Attic Greek is the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

dialect of the ancient region of

Attica Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core cit ...

, including the ''

polis Polis (: poleis) means 'city' in Ancient Greek. The ancient word ''polis'' had socio-political connotations not possessed by modern usage. For example, Modern Greek πόλη (polē) is located within a (''khôra''), "country", which is a πατ ...

'' of

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

. Often called

Classical Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archa ...

, it was the

prestige Prestige may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films *Prestige (film), ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnett: woman travels to French Indochina to meet up with husband *The Prestige (film), ''The Prestige'' (fi ...

dialect of the Greek world for centuries and remains the standard form of the language that is taught to students of Ancient Greek. As the basis of the Hellenistic Koine, it is the most similar of the ancient dialects to later Greek. Attic is traditionally classified as a member or sister dialect of the Ionic branch.

Origin and range

is the primary member of the Hellenic branch of the

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

language family. In ancient times, Greek had already come to exist in several dialects, one of which was Attic. The earliest attestations of Greek, dating from the 16th to 11th centuries BC, are written in

Linear B Linear B is a syllabary, syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest Attested language, attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examp ...

, an archaic writing system used by the Mycenaean Greeks in writing their language; the distinction between Eastern and Western Greek is believed to have arisen by Mycenaean times or before.

Mycenaean Greek Mycenaean Greek is the earliest attested form of the Greek language. It was spoken on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC). The language is preserved in inscriptions in Linear B, a script first atteste ...

represents an early form of Eastern Greek, the group to which Attic also belongs. Later Greek literature wrote about three main dialects:

Aeolic In linguistics, Aeolic Greek (), also known as Aeolian (), Lesbian or Lesbic dialect, is the set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia; in Thessaly; in the Aegean island of Lesbos; and in the Greek colonies of Aeolis in Anat ...

, Doric, and Ionic; Attic was part of the Ionic dialect group. " Old Attic" is used in reference to the dialect of

Thucydides Thucydides ( ; ; BC) was an Classical Athens, Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts Peloponnesian War, the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been d ...

(460–400 BC) and the dramatists of 5th-century Athens whereas " New Attic" is used for the language of later writers following conventionally the accession in 285 BC of Greek-speaking

Ptolemy II Ptolemy II Philadelphus (, ''Ptolemaîos Philádelphos'', "Ptolemy, sibling-lover"; 309 – 28 January 246 BC) was the pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt from 284 to 246 BC. He was the son of Ptolemy I, the Macedonian Greek general of Alexander the G ...

to the throne of the

Kingdom of Egypt The Kingdom of Egypt () was the legal form of the Egyptian state during the latter period of the Muhammad Ali dynasty's reign, from the United Kingdom's recognition of Egyptian independence in 1922 until the abolition of the monarchy of Eg ...

. Ruling from

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

, Ptolemy launched the Alexandrian period, during which the city of Alexandria and its expatriate Greek-medium scholars flourished. The original range of the spoken Attic dialect included

and a number of the Aegean Islands; the closely related Ionic was also spoken along the western and northwestern coasts of

Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

in modern

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

, in

Chalcidice Chalkidiki (; , alternatively Halkidiki), also known as Chalcidice, is a peninsula and regional units of Greece, regional unit of Greece, part of the region of Central Macedonia, in the Geographic regions of Greece, geographic region of Macedon ...

Thrace Thrace (, ; ; ; ) is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe roughly corresponding to the province of Thrace in the Roman Empire. Bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Black Se ...

, Euboea, and in some colonies of

Magna Graecia Magna Graecia refers to the Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy, encompassing the modern Regions of Italy, Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were Greek colonisation, extensively settled by G ...

. Eventually, the texts of literary Attic were widely studied far beyond their homeland: first in the classical civilizations of the Mediterranean, including in

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

and the larger

Hellenistic world In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the Roma ...

, and later in the

Muslim world The terms Islamic world and Muslim world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs, politics, and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is ...

, Europe, and other parts of the world touched by those civilizations.

Literature

The earliest

Greek literature Greek literature () dates back from the ancient Greek literature, beginning in 800 BC, to the modern Greek literature of today. Ancient Greek literature was written in an Ancient Greek dialect, literature ranges from the oldest surviving wri ...

, which is attributed to

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

and is dated to the 8th or 7th centuries BC, is written in "Old Ionic" rather than Attic. Athens and its dialect remained relatively obscure until the establishment of its

democracy Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...

following the reforms of

Solon Solon (; ; BC) was an Archaic Greece#Athens, archaic History of Athens, Athenian statesman, lawmaker, political philosopher, and poet. He is one of the Seven Sages of Greece and credited with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy. ...

in the 6th century BC; so began the Classical period, one of great Athenian influence both in Greece and throughout the Mediterranean. The first extensive works of literature in Attic are the plays of dramatists

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is large ...

Sophocles Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those ...

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

, and

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

dating from the 5th century BC. The military exploits of the Athenians led to some universally read and admired history, as found in the works of

and

Xenophon Xenophon of Athens (; ; 355/354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian. At the age of 30, he was elected as one of the leaders of the retreating Ancient Greek mercenaries, Greek mercenaries, the Ten Thousand, who had been ...

. Slightly less known because they are more technical and legal are the orations by Antiphon,

Demosthenes Demosthenes (; ; ; 384 – 12 October 322 BC) was a Greek statesman and orator in ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide insight into the politics and cu ...

Lysias Lysias (; ; c. 445 – c. 380 BC) was a Logographer (legal), logographer (speech writer) in ancient Greece. He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrac ...

Isocrates Isocrates (; ; 436–338 BC) was an ancient Greek rhetorician, one of the ten Attic orators. Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education through his teaching and writte ...

