El griego del N. T. tiene muchas corrientes que desembocan en él. Pero este hecho no es una peculiaridad de esta fase de la lengua. El propio κοινή tiene esta característica en un marcado grado. Si uno necesita más ejemplos, puede recordar lo compuesto que es el inglés, que no sólo combina varias ramas del grupo teutónico, sino que también incorpora gran parte del antiguo celta de Gran Bretaña y recibe una tremenda impresión del normando-francés (y por tanto del latín), por no mencionar la influencia literaria indirecta del latín y el griego. El propio griego primitivo estaba sujeto a influencias no griegas, como otras lenguas indogermánicas, y en particular del lado de los tracios y frigios en el Este, y en el Oeste y el Norte la presión itálica, celta y germánica era fuerte.
I. El término Κοινή
The word κοινή, sc. διάλεκτος, means simply common language or dialect common to all, a world-speech (Weltsprache). Unfortunately there is not yet uniformity in the use of a term to describe the Greek that prevailed over Alexander’s empire and became the world-tongue. Kühner-Blass3 speak of “ἡ κοινή oder ἑλληνικὴ διάλεκτος.” So also Schmiedel follows Winer exactly. But Hellenic language is properly only Greek language, as Hellenic culture is Greek culture. Jannaris suggests Panhellenic or new Attic for the universal Greek, the Greek par excellence as to common usage. Hellenistic Greek would answer in so far as it is Greek spoken also by Hellenists differing from Hellenes or pure Greeks. Krumbacher applies Hellenistic to the vernacular and κοινή to the “conventional literary language” of the time, but this is wholly arbitrary. Krumbacher terms the Hellenistic “ein verschwommenes Idiom.” Hatzidakis and Schwyzer include in the κοινή both the literary and the spoken language of the Hellenistic time. This is the view adopted in this grammar. Deissmann dislikes the term Hellenistic Greek because it was so long used for the supposedly peculiar biblical Greek, though the term itself has a wide significance.2 He also strongly disapproves the terms “vulgar Greek,” “bad Greek,” “graecitas fatiscens,” in contrast with the classic Greek.” Deissmann moreover objects to the word κοινή because it is used either for the vernacular, the literary style or for all the Greek of the time including the Atticistic revival. So he proposes “Hellenistic world-speech.” But this is too cumbersome. It is indeed the world-speech of the Alexandrian and Roman period that is meant by the term κοινή. There is on the other hand the literary speech of the orators, historians, philosophers, poets, the public documents preserved in the inscriptions (some even Atticistic); on the other hand we have the popular writings in the LXX, the N. T., the Apostolic Fathers, the papyri (as a rule) and the ostraca. The term is thus sufficient by itself to express the Greek in common use over the world, both oral and literary, as Schweizer4 uses it following Hatzidakis. Thumb identifies κοινή and Hellenistic Greek and applies it to both vernacular and written style, though he would not regard the Atticists as proper producers of the κοινή. Moulton6 uses the term κοινή for both spoken and literary κοινή. The doctors thus disagree very widely. On the whole it seems best to use the term κοινή (or Hellenistic Greek) both for the vernacular and literary κοινή, excluding the Atticistic revival, which was a conscious effort to write not κοινή but old Attic. At last then the Greek world has speech-unity, whatever was true of the beginning of the Greek language.2
II. The Origin of the Κοινή (a) TRIUMPH OF THE ATTIC. This is what happened. Even in Asiatic Ionia the Attic influence was felt. The Attic vernacular, sister to the Ionic vernacular, was greatly influenced by the speech of soldiers and merchants from all the Greek world. Attic became the standard language of the Greek world in the fifth and the fourth centuries B.C. “The dialect of Athens, the so-called Attic—one of the Ionic group—prevailed over all other sister dialects, and eventually absorbed them. It was the Attic, because Athens, particularly after the Persian wars, rose to absolute dominion over all the other Greek communities, and finally became the metropolis of all Greek races.” This is rather an overstatement, but there is much truth in it. This classic literary Attic did more and more lose touch with the vernacular. “It is one of our misfortunes, whatever be its practical convenience, that we are taught Attic as the standard Greek, and all other forms and dialects as deviations from it … when many grammarians come to characterize the later Greek of the Middle Ages or of to-day, or even that of the Alexandrian or N. T. periods, no adjective is strong enough to condemn this ‘verdorbenes, veruneinigtes Attisch’ ” (S. Dickey, Princeton Rev., Oct., 1903). The literary Attic was allied to the literary Ionic; but even in this crowning development of Greek speech no hard and fast lines are drawn, for the artificial Doric choruses are used in tragedy and the vernacular in comedy. There was loss as well as gain as the Attic was more extensively used, just as is true of modern English. “The orators Demosthenes and Æschines may be counted in the new Attic, where other leading representatives in literature are Menander, Philemon and the other writers of the New Comedy.” As the literary Attic lived on in the literary κοινή, so the vernacular Attic survived with many changes in the vernacular κοινή. We are at last in possession of enough of the old Attic inscriptions and the κοινή inscriptions and the papyri to make this clear. The march of the Greek language has been steadily forward on this Attic vernacular base even to this present day. In a sense, therefore, the κοινή became another dialect (Æolic, Doric, Ionic, Attic, κοινή). Cf. Kretschmer, Die Entstehung der Κοινή, pp. 1–37. But the κοινή was far more than a dialect. Kretschmer holds, it is fair to say, that the κοινή is “eine merkwürdige Mischung verschiedenster Dialecte” (op. cit., p. 6). He puts all the dialects into the melting-pot in almost equal proportions. Wilamowitz-Möllendorff considers the Ionic as the chief influence in the κοινή, while W. Schmidt denies all Doric and Ionic elements. Schwyzer rightly sees that the dialectical influences varied in different places, though the vernacular Attic was the common base. (b) FATE OF THE OTHER DIALECTS. The triumph of the Attic was not complete, though in Ionia, at the end of the third century B.C., inscriptions in Attic are found, showing that in Asia Minor pure Ionic had about vanished. In the first century B.C. the Attic appears in inscriptions in Bœotia, but as late as the second century A.D. Ionic inscriptions are found in Asia Minor. Ionic first went down, followed by the Æolic. The Doric made a very stubborn resistance. It was only natural that the agricultural communities should hold out longest. See Thumb, Hellen., p. 28 f. Even to-day the Zaconian patois of modern Greek vernacular has preserved the old Laconic Doric “whose broad a holds its ground still in the speech of a race impervious to literature and proudly conservative of a language that was always abnormal to an extreme.” It is not surprising that the Northwest Greek, because of the city leagues, became a kind of Achæan-Dorian κοινή and held on till almost the beginning of