Attic Greek
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Attic Greek
Attic Greek
RegionAttica, Aegean Islands
Erac. 500-300 BC; evolved into Koine
Early form
Greek alphabet
Old Attic alphabet
Language codes

Attic Greek is the Greek dialect of the ancient region of Attica, including the polis of Athens. Often called classical Greek, it was the prestige dialect of the Greek world for centuries and remains the standard form of the language that is taught to students of ancient Greek. As the basis of the Hellenistic Koine, it is the most similar of the ancient dialects to later Greek. Attic is traditionally classified as a member or sister dialect of the Ionic branch.

Origin and range


The original range of the spoken Attic dialect included Attica and a number of the Aegean Islands; the closely related Ionic was also spoken along the western and northwestern coasts of Asia Minor in modern Turkey, in Chalcidice, Thrace, Euboea, and in some colonies of Magna Graecia. Eventually, the texts of literary Attic were widely studied far beyond their homeland: first in the classical civilizations of the Mediterranean, including in Ancient Rome and the larger Hellenistic world, and later in the Muslim world, Europe, and other parts of the world touched by those civilizations.


The earliest Greek literature, which is attributed to Homer and is dated to the eighth or seventh centuries BC, is written in "Old Ionic" rather than Attic. Athens and its dialect remained relatively obscure until the establishment of its democracy following the reforms of Solon in the sixth century BC; so began the classical period, one of great Athenian influence both in Greece and throughout the Mediterranean.

The first extensive works of literature in Attic are the plays of dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes dating from the fifth century BC. The military exploits of the Athenians led to some universally read and admired history, as found in the works of Thucydides and Xenophon. Slightly less known because they are more technical and legal are the orations by Antiphon, Demosthenes, Lysias, Isocrates, and many others. The Attic Greek of philosophers Plato (427-347 BC) and his student Aristotle (384-322 BC) dates to the period of transition between Classical Attic and Koine.



A ballot voting against Themistocles, son of Neocles, under the Athenian Democracy (see ostracism) Inscription: (classical standard Themistoklês Neokléous). The text is an example of the epichoric alphabet; note that the last two letters of Themistocles are written in a boustrophedon manner and that ? and ? are used for both long and short e and o.

Attic Greek, like other dialects, was originally written in a local variant of the Greek alphabet. According to the classification of archaic Greek alphabets, which was introduced by Adolf Kirchhoff,[3] the old-Attic system belongs to the "eastern" or "blue" type, as it uses the letters ? and ? with their classical values (/ps/ and /k?/), unlike "western" or "red" alphabets, which used ? for /ks/ and expressed /k?/ with ?. In other respects, Old Attic shares many features with the neighbouring Euboean alphabet (which is "western" in Kirchhoff's classification).[4] Like the latter, it used an L-shaped variant of lambda (Greek Lambda Athenian.svg) and an S-shaped variant of sigma (Greek Sigma Z-shaped.svg). It lacked the consonant symbols xi (?) for /ks/ and psi (?) for /ps/, expressing these sound combinations with and , respectively. Moreover, like most other mainland Greek dialects, Attic did not yet use omega (?) and eta (?) for the long vowels /?:/ and /?:/. Instead, it expressed the vowel phonemes /o, o:, ?:/ with the letter ? (which corresponds with classical ?, , ?) and /e, e:, ?:/ with the letter ? (which corresponds with ?, , and ? in later classical orthography). Moreover, the letter ? was used as heta, with the consonantal value of /h/ rather than the vocalic value of /?:/.




Long a

Proto-Greek long ? -> Attic long ?, but ? after e, i, r. ? Ionic ? in all positions. ? Doric and Aeolic ? in all positions.

  • Proto-Greek and Doric m?t?r -> Attic m?t?r "mother"
  • Attic ch?r? ? Ionic ch?r? "place", "country"

However, Proto-Greek ? -> Attic ? after w (digamma), deleted by the Classical Period.[6]

  • Proto-Greek korw?[7] -> early Attic-Ionic *korw? -> Attic kor? (Ionic kour?)

