Ancient Greek phonology East or West Greek dialects. They both raised Proto-Greek long to (see below). Later on, Attic lowered found immediately after back to , differentiating itself from Ionic. All other East and West Greek dialects retain original . Ionic was spoken around the Aegean Sea, including in Ionia, a region of Anatolia south of Aeolis, for which it was named. Ionic contracts vowels less often than Attic (see below). Attic is the standard dialect taught in modern introductory courses in Ancient Greek, and the one that has the most literature written in it. It was spoken in Athens and Attica, the
Ancient Greek dialects centuries AD. After the division of the Roman Empire into the east and the west the earliest Modern Greek prevailed. The dialect distribution was then as follows: According to some scholars, Tsakonian is the only modern Greek dialect that descends from Doric, albeit with some influence from the Koine. Others include the Southern Italian dialects in this group, though perhaps they should rather be regarded as descended from the local Doric-influenced variant of the Koine. Ancient Greek dialects Ancient Greek in classical antiquity, before the development of the κοινή (koiné) "common" language of Hellenism, was divided into several dialects. Most