the Christian era before it was merged into the κοινή of the whole Græco-Roman world. There are undoubtedly instances of the remains of the Northwest Greek and of the other dialects in the κοινή and so in the N. T. The Ionic, so near to the Attic and having flourished over the coast of Asia Minor, would naturally have considerable influence on the Greek world-speech. The proof of this will appear in the discussion of the κοινή where remains of all the main dialects are naturally found, especially in the vernacular. (c) PARTIAL KOINES. The standardizing of the Attic is the real basis. The κοινή was not a sudden creation. There were quasi-koines before Alexander’s day. These were Strabo’s alliance of Ionic-Attic, Doric-Æolic (Thumb, Handb., p. 49). It is therefore to be remembered that there were “various forms of κοινή” before the κοινή which commenced with the conquests of Alexander (Buck, Gk. Dialects, pp. 154–161), as Doric κοινή, Ionic κοινή, Attic κοινή, Northwest κοινή. Hybrid forms are not uncommon, such as the Doric future with Attic ου as in ποιησοῦντι (cf. Buck, p. 160). There was besides a revival here and there of local dialects during the Roman times. (d) EFFECTS OF ALEXANDER’S CAMPAIGNS. But for the conquests of Alexander there might have been no κοινή in the sense of a world-speech. The other Greek koines were partial, this alone was a world-speech because Alexander united Greek and Persian, east and west, into one common world-empire. He respected the customs and language of all the conquered nations, but it was inevitable that the Greek should become the lingua franca of the world of Alexander and his successors. In a true sense Alexander made possible this new epoch in the history of the Greek tongue. The time of Alexander divides the Greek language into two periods. “The first period is that of the separate life of the dialects and the second that of the speech-unity, the common speech or κοινή” (Kretschmer, Die Entst. d. Κοινή, p. 1). (e) THE MARCH TOWARD UNIVERSALISM. The successors of Alexander could not stop the march toward universalism that had begun. The success of the Roman Empire was but another proof of this trend of history. The days of ancient nationalism were over and the κοινή was but one expression of the glacial movement. The time for the world-speech had come and it was ready for use.
III. The Spread of the Κοινή (a) A WORLD-SPEECH. What is called ἡ κοινή was a world-speech, not merely a general Greek tongue among the Greek tribes as was true of the Achæan-Dorian and the Attic. It is not speculation to speak of the κοινή as a world-speech, for the inscriptions in the κοινή testify to its spread over Asia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Sicily and the isles of the sea, not to mention the papyri. Marseilles was a great centre of Greek civilization, and even Cyrene, though not Carthage, was Grecized. The κοινή was in such general use that the Roman Senate and imperial governors had the decrees translated into the world-language and scattered over the empire. It is significant that the Greek speech becomes one instead of many dialects at the very time that the Roman rule sweeps over the world. The language spread by Alexander’s army over the Eastern world persisted after the division of the kingdom and penetrated all parts of the Roman world, even Rome itself. Paul wrote to the church at Rome in Greek, and Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor, wrote his Meditations (τῶν εἰς Ἑαυτόν) in Greek. It was the language not only of letters, but of commerce and every-day life. A common language for all men may indeed be only an ideal norm, but “the whole character of a common language may be strengthened by the fact of its transference to an unquestionably foreign linguistic area, as we may observe in the case of the Greek κοινή.” The late Latin became a κοινή for the West as the old Babylonian had been for the East, this latter the first world-tongue known to us. Xenophon with the retreat of the Ten Thousand3 was a forerunner of the κοινή. Both Xenophon and Aristotle show the wider outlook of the literary Attic which uses Ionic words very extensively. There is now the “Groß-Attisch.” It already has γίνομαι, ἕνεκεν, -τωσαν, εἶπα and ἤνεγκα, ἐδώκαμεν and ἔδωκαν, βασίλισσα, δεικνύω, σς, ναός. Already Thucydides and others had borrowed σσ from the Ionic. It is an easy transition from the vernacular Attic to the vernacular κοινή after Alexander’s time. (Cf. Thumb’s Handbuch, pp. 373–380, “Entstehung der Κοινή.”) On the development of the κοινή see further Wackernagel, Die Kultur der Gegenwart, Tl. I, Abt. 8, p. 301 ff.; Moulton, Prol., ch. I, II; Mayser, Gr. d. griech. Pap., Kap. I. But it was Alexander who made the later Attic the common language of the world, though certainly he had no such purpose in view. Fortunately he had been taught by Aristotle, who himself studied in Athens and knew the Attic of the time. “He rapidly established Greek as the lingua franca of the empire, and this it was which gave the chief bond of union to the many countries of old civilizations, which had hitherto been isolated. This unity of culture is the remarkable thing in the history of the world.” It was really an epoch in the world’s history when the babel of tongues was hushed in the wonderful language of Greece. The vernaculars of the eastern Roman provinces remained, though the Greek was universal; so, when Paul came to Lystra, the people still spoke the Lycaonian speech of their fathers. The papyri and the inscriptions prove beyond controversy that the Greek tongue was practically the same whether in Egypt, Herculaneum, Pergamum or Magnesia. The Greeks were the school-teachers of the empire. Greek was taught in the grammar schools in the West, but Latin was not taught in the East. (b) VERNACULAR AND LITERARY
- Vernacular. The spoken language is never identical with the literary style, though in the social intercourse of the best educated people there is less difference than with the uncultured. We now know that the old Attic of Athens had a vernacular and a literary style that differed considerably from each other.3 This distinction exists from the very start with the κοινή, as is apparent in Pergamum and elsewhere. This vernacular κοινή grows right out of the vernacular Attic normally and naturally. The colonists, merchants and soldiers who mingled all over Alexander’s world did not carry literary Attic, but the language of social and business intercourse. This vernacular κοινή at first differed little from the vernacular Attic of 300 B.C. and always retained the bulk of the oral Attic idioms. “Vulgar dialects both of the ancient and modern times should be expected to contain far more archaisms than innovations.” The vernacular is not a variation from the literary style, but the literary language is a development from the vernacular. See Schmid for the relation between the literary and the vernacular κοινή. Hence if the vernacular is the normal speech of the people, we must look to the inscriptions and the papyri for the living idiom of the common Greek or κοινή. The pure Attic as it was spoken in Athens is preserved only in the inscriptions. In the Roman Empire the vernacular κοινή would be understood almost everywhere from Spain to Pontus. See IV for further remarks on the vernacular κοινή.
