Literary dialects

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Thomas McConnell (University of Oxford)

Ed. by Victoria Fendel, University of Oxford
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.1: Greek Writing and Culture: Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Imperial, -800--100.
Vol. editors: Eleni Bozia (University of Florida), Jonathan Burgess (University of Toronto), Anca Dan (École Practique de Hautes Études PSL), Martine Diepenbroek (University of Johannesburg), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Victoria Fendel (University of Oxford), Nicole Kennedy (University of Newcastle), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Vaios Liapis (Open University of Cyprus), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Mali Skotheim (Ashoka University), Laura Swift (The Open University), Guendalina Daniela Maria Taietti (University of Liverpool)

Domains

Concept/ Method (language& linguistics)

Dates

Date of occurrence -1200- c.-300

Places

Ancient Greece (Location)

Resources

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For further details on dialect, artificial forms, and different scholarly approaches to the unique problems that subsequently emerge, see the entry on

Homeric Kunstsprache

General Introduction

General Introduction

When modern students and scholars learn ancient Greek, what they are learning is specifically Attic Greek – that is, the Greek used by the inhabitants of Athens and the surrounding area (Attica) during the 5th and 4th centuries BC. This is because the majority of the most widely read Greek texts are in Attic Greek, because of the cultural and historical importance of Attic authors. Yet a great many are composed in other dialects, which differ from Attic in several significant ways. Moreover, it is not always so simple that a speaker of a particular dialect writes literature in

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5089 words

Citation: McConnell, Thomas. "Literary dialects". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 May 2025 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19804, accessed 13 May 2025.]