Short a

Proto-Greek ? -> Attic ?. ? Doric: ? remains.

Sonorant clusters

Compensatory lengthening of vowel before cluster of sonorant (r, l, n, m, w, sometimes y) and s, after deletion of s. ? some Aeolic: compensatory lengthening of sonorant.[8]

PIE VsR or VRs -> Attic-Ionic-Doric-Boetian VVR.
VsR or VRs -> Lesbian-Thessalian VRR.[9]
  • Proto-Indo-European *es-mi (athematic verb) -> Attic-Ionic ?mi (= ?) ? Lesbian-Thessalian emmi "I am"


Proto-Greek and other dialects' (English food) became Attic (pronounced as German ü, French u) and represented by y in Latin transliteration of Greek names.

  • Boeotian kourios ? Attic kyrios "lord"

In the diphthongs eu and au, upsilon continued to be pronounced .


Attic contracts more than Ionic does. a + e -> long ?.

  • nika-e -> nik? "conquer (thou)!"

e + e -> ? (written : spurious diphthong)

  • PIE *trey-es -> Proto-Greek trees -> Attic tr?s = "three"

e + o -> ? (written : spurious diphthong)

  • early *genes-os -> Ionic geneos -> Attic genous "of a kind" (genitive singular: Latin generis, with r from rhotacism)

Vowel shortening

Attic ? (from ?-grade of ablaut or Proto-Greek ?) is sometimes shortened to e:

  1. when it is followed by a short vowel, with lengthening of the short vowel (quantitative metathesis): ?o -> e?
  2. when it is followed by a long vowel: -> e?
  3. when it is followed by u and s: ?us -> eus (Osthoff's law):
  • basil?os -> basile?s "of a king" (genitive singular)
  • basiln -> basile?n (genitive plural)
  • basil?usi -> basileusi (dative plural)


Attic deletes one of two vowels in a row, called hyphaeresis ().

  • Homeric bo?-tho-os -> Attic bo?thos "running to a cry", "helper in battle"



PIE *ky or *chy -> Proto-Greek ts (palatalization) -> Attic and Euboean Ionic tt -- Cycladean/Anatolian Ionic and Koine ss.

  • Proto-Greek *gl?kh-ya -> Attic gl?tta -- East Ionic gl?ssa "tongue"

Sometimes, Proto-Greek *ty and *tw -> Attic and Euboean Ionic tt -- Cycladean/Anatolian Ionic and Koine ss.

  • PIE *kwetwores -> Attic tettares -- East Ionic tesseres "four" (Latin quattuor)

Proto-Greek and Doric t before i or y -> Attic-Ionic s (palatalization).

Shortening of ss

Doric, Aeolian, early Attic-Ionic ss -> Classical Attic s.

  • PIE *medh-yos -> Homeric (messos) (palatalization) -> Attic (mesos) "middle"
  • Homeric -> Attic ? "I performed (a ceremony)"
  • Proto-Greek *podsi -> Homeric -> Attic ? "by foot"
  • Proto-Greek *hopot-yos -> dialectal ? -> Attic

Loss of w


  • Proto-Greek korw?[10] Attic kor? "girl"

Retention of h


  • Proto-Indo-European *si-sta-mes -> Attic histamen -- Cretan istamen "we stand"

Movable n

Attic-Ionic places an n (movable nu) at the end of some words that would ordinarily end in a vowel, if the next word starts with a vowel, to prevent hiatus (two vowels in a row). The movable nu can also be used to turn what would be a short syllable into a long syllable for use in meter.

  • p?sin élegon "they spoke to everyone" vs. p?si legousi
  • p?si(n) dative plural of "all"
  • legousi(n) "they speak" (third person plural, present indicative active)
  • elege(n) "he was speaking" (third person singular, imperfect indicative active)
  • titheisi(n) "he places", "makes" (third person singular, present indicative active: athematic verb)

Rr instead of rs.