- Literary. If the vernacular κοινή was the natural development of the vernacular Attic, the literary κοινή was the normal evolution of the literary Attic. Thumb well says, “Where there is no development, there is no life.”2 “In style and syntax the literary Common Greek diverges more widely from the colloquial.” This is natural and in harmony with the previous removal of the literary Attic from the language of the people.4 The growth of the literary κοινή was parallel with that of the popular κοινή and was, of course, influenced by it. The first prose monument of literary Attic known to us, according to Schwyzer, is the Constitution of Athens5 (before 413), falsely ascribed to Xenophon. The forms of the literary κοινή are much like the Attic, as in Polybius, for instance, but the chief difference is in the vocabulary and meaning of the same words. Polybius followed the general literary spirit of his time, and hence was rich in new words, abstract nouns, denominative verbs, new adverbs.7 He and Josephus therefore used Ionic words found in Herodotus and Hippocrates, like ἔνδεσις, παραφυλακή, not because they consciously imitated these writers, but because the κοινή, as shown by papyri and inscriptions, employed them. For the same reason Luke and Josephus9 have similar words, not because of use of one by the other, but because of common knowledge of literary terms, Luke also using many common medical terms natural to a physician of culture. Writers like Polybius aimed to write without pedantry and without vulgarism. In a true sense then the literary κοινή was a “compromise between the vernacular κοινή and the literary Attic,” between “life and school.” There is indeed no Chinese wall between the literary and the vernacular κοινή, but a constant inflow from the vernacular to the written style as between prose and poetry, though Zarncke1 insists on a thorough-going distinction between them. The literary κοινή would not, of course, use such dialectical forms as τοὺς πάντες, τοῖς πραγμάτοις, etc., common in the vernacular κοινή. But, as Krumbacher well shows, no literary speech worthy of the name can have an independent development apart from the vernacular. Besides Polybius and Josephus, other writers in the literary κοινή were Diodorus, Philo, Plutarch, though Plutarch indeed is almost an “Anhänger des Atticismus” and Josephus was rather self-conscious in his use of the literary style.5 The literary κοινή was still affected by the fact that many of the writers were of “un-Greek or half Greek descent,” Greek being an acquired tongue. But the point must not be overdone, for the literary κοινή “was written by cosmopolitan scholars for readers of the same sort,” and it did not make much difference “whether a book was written at Alexandria or Pergamum.” Radermacher notes that, while in the oldest Greek there was no artificiality even in the written prose, yet in the period of the κοινή all the literary prose shows “eine Kunstsprache.” He applies this rule to Polybius, to Philo, to the N. T., to Epictetus. But certainly it does not hold in the same manner for each of these. (c) THE ATTICISTIC REACTION. Athens was no longer the centre of Greek civilization. That glory passed to Alexandria, to Pergamum, to Antioch, to Ephesus, to Tarsus. But the great creative epoch of Greek culture was past. Alexandria, the chief seat of Greek learning, was the home, not of poets, but of critics of style who found fault with Xenophon and Aristotle, but could not produce an Anabasis or a Rhetoric. The Atticists wrote, to be sure, in the κοινή period, but their gaze was always backward to the pre-κοινή period. The grammarians (Dionysius, Phrynichus, Moeris) set up Thucydides and Plato as the standards for pure Greek style, while Aratus and Callimachus sought to revive the style of Homer, and Lucian and Arrian even imitated Herodotus. When they wished to imitate the past, the problem still remained which master to follow. The Ionic revival had no great vogue, but the Attic revival had. Lucian himself took to Attic. Others of the Atticists were Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Dio Chrysostom, Aristides, Herodes Atticus, Ælian, etc. “They assumed that the limits of the Greek language had been forever fixed during the Attic period.”2 Some of the pedantic declaimers of the time, like Polemon, were thought to put Demosthenes to the blush. These purists were opposed to change in language and sought to check the departure from the Attic idiom. “The purists of to-day are like the old Atticists to a hair.” The Atticists were then archaic and anachronistic. The movement was rhetorical therefore and not confined either to Alexandria or Pergamum. The conflict between the κοινή (vernacular and literary) and this Atticistic reaction affected both to some extent. This struggle between “archaism and life” is old and survives to-day.5 The Atticists were in fact out of harmony with their time, and not like Dante, who chose the language of his people for his immortal poems. They made the mistake of thinking that by imitation they could restore the old Attic style. “The effort and example of these purists, too, though criticized at first, gradually became a sort of moral dictatorship, and so has been tacitly if not zealously obeyed by all subsequent scribes down to the present time.”7 As a result when one compares N. T. Greek, one must be careful to note whether it is with the book Greek (καθαρεύουσα) or the vernacular (ὁμιλουμένη). This artificial reactionary movement, however, had little effect upon the vernacular κοινή as is witnessed by the spoken Greek of to-day. Consequently it is a negligible quantity in direct influence upon the writers of the N. T. But the Atticists did have a real influence upon the literary κοινή both as to word-formation and syntax.3 With Dionysius of Halicarnassus beauty was the chief element of style, and he hoped that the Attic revival would drive out the Asiatic influence. The whole movement was a strong reaction against what was termed “Asianism” in the language.5 It is not surprising therefore that the later ecclesiastical literary Greek was largely under the influence of the Atticists. “Now there was but one grammar: Attic. It was Attic grammar that every freeman, whether highly or poorly educated, had learned.” “This purist conspiracy” Jannaris calls it. The main thing with the Atticists was to have something as old as Athens. Strabo said the style of Diodorus was properly “antique.”
