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Doric or Dorian was a dialect of Ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the "Western group" of classical Greek dialects. By Hellenistic times, under the Achaean League, the Achaean Doric Koine appeared exhibiting many peculiarities common to all Doric dialects and which delayed the spread of the Attic-based Koine to the Peloponnese until the 2nd century BC.[2]
It is widely accepted that Doric originated in the mountains of Epirus and Macedonia, northwestern Greece, the original seat of the Dorians. It was expanded to all other regions during the Dorian invasion (c. 1150 BC) and the colonisations that followed. The presence of a Doric state (Doris) in central Greece, north of the Gulf of Corinth, led to the theory that Doric had originated in northwest Greece or maybe beyond in the Balkans. The dialect's distribution towards the north extends to the Megarian colony of Byzantium and the Corinthian colonies of Potidaea, Epidamnos, Apollonia and Ambracia; there it further added words to what would become the Albanian language,[3][4] probably via traders from a now-extinct Illyrian intermediary.[5] Local epigraphical evidence is restricted to the decrees of the Epirote League and the Pella curse tablet (both in early 4th century BC), as well to the Doric eponym Machatas first attested in Macedonia (early 5th century BC).[6]
Where the Doric dialect group fits in the overall classification of ancient Greek dialects depends to some extent on the classification. Several views are stated under Greek dialects. The prevalent theme of most views listed there is that Doric is a subgroup of West Greek. Some use the terms Northern Greek or Northwest Greek instead. The geographic distinction is only verbal and ostensibly is misnamed: all of Doric was spoken south of "Southern Greek" or "Southeastern Greek."
Be that as it may, "Northern Greek" is based on a presumption that Dorians came from the north and on the fact that Doric is closely related to Northwest Greek. When the distinction began is not known. All the "northerners" might have spoken one dialect at the time of the Dorian invasion; certainly, Doric could only have further differentiated into its classical dialects when the Dorians were in place in the south. Thus West Greek is the most accurate name for the classical dialects.
Tsakonian, a descendant of Laconian Doric (Spartan), is still spoken on the southern Argolid coast of the Peloponnese, in the modern prefectures of Arcadia and Laconia. Today it is a source of considerable interest to linguists, and an endangered dialect.
The dialects of the Doric Group are as follows.
Laconian was spoken by the population of Laconia in the southern Peloponnesus and also by its colonies, Tarentum and Heraclea, in southern Italy. Sparta was the seat of ancient Laconia.
Laconian is attested in inscriptions on pottery and stone from the 7th century BC. A dedication to Helen dates from the 2nd quarter of the 7th. Tarentum was founded in 706 BC. The founders must already have spoken Laconic.
Many documents from the state of Sparta survive, whose citizens called themselves Lacedaemonians after the name of the valley in which they lived. Homer calls it "hollow Lacedaemon", though he refers to a pre-Dorian period. The 7th century BC, Spartan poet, Alcman, used a dialect that some consider to be predominantly Laconian. Philoxenus of Alexandria wrote a treatise On the Laconian dialect.
Argolic was spoken in the thickly settled northeast Peloponnesus at, for example, Argos, Mycenae, Hermione, Troezen, Epidaurus, and as close to Athens as the island of Aegina. As Mycenaean Greek had been spoken in this dialect region in the Bronze Age, it is clear that the Dorians overran it but were unable to take Attica. The Dorians went on from Argos to Crete and Rhodes.
Ample inscriptional material of a legal, political and religious content exists from at least the 6th century BC.
Corinthian was spoken first in the isthmus region between the Peloponnesus and mainland Greece; that is, the Isthmus of Corinth. The cities and states of the Corinthian dialect region were Corinth, Sicyon, Cleonae, Phlius, the colonies of Corinth in western Greece: Corcyra, Leucas, Anactorium, Ambracia and others, the colonies in and around Italy: Syracuse and Ancona, and the colonies of Corcyra: Dyrrachium, Apollonia. The earliest inscriptions at Corinth date from the early 6th century BC. They use a Corinthian epichoric alphabet. (See under Attic Greek.)
