hellenic Languages

The Hellenic language family is somewhat unusual, in that its principal member is Greek. Most classifications consider it to be the only language in the family, but some consider it to also contain a few other varieties that are different enough to be differentiated as separate languages (though this is always with varying degrees of controversy).

The Hellenic languages might have been most closely related to ancient Macedonian (either an ancient Greek dialect or a separate related language) and Phrygian, but neither are documented well enough to permit realistic comparison. Among modern languages, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian and Indo-Iranian languages.

Proto-Greek

Proto-Greek or Proto-Hellenic is the last common ancestor of all varieties of Ancient Greek, coming along with new populations entering the region ~2200-1900 BCE. By ~1700 BCE, this ancestral language had differentiated into a southern and northern pair. It was only subsequent to this that the dialects further differentiated. Proto-Greek is believed to have developed in a region bordering related languages; Proto-Indo-Iranian in the east, and Proto-Armenian and Proto-Phrygian in the west. Proto-Greek speakers may have migrated from the Black Sea region just as the transition to the Bronze Age occurred.

The main body of Proto-Greek speakers settled in a region that included southwestern Illyria, Epirus, northwestern Thessaly and western Macedonia. Proto-Greek is a centrum language (described further in Indo-European Languages), and we see a vocalization of word-initial laryngeals (y- to dy- > dz-), and a loss of final non-nasal stop consonants (for example, Latin quid / Sanskrit cid compare to Greek ti. In scenarios where /m/ is the final phoneme, it switches to /n/.

Greek is unique among Indo-European languages in reflecting the replacement of PIE's three laryngeals with distinct vowels. Most Indo-European languages can be traced back to a dialectal variety in which all three laryngeals had merged and were replaced by a single vowel, but Greek is distinct.

Proto-Greek numerals were derived directly from Indo-European.

• one: *héns (masculine), *hmía (feminine) (> Myc. e-me /heméi/ (dative); Att./Ion. εἷς (ἑνός), μία, heîs (henos), mía)
• two: *dúwō (> Myc. du-wo /dúwoː/; Hom. δύω, dúō; Att.-Ion. δύο, dúo)
• three: *tréyes (> Myc. ti-ri /trins/; Att./Ion. τρεῖς, treîs; Lesb. τρής, trḗs; Cret. τρέες, trées)
• four: nominative *kʷétwores, genitive *kʷeturṓn (> Myc. qe-to-ro-we /kʷétroːwes/ "four-eared"; Att. τέτταρες, téttares; Ion. τέσσερες, tésseres; Boeot. πέτταρες, péttares; Thess. πίτταρες, píttares; Lesb. πίσυρες, písures; Dor. τέτορες, tétores)
• five: *pénkʷe (> Att.-Ion. πέντε, pénte; Lesb., Thess. πέμπε, pémpe)
• six: *hwéks (> Att. ἕξ, héks; Dor. ϝέξ, wéks)
• seven: *heptə́ (> Att. ἑπτά, heptá)
• eight: *oktṓ (> Att. ὀκτώ, oktṓ)
• nine: *ennéwə (> Att. ἐννέα, ennéa; Dor. ἐννῆ, ennê)
• ten: *dékə (> Att. δέκα, déka)
• hundred: *hekətón (> Att. ἑκατόν, hekatón)
• thousand: *kʰéhliyoi (> Att. χίλιοι, khílioi)

Ancient Greek Dialects

In the Hellenistic period, the dialect now known as Koine Greek became the lingua franca across Greek-speaking regions and overtook almost all other dialects; it arose first within the armies of Alexander the Great. Before its development, a number of now-defunct dialects were pervasive across the region, though there is some dispute as to how they are classified geographically and/or temporally.

Mycenean

The earliest known dialect was Mycenean Greek, which occupied the southern and eastern parts of Greece and is attested from Linear B tablets of ~1500-1100 BCE. Most of the written evidence comes from the palace complex at Knossos in Central Crete, and Pylos (in the southwest Peloponnese), but some additional proofs have been discovered at Mycenae (in Argolis), Tiryns (in Argolis), Thebes (in Boeotia), and Chania (in Western Crete).

Mycenean was written in Linear B script, an adaptation to an earlier Cretan script (Linear A, which was developed for an undeciphered pre-Indo-European language of Crete, called Minoan). Because it was adapted from a script written to represent a wholly different language, many sounds in the Mycenean phonemic inventory were not represented in Linear B. In particular, it only represents open syllables (where the syllable ends in a vowel), and Mycenean Greek freely used closed syllables (ending with consonants). For example, the consonants l, m, n, r, s are omitted at the end of a syllable or before another consonant. 𐀞𐀲, pa-ta is panta (all); 𐀏𐀒, ka-ko is khalkos (copper).

Phonology of Mycenean Greek
Type		Bilabial	Dental	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
					central	labialized
Nasal		m	n
Stop	voiceless	p	t	ts*	k	kʷ
	voiced	b	d	dz*	ɡ	ɡʷ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		kʰ	kʰʷ
Fricative			s				h
Approximant				j		w
Trill			r
Lateral			l

In later ancient Greek varieties, labialized velar consonants (/kʷ, ɡʷ, kʰʷ/) were replaced with labials /b, p, pʰ/, dentals /d, t, tʰ/, or velars /ɡ k kʰ/, depending on the context and the dialect. For example, 𐀦𐀄𐀒𐀫, qo-u-ko-ro is gʷoukoloi (classical βουκόλοι boukóloi, cowherds). There were at least five vowels /a, e, i, o, u/, which could be both short and long.

Nouns likely decline for 7 cases: nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, vocative, instrumental and locative; 3 genders: masculine, feminine, neuter; and 3 numbers: singular, dual, plural. The last two cases had merged with other cases by the era of Classical Greek. In Koine Greek, only nominative, accusative, genitive and vocative remain as separate cases with their own morphological markings. Adjectives agree with nouns in case, gender, and number.

Verbs probably conjugate for 3 tenses: past, present, future; 3 aspects: perfect, perfective, imperfective; 3 numbers: singular, dual, plural; 4 moods: indicative, imperative, subjunctive, optative; 3 voices: active, middle, passive; 3 persons: first, second, third; infinitives, and verbal adjectives.