IV. The Characteristics of the Vernacular Κοινή (a) VERNACULAR ATTIC THE BASE. One must not feel that the vernacular Greek is unworthy of study. “The fact is that, during the best days of Greece, the great teacher of Greek was the common people.” There was no violent break between the vernacular Attic and the vernacular κοινή, but the one flowed into the other as a living stream. If the reign of the separated dialects was over, the power of the one general Greek speech had just begun on the heels of Alexander’s victories. The battle of Chæronea broke the spirit of the old Attic culture indeed, but the Athenians gathered up the treasures of the past, while Alexander opened the flood-gates for the change in the language and for its spread over the world. “What, however, was loss to standard Attic was gain to the ecumenical tongue. The language in which Hellenism expressed itself was eminently practical, better fitted for life than for the schools. Only a cosmopolitan speech could comport with Hellenistic cosmopolitanism. Grammar was simplified, exceptions decreased or generalized, flexions dropped or harmonized, construction of sentences made easier” (Angus, Prince. Rev., Jan., 1910, p. 53). The beginning of the development of the vernacular κοινή is not perfectly clear, for we see rather the completed product. But it is in the later Attic that lies behind the κοινή. The optative was never common in the vernacular Attic and is a vanishing quantity in the κοινή. The disappearance of the dual was already coming on and so was the limited use of the superlative, -τωσαν instead of -ντων, and -σθωσαν instead of -σθων, γίνομαι, σς, εἶπα, τίς instead of πότερος, ἔκαστος and not ἑκάτερος. But while the Attic forms the ground-form4 of the κοινή it must not be forgotten that the κοινή was resultant of the various forces and must be judged by its own standards. There is not complete unanimity of opinion concerning the character of the vernacular κοινή. Steinthal6 indeed called it merely a levelled and debased Attic, while Wilamowitz described it as more properly an Ionic popular idiom. Kretschmer now (wrongly, I think) contends that the Northwest Greek, Ionic and Bœotian had more influence on the κοινή than the Attic. The truth seems to be the position of Thumb,9 that the vernacular κοινή is the result of the mingling with all dialects upon the late Attic vernacular as the base. As between the Doric ᾱ and the Ionic η the vernacular κοινή follows the Attic usage, and this fact alone is decisive. Dieterich indeed sums up several points as belonging to the “Attic κοινή” such as verbs in -υω instead of -υμι, in -ωσαν instead of -ων in contract imperfects, disuse of the temporal and the syllabic augment in composition, disuse of reduplication, -ην instead of -η in acc. sing. of adjs. in -ής, -ου instead of -ους in gen. sing. of third declension, -α instead of -ου in proper names, disuse of the Attic declension, -ες for -ας in accusative plural, τόν as relative pronoun, ἴδιος as possessive pronoun. But clearly by “Attic κοινή” he means the resultant Attic, not the Attic as distinct from the other dialects. Besides the orthography is Attic (cf. ἴλεως, not ἵλαος) and the bulk of the inflections and conjugations likewise, as can be seen by comparison with the Attic inscriptions. Schlageter sums the mutter up: “The Attic foundation of the κοινή is to-day generally admitted.” (b) THE OTHER DIALECTS IN THE Κοινή. But Kretschmer5 is clearly wrong in saying that the κοινή is neither Attic nor decayed Attic, but a mixture of the dialects. He compares the mixture of dialects in the κοινή to that of the high, middle and low German. The Attic itself is a κοινή out of Ionic, Æolic and Doric. The mixed character of the vernacular κοινή is made plain by Schweizer6 and Dieterich.7 The Ionic shows its influence in the presence of forms like ἰδίη, σπείρης, εἰδυῖα, -υίης, καθʼ ἔτος (cf. vetus), ὀστέα, χειλέων, βλαβέων, χρυσέον, -ᾶς, -ᾶδος; absence of the rough breathing (psilosis or de-aspiration, Æolic also); dropping of μι in verbs like διδῶ; κιθών (χιτών), τέσσερα, πράσσω for πράττω (Attic also), etc. Ionic words like μον-όφθαλμος (Herod.) instead of Attic ἑτερ-όφθαλμος occur. Conybeare and Stock (Sel. from LXX, p. 48) suggest that Homer was used as a text-book in Alexandria and so caused Ionisms like σπείρης in the κοινή. The spread of the Ionic over the East was to be expected. In Alexander’s army many of the Greek dialects were represented. In the Egyptian army of the Ptolemies nearly all the dialects were spoken.9 The Ionians were, besides, part of the Greeks who settled in Alexandria. Besides, even after the triumph of the Attic in Greece the Ionic had continued to be spoken in large parts of Asia Minor. The Ionic influence appears in Pergamum also. The mixing of the Attic with foreign, before all with Ionic, elements, has laid the foundation for the κοινή. The Æolic makes a poor showing, but can be traced especially in Pergamum, where Schweizer considers it one of the elements of the language with a large injection of the Ionic.3 Æolic has the α for η in proper names and forms in ας. Bœotian-Æolic uses the ending -οσαν, as εἴχοσαν, so common in the LXX. Moulton4 points out that this ending is very rare in the papyri and is found chiefly in the LXX. He calls Bœotian-Æolic also “the monophthongizing of the diphthongs.” In the Attic and the Ionic the open sound of η prevailed, while in the Bœotian the closed. In the κοινή the two pronunciations existed together till the closed triumphed. Psilosis is also Ionic. The Doric appears in forms like λαός (λεώς), ναός (νεώς), πιάζω (πιέζω), ἐσπούδαξα, ἡ λιμός, τό πλοῦτος, ἀλέκτωρ, κλίβανος (κρίβανος); and in the pronunciation perhaps β, γ, δ had the Doric softer sound as in the modern Greek vernacular. But, as Moulton5 argues, the vernacular κοινή comes to us now only in the written form, and that was undoubtedly chiefly Attic. The Arcadian dialect possibly contributes ἀφέωνται, since it has ἀφεώσθη, but this form occurs in Doric and Ionic also. Cf. also the change of gender ἡ λιμός (Luke) and τὸ πλοῦτος (Paul). The Northwest Greek contributed forms like ἀρχόντοις, τοὺς λέγοντες, ἦται (ἤμην cf. Messenian and Lesbian also), ἠρώτουν (like Ionic), εἴχοσαν (cf. Bœotian), λέλυκαν. The