Corinth contradicts the prejudice that Dorians were rustic militarists, as some consider the speakers of Laconian to be. Positioned on an international trade route, Corinth played a leading part in the recivilizing of Greece after the centuries of disorder and isolation following the collapse of Mycenaean Greece.
The Northwest Greek group is closely related to the Doric Group, while sometimes there is no distinction between the Doric and the Northwest Greek. Whether it is to be considered a part of the Doric Group or the latter a part of it or the two subgroups of West Greek: the dialects and their grouping remain the same. West Thessalian and Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence. The Northwest Greek dialects differ from the Doric Group dialects in the below features:[7]
The dialects are as follows:
Plutarch refers that Delphians pronounce b in the place of p (βικρὸν for πικρὸν)[8]
The dialect of Elis, Olympia is, after the Aeolic dialects, one of the most difficult for the modern reader of epigraphic texts[10] (earliest c. 600 BC)[11]
Calydon sanctuary (earliest c. 600-575 BC)[12] - Aetolian League 300-262 BC[13]
A school of thought maintains that Macedonian may have been a Greek dialect, possibly of the Northwestern group in particular,[19] although would classify Macedonian as a separate marginal or "deviant" item on its own.[20]
Proto-Greek long ā → Doric ā ~ Attic long open ē (eta) in at least some positions.
In certain Doric dialects (Severe Doric), e and o lengthen by compensatory lengthening or contraction to eta or omega ~ Attic ei and ou (spurious diphthongs).
Contraction: Proto-Greek ae → Doric ē (eta) ~ Attic ā.
Proto-Greek eo, ea → some Doric dialects' io, ia.
Proto-Greek short a → Doric short a ~ Attic e in certain words.
Proto-Greek -ti is retained (assibilated to -si in Attic).
Proto-Greek -ss- between vowels is retained (shortened to -s- in Attic).
Initial w (ϝ) is preserved in earlier Doric (lost in Attic).
Literary texts in Doric and inscriptions from the Hellenistic age have no digamma.
The aorist and future of verbs in -izō, -azō has x (versus Attic/Koine s).
Similarly k before suffixes beginning with t.
Numeral tetores ~ Attic tettares, Ionic tesseres "four".
Ordinal prātos ~ Attic–Ionic prōtos "first".
Demonstrative pronoun tēnos "this" ~ Attic–Ionic (e)keinos
for h (from Proto-Indo-European s) in article and demonstrative pronoun.
Third person plural, athematic or root aorist -n ~ Attic -san.
First person plural active -mes ~ Attic–Ionic -men.
Future -se-ō ~ Attic -s-ō.
Modal particle ka ~ Attic–Ionic an.
Temporal adverbs in -ka ~ Attic–Ionic -te.
Locative adverbs in -ei ~ Attic/Koine -ou.
Aetolian-Acarnanian
Delphic-Locrian
Elean
Epirotic
Mycenaean
Ancient
Koine
Medieval
Modern
Ancient Greece, Thebes, Greece, Battle of Thermopylae, Greek mythology, Roman Republic
Heraklion, Greece, Minoan civilization, Lasithi, Chania
Doric Greek, Ionic Greek, Koine Greek, Aeolic Greek, Attic Greek
Ioannina, Albania, Northern Epirus, Thessaly, Preveza
Oracle, Pythia, Plutarch, Phocis, Ancient Greece
Crete, Sparta, Kos, Rhodes, Doric Greek
Ionic Greek, Attic Greek, Doric Greek, Ancient Greek dialects, Ancient Macedonian language
Greek alphabet, Koine Greek, Homer, Ancient Greece, Greek language
Doric Greek, Greek language, Armenian language, Indo-Iranian languages, Ionic Greek