HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT GREEK LANGUAGE

This lecture course is part of the MA Degree Programme in Antiquities (Philology curriculum). It allows students to further their knowledge and understanding of the historical evolution of Ancient Greek through a specialist lecture course and tailored seminars, at which students are requested to actively contribute. The aim of the course is to train specialists able to analyse and discuss with competence the diction of Greek literary texts in relation to the diachronic evolution of the language and in the light of the latest linguistic methodologies.

By attending this course students will be able to:
- FURTHER their ability to recognize and discuss the main linguistic elements characterizing the historical evolution of Greek, from the 2nd millennium to the Classical age, in the light of historical and geographical factors, and with a particular focus on the relationship between literary languages and local dialects.
- FURTHER their ability to critically analyse the details of the main phono-morphological, syntactic and lexical features of Greek literary languages, especially as concerns the koine and Atticising Greek.
- FURTHER their ability to connect linguistic choices with the linguistic theories of the ancient grammarians.
- KNOW from a theoretical and methodological point of view the main issues concerning the formation of the koine.
- KNOW from a theoretical and methodological point of view the socio-linguistic phenomenon of purism.
- ACQUIRE the ability to critically read, interpret and discuss the modern linguistic theories concerning the Greeklanguage.

- adequate knowledge of Ancient Greek, certified (through high school diploma or university exams)
- knowledge of Italian
- previous attendance and exams in History of Greek language and/or Greek linguistics, though not compulsory, is recommended.

LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY IN THE GREEK WORLD OF THE POST-CLASSICAL AGE: ATTICIST PURISM AS A REACTION TO THE KOINE.
The course provides an outline of the diachronic development of ancient Greek and focuses on the phenomena which influenced the evolution of Greek in the post-Classical period: on the one hand, the rise and diffusion of the koine; on the other hand, the puristic reaction embodied by Atticist authors and lexicographers (both phenomena had an over-lasting impact on the development of Greek in the Medieval and Modern age).

Before the koine, ancient Greek did not possess a standard language, but only a number of local varieties (dialects). After the rise of the koine, Greek became an international language, spoken from Greece to Afghanistan, from Rome to Persia, and used both in the official written communication of the Hellenistic kingdoms and in every-day oral communication by Greeks and non-Greeks alike. The widening of the traditional borders of Greek however also exposed the koine to foreign influences and triggered its swift evolution from 5th-century Attic. Many Greek intellectuals reacted to the perceived ‘creolization’ of Greek by advocating a ‘return to the past’ and the imitation of the style and language of the great 5th-century Attic authors. This phenomenon, which in its more radical form takes the name of ‘Atticism’, had an important role in Greek culture of the 2nd-3rd centuries AD, when special texts began to be produced to teach Greek-speakers how to write and speak in ‘pure’ (Attic) Greek. This lecture course explores the complex relationship between linguistic Atticism and the spoken standard (koine).

Compulsory texts:
1) The first three chapters of A. C. Cassio, a c. di, Storia delle lingue letterarie greche, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2008 (Stirpi, gruppi dialettali e lingue letterarie, pp. 3-31; La fonologia del greco e le sue radici indoeuropee, pp. 32-69; Alfabeti locali, testi arcaici, edizioni ellenistiche, pp. 70-98).
1) S. Kaczko, La koiné, in A. C. Cassio, a c. di, Storia delle lingue letterarie greche, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2008, pp. 357-392.
2) C. Vessella, Lessicografia atticista e greco classico, in in A. C. Cassio, a c. di, Storia delle lingue letterarie greche, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2008, pp. 392-396.
3) L. Kim, The Literary Heritage as Language: Atticism and the Second Sophistic, in E. J. Bakker, ed., A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language, Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 468–482.

Other texts, which may be consulted for an introduction to the very complex history of the koine and the reactions to it, are:
-- G. C. Horrocks, Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speakers. Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010 (particularly the chapters on the Hellenistic and Roman koine).
-- S. Swain, Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50-250. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996.

Further bibliographical suggestions (including the editions of the Atticist lexica) will be provided during lectures.

Those who have no previous experience of courses on the history of the Greek language are requested to study also chapters 1-2 and 4 of A. C. Cassio (ed.), Storia delle lingue letterarie greche, Milan, Mondadori 2016, second edition (i.e. (Stirpi, gruppi dialettali e lingue letterarie, pp. 3-31; La fonologia del greco e le sue radici indoeuropee, pp. 32-72; IV: Alfabeti locali, testi arcaici, edizioni ellenistiche, pp. 107-129.).
This may be replaced with S. Colvin, A historical Greek reader, Oxford, OUP, 2007 by students who cannot read Italian.

Preparation of a lexicographic commentary on the model of those produced by the ERC project PURA led by prof. Tribulato (details will be given to students in the first lecture).
Students will discuss this work with the lecturer in an oral exam which will also assess their knowledge of the topics addressed during the course.
Evaluation will be divided as follows: 50% for work on the lexicographic slip and 50% for knowledge of the course content.

Lectures with material uploaded on Moodle.

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