accusative plural in -ες is very common in the papyri, and some N. T. MSS. give τέσσαρες for τέσσαρας. The Achæan-Dorian κοινή had resisted in Northwest Greece the inroads of the common Greek for a century or so. The Macedonian Greek, spoken by many of Alexander’s soldiers, naturally had very slight influence on the κοινή. We know nothing of the old Macedonian Greek. Polybius says that the Illyrians needed an interpreter for Macedonian. Sturz2 indeed gives a list of Macedonian words found in the κοινή, as ἄσπιλος, κοράσιον, παρεμβολή, ῥύμη. But he also includes ἀγγέλλω! The Macedonians apparently used β instead of φ as βίλιππος, δ=θ as δάνατος, σ=β as σέρεθρον. Plutarch speaks of Alexander and his soldiers speaking to each other Μακεδονιστί. For full discussion of the Macedonian dialect see O. Hoffmann, Die Makedonen, ihre Sprache und Volkstum, 1906, pp. 232–255. (c) NON-DIALECTICAL CHANGES. It is not always possible to separate the various peculiarities of the κοινή into dialectical influences. “Where Macedonian, Spartan, Bœotian, Athenian and Thessalian were messmates a κοινή was inevitable. Pronounced dialecticisms which would render unintelligible or ludicrous to others were dropped” (see Angus, Prince. Theol. Rev., Jan., 1910, p. 67). The common blood itself went on changing. It was a living whole and not a mere artificial mingling of various elements. There is less difference in the syntax of the κοινή and that of the earlier Greek than in the forms, though the gradual disappearance of the optative, use of ἵνα and finite verb in the non-final sense rather than the infinitive or even ὄτι, the gradual disuse of the future part. may be mentioned. It was in the finer shades of thought that a common vernacular would fail to hold its own. “Any language which aspires to be a Weltsprache (world-language), as the Germans say, must sacrifice much of its delicacy, its shades of meaning, expressed by many synonyms and particles and tenses, which the foreigner in his hurry and without contact with natives cannot be expected to master.” (d) NEW WORDS, NEW FORMS OR NEW MEANINGS TO OLD WORDS. Naturally most change is found either in new words or in new meanings in old words, just as our English dictionaries must have new and enlarged editions every ten years or so. This growth in the vocabulary is inevitable unless the life of a people stops. A third-century inscription in Thera, for instance, shows συναγωγή used of a religious meeting, πάροικος (not the Attic μέτοικος) for stranger, ἀπόστολος and κατήχησις in their old senses like those Americanisms which preserve Elizabethan English (“fall” for “autumn,” for instance). Here are some further examples. It is hard to be sure that all of these are words that arose in the κοινή, for we cannot mark off a definite line of cleavage. We mention ἀγάπη, ἁγιότης, ἁγνότης, ἄθεσμος, ἀθέτησις, ἀλλοτριεπίσκοπος, ἀκατάλυτος, ἀκροατήριον, ἀνθρωπάρεσκος, ἀντίλυτρον, ἀνακαινόω (and many verbs in -όω, -άζω, -ίζω), ἀναγεννάω, βάπτισμα (many words in -μα), βαπτισμός, βαπτιστής, γρηγορέω (cf. also στήκω), δεισιδαιμονία, δηνάριον, δικαιοκρισία, ἐλεημοσύνη, ἐκκακέω, ἐκμυκτηρίζω, θειότης, θεόπνευστος, λογία, κατηχέω, κράβαττος, μαθητεύω, οἰκοδεσπότης, ὀρθρίζω, ὀψάριον, ἀψώνιον, πρόσκαιρος, ῥομφαία, συμβούλιον, τελώνιον, υἱοθεσία, ὑποπόδιον, φιλαδελφία, ὠτίον, etc. Let these serve merely as examples. For others see the lists in Deissmann’s Bible Studies, Light from the Ancient East, Moulton and Milligan’s “Lexical Notes on the Papyri” (Expositor, 1908–), Winer-Schmiedel (p. 22), Thayer’s Lexicon, (p. 691 f.), Rutherford’s New Phrynichus, and the indices to the papyri collections. One of the pressing needs is a lexicon of the papyri and then of the κοινή as a whole. Many of these words were already in the literary κοινή, though they probably came from the vernacular. Some old words received slightly new forms, like ἀνάθεμα ‘curse’ (ἀνάθημα ‘offering’), ἀπάντησις (ἀπάντημα), ἀποστασία (ἀπόστασις), ἀροτριάω (ἀρόω), βασίλισσα (βασίλεια), γενέσια (γενέθλια), δεκατόω (δεκατεύω), λυχνία (λυχνίον), μισθαποδοσία (μισθοδοσία), μονόφθαλμος (ἑτερόφθαλμος), νουθεσία (νουθἐτησις), οἰκοδομή (οἰ κοδόμησις), ὀνειδισμός (ὄνειδος), ὀπτασία (ὄψις), πανδοχεύς (πανδοκεύς), παραφρονία (παραφροσύνη), ῥαντίζω (ῥαίνω, cf. βαπτίζω, βάπτω), στήκω (ἔστηκα), ταμεῖον (ταμιεῖον), τεκνίον (and many diminutives in -ίον which lose their force), παιδάριον (and many diminutives in -άριον), φυσιάομαι (φυσάομαι), etc. Words (old and new) receive new meanings, as ἀνακλίνω (‘recline at table’). Cf. also ἀναπίπτω, ἀνάκειμαι, ἀντιλέγω (‘speak against’), ἀποκριθῆναι (passive not middle, ‘to answer’), δαιμόνιον (‘evil spirit,’ ‘demon’), δῶμα (‘house-top’), ἐρωτάω (‘beg’), εὐχαριστέω (‘thank’), ἐπιστέλλω (‘write a letter’), ὀψάριον (‘fish’), ὀψώνιον (‘wages’), παρακαλέω (‘entreat’), παρρησία (‘confidence’), περισπάομαι (‘distract’), παιδεύω (‘chastise’), πτῶμα (‘corpse’), συγκρίνω (‘compare’), σχολή (‘school’), φθάνω (‘come’), χορτάζω (‘nourish’), χρηματίζω (‘be called’). This is all perfectly natural. Only we are to remember that the difference between the κοινή vocabulary and the Attic literature is not the true standard. The vernacular κοινή must be compared with the Attic vernacular as seen in the inscriptions and to a large extent in a writer like Aristophanes and the comic poets. Many words common in Aristophanes, taboo to the great Attic writers, reappear in the κοινή. They were in the vernacular all the time. Moulton remarks that the vernacular changed very little from the first century A.D. to the third. “The papyri show throughout the marks of a real language of daily life, unspoilt by the blundering bookishness which makes the later documents so irritating.” It is just in the first century A.D. that the κοινή comes to its full glory as a world-language. “The fact remains that in the period which gave birth to Christianity there was an international language” (Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, p. 59). It is not claimed that all the points as to the origin of the κοινή are now clear. see Hesseling, De koine en de oude dialekten van Griechenland (1906). But enough is known to give an intelligible idea of this language that has played so great a part in the history of man.
