A History of Ancient Greek: From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity. Edited 
by A.-F. CHRISTIDIS. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 
2007. Pp. xli + 1617. Cloth, $250.00. ISBN 978–0–521–83307–3.

Order this text for $239.18 from Amazon.com using this link and benefit 
CAMWS and the Classical Journal:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/classjourn-20


Previously published CJ Online reviews are at 
http://classicaljournal.org/reviews.php

-Transliterated Greek has been set off within double asterisks
-Aspiration and accent (in that order) follow their vowel

CJ Online 2009.05.02

This monumental interdisciplinary volume is a translation of the Modern 
Greek edition (**Istori/as tes ellenike/s glo/ssas**) published in 2001 
under the editorial eye of the late A.-F. Christidis, Professor of 
Linguistics at the University of Thessaloniki. Designed as a comprehensive 
survey of Ancient Greek, it contains contributions by some 75 scholars (the 
majority Greek, and the balance predominantly from other European 
countries), including archaeologists and historians as well as linguists 
and philologists specializing in a variety of ancient languages. As such, 
it is an indispensable treasure-chest of information not only on ancient 
Greek and its historical development, but on linguistic and cultural 
contact between Greeks and other neighboring peoples.

The main body of the book is divided into nine clearly articulated and 
organized sections, each followed by a full bibliography. Many individual 
chapters within these units are followed by a selection of exemplary 
primary texts.

The first section is introductory, covering language as a general 
phenomenon, with chapters on the nature of language, the units of 
linguistic analysis, the relationship of language to the brain and to 
thought, and language acquisition and linguistic change. The second section 
focuses more particularly on the development of Greek as a language from 
Proto-Indo-European through the Roman Empire; here, particular attention is 
paid to the relationship between language change and historical and social 
conditions. The range is admirable: individual contributions include 
multiple chapters on the evidence for Indo-European language and culture, 
on the origins of Greek and its early written forms, on pre-Greek 
languages, and on the introduction and development of writing, as well as 
on orality and literacy in the Classical Period.

The third section focuses on the Greek dialects, with individual chapters 
devoted to the classification of the dialects and the relation of Mycenean 
Greek to the dialects of later periods, as well as synoptic discussions of 
the phonology and morphology of individual dialects. The inclusion of 
Macedonian among the Greek dialects makes sense in the larger organization 
of the volume, though given how politically charged the question is (and 
given the frankness and balance with which the volume elsewhere deals with 
the ideological importance of Ancient Greek for the modern Greek state), 
one might wish that the “fierce debate over whether or not Macedonian 
should be classed among the Greek dialects” were passed by less quickly. 
The fourth section deals with Greek phonology, morphology, syntax, 
pronunciation and vocabulary, and their development over time. Individual 
chapters consider the various “Koines” of the Greek East, Jewish Greek, 
and the Greek of the New Testament, as well as personal names and the 
traces of movement toward Modern Greek.

The fifth section offers a particularly valuable assembly of separate 
chapters on the points of contact between Greek and other ancient 
languages, including Thracian, Illyrian, Phrygian, Carian, Lycian, Lydian, 
Iranian, Etruscan, Latin, Hebrew, Egyptian and Coptic, Syriac, Celtic, 
Indian languages and Arabic. These discussions lead nicely, in the sixth 
section, to a discussion of translation and bilingualism in antiquity, with 
individual chapters on the Septuagint, the Greek of Roman texts, Phoenician 
bilingualism and Greek translation of Lycian and Syriac.

The seventh section, on language and culture, is divided into three 
subparts. The first treats the enormous topic of the language of literary 
texts, with (unavoidably cursory) discussions of a range of ancient genres 
and periods. Included here is a chapter on the use of dialects in literary 
texts, unfortunately treating only the Archaic and Classical periods with 
no mention of post-Classical poetry; Hellenistic literature is consigned to 
a very short chapter of its own. The second subsection surveys specialized 
and technical languages, including those of law, medicine and philosophy, 
as well as the vocabularies of democracy and early Christianity, and the 
semantic development of select words, including **e(llenismo/s, a(/gios, 
psyche/, philotimi/a** and **para/deisos**.

The eighth section, entitled “Ancient Greeks and Language,” includes a 
discussion of ancient education, an all-too-brief chapter on ancient 
grammarians, and a useful survey of Atticism from the Hellenistic period 
on.

The final section briefly covers the fortune of Ancient Greek from the 
medieval period to modernity, concluding with a fascinating treatment of 
the ideologically complex place of Ancient Greek in the development of 
Modern Greek and of the Greek state.

An extremely useful set of appendixes includes discussions of diacritics 
and punctuation as well as a wide range of other important issues, 
including proverbs, maxims and riddles, spells, prophetic discourse, the 
language of the gods in Homer, obscenity, the representation of foreign 
speech in literature, music, non-verbal communication, texts preserved on 
lead tablets, and analogy and sound change. Although some of these make 
good sense as appendixes, many would have been better incorporated as 
chapters in the main body of the book. The volume concludes with a useful 
glossary and comprehensive indexes of proper names, words in Greek and 
other languages, and terms and subjects.

In sum, this monumental volume will serve as an important resource for 
students and scholars in a variety of fields. Students looking for an 
easily manageable overview of Ancient Greek and its development may find it 
easier to start with a handbook like L.R. Palmer’s classic The Greek 
Language or G. Horrock’s Greek: A History of Its Language and its 
Speakers. But no other volume of a comparable range or scope exists, and 
this book should and will be widely consulted by anyone interested in the 
history of Ancient Greek and its afterlife in the Byzantine, Renaissance 
and Modern periods.

ALEXANDER SENS						
Georgetown University


You may remove yourself from the CJ-Online list-serv 
by sending an email to: [log in to unmask] 
Leave the subject line blank, 
and in the first line of the message write: UNSUBSCRIBE