Varieties of Modern Greek east coast of the Peloponnese peninsula. It is unique among all other modern varieties in that it is thought to derive not from the ancient Attic–Ionian Koiné, but from Doric or from a mixed form of a late, ancient Laconian variety of the Koiné influenced by Doric. It used to be spoken earlier in a wider area of the Peloponnese, including Laconia, the historical home of the Doric Spartans. Pontic Greek varieties are those originally spoken along the eastern Black Sea coast of Asia Minor, the historical region of Pontus in Turkey. From there, speakers of Pontic migrated to other
Ancient Greek phonology and this cluster underwent metathesis early in the Ancient Greek period. Metathesis is likely in this case; clusters of a voiced stop and , like , do not occur in Ancient Greek, since they change to by assimilation (see below), while clusters with the opposite order, like , pronounced , do occur. Ancient grammarians, such as Aristotle in his "Poetics" and Dionysius Thrax in his Art of Grammar, categorized letters () according to what speech sounds ( 'elements') they represented. They called the letters for vowels ('pronounceable', singular ); the letters for the nasals, liquids, and , and the letters