(e) PROVINCIAL INFLUENCES. For all practical purposes the Greek dialects were fused into one common tongue largely as a result of Alexander’s conquests. The Germanic dialects have gone farther and farther apart (German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, English), for no great conqueror has arisen to bind them into one. The language follows the history of the people. But the unification of the Greek was finally so radical that “the old dialects to-day are merged into the general mass, the modern folk-language is only a continuation of the united, Hellenistic, common speech.” So completely did Alexander do his work that the balance of culture definitely shifted from Athens to the East, to Pergamum, to Tarsus, to Antioch, to Alexandria.2 This “union of oriental and occidental was attempted in every city of Western Asia. That is the most remarkable and interesting feature of Hellenistic history in the Græco-Asiatic kingdoms and cities.” Prof. Ramsay adds: “In Tarsus the Greek qualities and powers were used and guided by a society which was, on the whole, more Asiatic in character.” There were thus non-Greek influences which also entered into the common Greek life and language in various parts of the empire. Cf. K. Holl, “Das Fortleben der Volkssprachen in nachchristlicher Zeit” (Hermes, 1908, 43, p. 240). These non-Greek influences were especially noticeable in Pergamum, Tarsus and Alexandria, though perceptible at other points also. But in the case of Phrygia long before Alexander’s conquest there had been direct contact with the Arcadian and the Æolic dialects through immigration.4 The Greek inscriptions in the Hellenistic time were first in the old dialect of Phrygia, then gliding into the κοινή, then finally the pure κοινή. Hence the κοινή won an easy victory in Pergamum, but the door for Phrygian influence was also wide open. Thus, though the κοινή rests on the foundation of the Greek dialects, some non-Greek elements were intermingled. Dieterich indeed gives a special list of peculiarities that belong to the κοινή of Asia Minor, as, for instance, -αν instead of -α in the accus. sing. of 3d decl., proper names in ᾶς, τίς for ὅστις, ὅστις for ὄς, εἶμαι for εἰμί, use of θέλω rather than future tense. In the case of Tarsus “a few traces of the Doric dialect may perhaps have lingered” in the κοινή, as Ramsay suggests (Expositor, 1906, p. 31), who also thinks that ναοκόρος for νεωκόρος in Ac. 19:35 in D may thus be explained. But no hard and fast distinction can be drawn, as -αν for -ν as accusative appears in Egypt also, e.g. in θυγατέραν. Is it proper to speak of an Alexandrian dialect? Blass says so, agreeing with Winer-Schmiedel (ἡ Ἀλεξανδρέων διάλεκτος). This is the old view, but we can hardly give the name dialect to the Egyptian Greek. Kennedy3 says: “In all probability the language of the Egyptian capital had no more right to be called a dialect than the vernacular of any other great centre of population.” Schweizer4 likewise refuses to consider the Alexandrian κοινή as a dialect. Dieterich5 again gives a list of Egyptian peculiarities such as οἱ instead of αἱ, -α instead of -ας in nominatives of third declension, adjectives in -η instead of -α, ἐσοῦ for σοῦ, καθεῖς for ἕκαστος, imperfect and aorist in -α, ἤμην for ἦν, disuse of augment in simple verbs, indicative instead of the subjunctive. Mayser (Gr. d. griech. Pap., pp. 35–40) gives a list of “Egyptian words” found in the Ptolemaic papyri. They are words of the soil, like πάπυρος itself. But Thumb6 shows that the majority of the so-called Alexandrian peculiarities were general in the κοινή like ἤλθοσαν, εἷχαν, γέγοναν, ὲὡρακες, etc. “There was indeed a certain unwieldiness and capriciousness about their language, which displays itself especially in harsh and fantastic word-composition.” As examples of their words may be mentioned κατανωτιζόμενος, παρασυγγράφειν, φιλανθρωπεῖν, etc. It is to be observed also that the κοινή was not the vernacular of all the peoples when it was spoken as a secondary language. In Palestine, for instance, Aramaic was the usual language of the people who could also, most of them, speak Greek. Moulton’s parallel of the variations in modern English is not therefore true, unless you include also peoples like the Welsh, Scotch, Irish, etc. But as a whole the vernacular κοινή was a single language with only natural variations like that in the English of various parts of the United States or England. Thumb perhaps makes too much of a point out of the use of ἐμός rather than μου in Asia Minor in its bearing on the authorship of the Gospel of John where it occurs 41 times, once only in 3 Jo. and Rev. (34 times elsewhere in the N. T.), though it is interesting to note, as he does, that the infinitive is still used in Pontus. But there were non-Greek influences here and there over the empire as Thumb2 well shows. Thumb3 indeed holds that “the Alexandrian popular speech is only one member of a great speech-development.” (f) THE PERSONAL EQUATION. In the vernacular κοινή, as in the literary language, many variations are due to differences in education and personal idiosyncrasies. “The colloquial language in its turn went off into various shades of distinction according to the refinement of the speaker” (Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, p. 59). The inscriptions on the whole give us a more formal speech, sometimes official decrees, while the papyri furnish a much wider variety. “The papyri show us the dialect of Greek Egypt in many forms,—the language of the Government official, of the educated private person, of the dwellers in the temples, of the peasantry in the villages.” We have numerous examples of the papyri through both the Ptolemaic and the Roman rule in Egypt. All sorts of men from the farm to the palace are here found writing all sorts of documents, a will or a receipt, a love-letter or a dun, a memorandum or a census report, a