Latinitas, Hellenismos, 'Arabiyya

Bibliographic Data

ID3160233
AuthorsKees Versteegh (0009-0003-1322-3967, University of Nijmegen, corresponding author)
Year1986
Volume13
Issue2-3
Pages425-448
Publication date1986-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistoriographia Linguistica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0302-5160 • E-ISSN: 1569-9781
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1075/hl.13.2-3.16ver
OpenAlexW2018168006
LanguageEN
Citations received4

The central thesis of this paper is that from the time of the Alexandrian conquests the Greek-speaking community was characterized by a diglossia in which the Attic dialect became the standard language, while a simplified version of this dialect served as the colloquial. On the basis of a comparison between the term κοινή in grammatical literature and the terms διάλεκτος, συνήθεια, and ἑλληνισμός, the following conclusions are drawn: 1) the grammarians used the expression κοινή διάλεκτος for the Greek language in general; 2) this κοινή was for them their own language; 3) the κοινή contrasted with the dialects as regional varieties; and 4) the κοινή did not include the colloquial. From this it follows that the Classical language remained alive as the high variety of post-Classical diglossia, which was also used in a spoken form (the συνήθεια of the grammarians). This means that the grammatical writings cannot be used as evidence of the development of the popular language in this period

Art · Diglossia · Expression (computer science · Linguistics · Literature · Neuroscience of multilingualism · Speech community · Spoken language · Standard language · Variety (cybernetics · Computer Science · Historical and Linguistic Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy · Artificial Intelligence

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