Attic and Euboean Ionic use rr in words, when Cycladean and Anatolian Ionic use rs:

  • Attic ? -> East Ionic ? "peninsula"
  • Attic -> East Ionic "male"
  • Attic -> East Ionic "courage".

Attic replaces the Ionic - with -

Attic and Euboean Ionic use tt, while Cycladean and Anatolian Ionic use ss:

  • Attic -> East Ionic "tongue"
  • Attic -> East Ionic "to do, to act"
  • Attic ? -> East Ionic ? "sea".[11]


  • The Attic adjectival ending -eios and corresponding noun ending, both having two syllables with the diphthong ei, stand in place of ?ios, with three syllables, in other dialects: politeia, Cretan polit?ia, "constitution", both from politewia whose w is dropped.


Attic Greek grammar follows Ancient Greek grammar to a large extent. References to Attic Grammar are usually in reference to peculiarities and exceptions from Ancient Greek Grammar. This section mentions only some of these Attic peculiarities.


In addition to singular and plural numbers, Attic Greek had the dual number. This was used to refer to two of something and was present as an inflection in nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs (any categories inflected for number). Attic Greek was the last dialect to retain it from older forms of Greek, and the dual number had died out by the end of the 5th century BC. In addition to this, in Attic Greek, any plural neuter subjects will only ever take singular conjugation verbs.


With regard to declension, the stem is the part of the declined word to which case endings are suffixed. In the alpha or first declension feminines, the stem ends in long a, which is parallel to the Latin first declension. In Attic-Ionic the stem vowel has changed to ? in the singular, except (in Attic only) after e, i or r. For example, the respective nominative, genitive, dative and accusative singular forms are gnome, gnomes, gnome(i), gnomen, "opinion" but thea, theas, thea(i), thean, "goddess".




Classical Attic

Classical Attic may refer either to the varieties of Attic Greek spoken and written in Greek majuscule[12] in the 5th and 4th centuries BC (Classical-era Attic) or to the Hellenistic and Roman [13] era standardized Attic Greek, mainly on the language of Attic orators and written in Greek uncial.

Attic replaces the Ionic - with - :

  • Attic -> Ionic "tongue"
  • Attic -> Ionic "to do, to act, to make"
  • Attic ? -> Ionic ? "sea"


  • The vernacular and poetic dialect of Aristophanes.
  • The dialect of Thucydides (mixed Old Attic with neologisms).
  • The dialect and the orthography of Old Attic inscriptions in Attic alphabet before 403 BC. The Thucydidean orthography is similar.
  • The conventionalized and poetic dialect of the Attic tragic poets, mixed with Epic and Ionic Greek and used in the episodes. (In the choral odes, conventional Doric is used).
  • Formal Attic of Attic orators, Plato,[14] Xenophon and Aristotle, imitated by the Atticists or Neo-Attic writers, and considered to be good or Standard Attic.

See also


  5. ^ Threatte 1980, pp. 26ff.
  7. ^ Liddell and Scott, ?.
  10. ^ Liddell and Scott, ?.
  11. ^ ?.?. ?, ? ?, page 40: "Some special characteristics of the Attic dialect are [...] the double - instead of - and the double - instead of - [...] . (Translated from Greek).
  13. ^ Including the Byzantine Atticists.
  14. ^ Platonic style is poetic


  • Buck, Carl Darling (1955). The Greek Dialects. The University of Chicago Press.
  • Goodwin, William W. (1879). Greek Grammar. Macmillan Education. ISBN 0-89241-118-X.
  • Smyth, Herbert Weir (1920). Greek Grammar. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-36250-0.

Further reading

  • Allen, W. Sidney. 1987. Vox Graeca: The pronunciation of Classical Greek. 3rd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  • Teodorsson, Sven-Tage. 1974. The phonemic system of the Attic dialect 400-340 BC. Gothenburg, Sweden: Institute of Classical Studies, University of Göteborg.
  • Threatte, Leslie. 1980-86. The grammar of Attic inscriptions. 2 vols. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • , ? ?, Athens 2002.

External links




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