private letter or a public epistle. “Private letters are our most valuable sources; and they are all the better for the immense differences that betray themselves in the education of the writers. The well-worn epistolary formulæ show variety mostly in their spelling; and their value for the student lies primarily in their remarkable resemblances to the conventional phraseology which even the N. T. letter-writers were content to use.” Deissmann2 has insisted on a sharp distinction between letters and epistles, the letter being private and instinct with life, the epistles being written for the public eye, an open letter, a literary letter. This is a just distinction. A real letter that has become literature is different from an epistle written as literature. In the papyri therefore we find all grades of culture and of illiteracy, as one would to-day if one rummaged in the rubbish-heaps of our great cities. One need not be surprised at seeing τὸν μήτρως, τὸν θέσιν, and even worse blunders. As a sample Jannaris3 gives ἀξειωθεὶς ὑπαιρατῶς γράματα μεὶ εἰδώτων, for ἀξιωθεὶς ὑπʼ αὐτῶν γράμματα μὴ εἰδότων. Part of these are crass errors, part are due to identity of sounds in pronunciation, as ο and ω, ει and η, ει and ι. Witkowski4 properly insists that we take note of the man and the character of work in each case. It is obvious that by the papyri and the inscriptions we gain a truer picture of the situation. As a specimen of the vernacular κοινή of Egypt this letter of the school-boy Theon to his father has keen interest (see O. P. 119). It belongs to the second century A.D. and has a boy’s mistakes as well as a boy’s spirit. The writing is uncial.
Θέων Θέωνι τῷ πατρὶ χαίρειν.
καλῶς ἐποίησες. οὐκ ἀπένηχές με μετʼ ἐ-
σοῦ εἰς πόλιν. ἠ οὐ θέλις ἀπενέκκειν με-
τʼ ἐσοῦ εἰς Ἀλεξανδρίαν οὐ μὴ γράψω σε ἐ-
πιστολὴν οὔτε λαλῶ σε, οὔτε υἱγένω σε,
εἶτα. ἂν δὲ ἔλθῃς εἰς Ἀλεξανδρίαν, οὐ
μὴ λάβω χεῖραν παρά [σ]ου οὔτε πάλι χαίρω
σε λυπόν. ἂμ μὴ θέλῃς ἀπενέκαι μ[ε],
ταῦτα γε[ί]νετε. καὶ ἡ μήτηρ μου εἶπε Ἀρ-
χελάῳ ὄτι ἀναστατοῖ με· ἄρρον αὐτόν.
καλῶς δὲ ἐποίησες. δῶρά μοι ἔπεμψε[ς]
μεγάλα ἀράκια. πεπλάνηκαν ἡμῶς ἐκε[ῖ],
τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ιβʼ ὄτι ἔπλευσες. λυπὸν πέμψον εἰ[ς]
με, παρακαλῶ σε. ἂμ μὴ πέμψῃς οὐ μὴ φά-
γω, οὐ μὴ πείνω· ταῦτα.
ἐρῶσθέ σε εὔχ(ομαι). Τῦβι ιηʹ.
On the other side:
ἀπόδος Θέωνι [ἀ]πὸ Θεωνᾶτος υἱῶ.
Milligan (Greek Papyri, p. xxxii) admits that there may be now a temptation “to exaggerate the significance of the papyri.” But surely his book has a wonderful human, not to say linguistic, interest. Take this extract from a letter of Hilarion to his wife Alis (P. Oxy. 744 B.C. 1): Ἐὰν πολλαπολλῶν τέκῃς, ἐὰν ἦν ἄρσενον, ἄφες, ἐὰν ἦν θήλεα, ἔκβαλε. (g) RÉSUMÉ. To all intents and purposes the vernacular κοινή is the later vernacular Attic with normal development under historical environment created by Alexander’s conquests. On this base then were deposited varied influences from the other dialects, but not enough to change the essential Attic character of the language. There is one κοινή everywhere (cf. Thumb, Griech. Spr., p. 200). The literary κοινή was homogeneous, while the vernacular κοινή was practically so in spite of local variations (cf. Angus, The Koinē: “The Language of the N. T.,” Prince. Theol. Rev., Jan., 1910, p. 78 f.). In remote districts the language would be Doric-coloured or Ionic-coloured. Phonetics and Orthography. It is in pronunciation that the most serious differences appear in the κοινή (Moulton, Prol., p. 5). We do not know certainly how the ancient Attic was pronounced, though we can approximate it. The modern Greek vernacular pronunciation is known. The κοινή stands along the path of progress, precisely where it is hard to tell. But we know enough not to insist too strongly on “hair-splitting differences hinging on forms which for the scribe of our uncials had identical value phonetically, e.g. οι, η, ῃ, υ, ι=ēē in feet, or αι=ε” (Angus, op. cit., p. 79). Besides itacisms the ι-monophthongizing is to be noticed and the equalizing of ο and ω. The Attic ττ is σσ except in a few instances (like ἐλάττων, κρείττων). The tendency is toward deaspiration except in a few cases where the reverse is true as a result of analogy (or a lost digamma). Cf. ἐφʼ ἑλπίδι. Elision is not so common as in the Attic, but assimilation is carried still further (cf. ἐμμέσῳ). There is less care for rhythm in general, and the variable final consonants ν and ς appear constantly before consonants. The use of -ει- for -ιει- in forms like πεῖν and ταμεῖον probably comes by analogy. Οὐθείς and μηθείς are the common forms till 100 B.C. when οὐδείς and μηδείς begin to regain their ascendency. Vocabulary. The words from the town-life (the stage, the market-place) come to the front. The vocabulary of Aristophanes is in point. There was an increase in the number of diminutive forms. The κοινή was not averse to foreign elements if they were useful. Xenophon is a good illustration of the preparation for the κοινή. Cf. Radermacher, N. T. Gr., p. 8. Word-Formation. There is the natural dropping of some old suffixes and the coining of new suffixes, some of which appear in the modern Greek vernacular. The number of compound words by juxtaposition is greatly increased, like πληρο-φορέω, χειρό-γραφον. In particular two prepositions in compounds are frequent, like συν-αντι-λαμβάνομαι. New meanings are given to old words. Accidence. In substantives the Ionic -ρης, not -ρας, is common, bringing nouns in -ρα into harmony with other nouns of the first declension (Thackeray, Gr. of the O. T. in Gk., p. 22). The Attic second declension disappears. Some feminine nouns in -ος become masculine. The third declension is occasionally assimilated to the first in forms like νύκταν, θυγατέραν. Contraction is absent sometimes in forms like ὀρέων. Both χάριν and χάριτα occur. Adjectives have forms like ἀσφαλῆν, πλήρης indeclinable, πᾶν for πάντα (cf. μέγαν), δυσί for δυοῖν. The dual, in fact, has disappeared in all inflections and conjugations. Pronouns show the disappearance of the dual forms like ἑκάτερος and πότερος. Τίς is used sometimes like ὄστις, and ὃς ἐάν is more frequent than ὃς ἄν about A.D. 1. Analogy plays a big part in the language, and this is proof of life. In the verb there is a general tendency toward simplification, the two conjugations blending into one (μι verbs going). New presents like ἀποκτέννω, ὀπτάνω, are formed. There is confusion in the use of -άω and -έω verbs. We find γίνομαι, γινώσκω. The increase of the use of first aorist forms like ἔσχα (cf. εἶπον and εἶπα in the older Greek). This first aorist termination appears even in the imperfect as in εἶχα. The use of -οσαν (εἴχοσαν, ἔσχοσαν) for -ον in the third plural is occasionally noticeable. The form -αν (δέδωκαν) for -ᾱσι may be due to analogy of this same first aorist. There is frequent absence of the syllabic augment in the past perfect, while in compound verbs it is sometimes doubled like ἀπεκατέστησαν. The temporal augment is often absent, especially with diphthongs. We have -τωσαν rather than -ντων, -σθωσαν rather than -σθων. Syntax. There is in general an absence of many Attic refinements. Simplicity is much more in evidence. This is seen in the shorter sentences and the paratactic constructions rather than the more complex hypotactic idioms. The sparing use of particles is noticeable. There is no effort at rhetorical embellishment. What is called “Asianism” is the bombastic rhetoric of the artificial orators. Atticism aims to reproduce the classic idiom. The vernacular κοινή is utterly free from this vice of Asianism and Atticism. Thackeray (op. cit., p. 23) notes that “in the breach of the rules of concord is seen the widest deviation from classical orthodoxy.” This varies a great deal in different writers as the papyri amply testify. The nominativus pendens is much in evidence. The variations in case, gender and number of substantives, adjectives and verbs are frequent κατὰ σύνεσιν. The neuter plural is used with either a singular or plural verb. The comparative does duty often for the superlative adjective. The superlative form usually has the elative sense. Πρῶτος is common (as sometimes in older Greek) when only two are compared. Ἑαυτῶν occurs for all three persons. The accusative is regaining its old ascendency. There is an increase in the use of the accusatives with verbs and much freedom in the use of transitive and intransitive verbs. The growth in the use of prepositions is very marked both with nouns and in composition, though some of the old prepositions are disappearing. Few prepositions occur with more than two cases. Phrases like βλέπω ἀπό show a departure from the old idiom. New adverbial and prepositional phrases are coming into use. The cases with prepositions are changing. The instrumental use of ἐν is common. The optative is disappearing. The future participle is less frequent. The infinitive (outside of τοῦ, ἐν τῷ, εἰς τό and the inf.) is receding before ἵνα, which is extending its use very greatly. There is a wider use of ὅτι. Everywhere it is the language of life and not of the books. The N. T. use of expressions like εἰς τὸ ὄνομα, δύο δύο, once cited as Hebraisms, is finding illustration in the papyri (cf. Deissmann, Light, etc., p. 123 f.). Μή begins to encroach on οὐ, especially with infinitives and participles. The periphrastic conjugation is frequently employed. The non-final use of ἵνα is quite marked. Direct discourse is more frequent than indirect. Clearness is more desired than elegance. It is the language of nature, not of the schools. V. The Adaptability of the Κοινή to the Roman World. It is worth while to make this point for the benefit of those who may wonder why the literary Attic could not have retained its supremacy in the Græco-Roman world. That was impossible. The very victory of the Greek spirit made necessary a modern common dialect. Colonial and foreign influences were inevitable and the old classical culture could not be assimilated by the Jews and Persians, Syrians, Romans, Ethiopians. “In this way a Panhellenic Greek sprang up, which, while always preserving all its main features of Attic grammar and vocabulary, adopted many colonial and foreign elements and moreover began to proceed in a more analytical spirit and on a simplified grammar.” The old literary Attic could not have held its own against the Latin, for the Romans lamented that they were Hellenized by the Greeks after conquering them.2 Spenserian English would be an affectation to-day. The tremendous vitality of the Greek is seen precisely in its power to adjust itself to new conditions even to the present time. The failure of the Latin to do this not only made it give way before the Greek, but, after Latin became the speech of the Western world during the Byzantine period, the vernacular Latin broke up into various separate tongues, the modern Romance languages. The conclusion is irresistible therefore that the κοινή possessed wonderful adaptability to the manifold needs of the Roman world. It was the international language. Nor must one think that it was an ignorant age. What we call the “Dark Ages” came long afterwards. “Let me further insist that this civilization was so perfect that, as far as it reached, men were more cultivated in the strict sense than they ever have been since. We have discovered new forces in nature; we have made new inventions; but we have changed in no way the methods of thinking laid down by the Greeks … The Hellenistic world was more cultivated in argument than we are nowadays.” Moulton cannot refrain from calling attention to the remarkable fact that the new religion that was to master the world began its career at the very time when the Mediterranean world had one ruler and one language. On the whole it was the best language possible for the Græco-Roman world of the first century A.D.