, and many others. The Attic Greek of philosophers

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

(427–347 BC) and his student

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

(384–322 BC) dates to the period of transition between Classical Attic and Koine. Students who learn Ancient Greek usually begin with the Attic dialect and continue, depending upon their interests, to the later Koine of the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

and other early Christian writings, to the earlier

Homeric Greek Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used in the ''Iliad'', ''Odyssey'', and ''Homeric Hymns''. It is a literary dialect of Ancient Greek consisting mainly of an archaic form of Ionic, with some Aeolic forms, a few from Ar ...

and

Hesiod Hesiod ( or ; ''Hēsíodos''; ) was an ancient Greece, Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.M. L. West, ''Hesiod: Theogony'', Oxford University Press (1966), p. 40.Jasper Gr ...

, or to the contemporaneous

Ionic Greek Ionic or Ionian Greek () was a subdialect of the Eastern or Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek. The Ionic group traditionally comprises three dialectal varieties that were spoken in Euboea (West Ionic), the northern Cyclades (Centr ...

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

and

Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; ; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician and philosopher of the Classical Greece, classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is traditionally referr ...

Alphabet

Attic Greek, like other dialects, was originally written in a local variant of the Greek alphabet. According to the classification of

archaic Greek alphabets Many local variants of the Greek alphabet were employed in ancient Greece during the Archaic Greece, archaic and Classical Greece, early classical periods, until around 400 BC, when they were replaced by the classical 24-letter alphabet that ...

, which was introduced by Adolf Kirchhoff, the Old Attic system belongs to the "eastern" or "blue" type, as it uses the letters and with their classical values ( and ), unlike "western" or "red" alphabets, which used for and expressed with . In other respects, Old Attic shares many features with the neighbouring Euboean alphabet (which is "western" in Kirchhoff's classification). Like the latter, it used an L-shaped variant of

lambda Lambda (; uppercase , lowercase ; , ''lám(b)da'') is the eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiced alveolar lateral approximant . In the system of Greek numerals, lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is derived from the Phoen ...

() and an S-shaped variant of

sigma Sigma ( ; uppercase Σ, lowercase σ, lowercase in word-final position ς; ) is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 200. In general mathematics, uppercase Σ is used as an operator ...

(). It lacked the consonant symbols xi () for and

psi Psi, PSI or Ψ may refer to: Alphabetic letters * Psi (Greek) (Ψ or ψ), the twenty-third letter of the Greek alphabet * Psi (Cyrillic), letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, adopted from Greek Arts and entertainment * "Psi" as an abbreviat ...

() for , expressing these sound combinations with and , respectively. Moreover, like most other mainland Greek dialects, Attic did not yet use

omega Omega (, ; uppercase Ω, lowercase ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and last letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numerals, Greek numeric system/isopsephy (gematria), it has a value ...

() and

eta Eta ( ; uppercase , lowercase ; ''ē̂ta'' or ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel, . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative, , in most dialects of Ancient Greek, it ...

() for the long vowels and . Instead, it expressed the vowel phonemes with the letter (which corresponds with classical , , ) and with the letter (which corresponds with , , and in later classical orthography). Moreover, the letter was used as heta, with the consonantal value of rather than the vocalic value of . In the 5th century, Athenian writing gradually switched from this local system to the more widely used Ionic alphabet, native to the eastern Aegean Islands and Asia Minor. By the late 5th century, the concurrent use of elements of the Ionic system with the traditional local alphabet had become common in private writing, and in 403 BC, it was decreed that public writing would switch to the new Ionic orthography, as part of the reform following the

Thirty Tyrants The Thirty Tyrants (, ''hoi triákonta týrannoi'') were an oligarchy that briefly ruled Classical Athens, Athens from 404 BC, 404 BCE to 403 BC, 403 BCE. Installed into power by the Sparta, Spartans after the Athenian surrender in the Peloponnesian ...

. This new system, also called the "Eucleidian" alphabet, after the name of the

archon ''Archon'' (, plural: , ''árchontes'') is a Greek word that means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem , meaning "to be first, to rule", derived from the same ...

Eucleides Eucleides () was eponymous archon of Athens for the year running from July/August 403 BC until June/July 402 BC. His year in office was marked by Athens' official adoption of the Ionic alphabet. There is some evidence that he may have been perso ...

, who oversaw the decision, was to become the classical Greek alphabet throughout the Greek-speaking world. The classical works of Attic literature were subsequently handed down to posterity in the new Ionic spelling, and it is the classical orthography in which they are read today.

Phonology

Vowels

Long a

Proto-Greek The Proto-Greek language (also known as Proto-Hellenic) is the Indo-European language which was the last common ancestor of all varieties of Greek, including Mycenaean Greek, the subsequent ancient Greek dialects (i.e., Attic, Ionic, Ae ...

long ''ā'' → Attic long ''ē'', but ''ā'' after ''e, i, r''. ⁓ Ionic ''ē'' in all positions. ⁓ Doric and Aeolic ''ā'' in all positions. * Proto-Greek and Doric ''mātēr'' → Attic ''mētēr'' "mother" * Attic ''chōrā'' ⁓ Ionic ''chōrē'' "place", "country" However, Proto-Greek ''ā'' → Attic ''ē'' after ''w'' (

digamma Digamma or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ) is an Archaic Greek alphabets, archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It originally stood for the sound but it has remained in use principally as a Greek numeral for 6 (number), 6. Whe ...

), deleted by the Classical period. * Proto-Greek ''korwā'' → early Attic–Ionic ''*korwē'' → Attic ''korē'' (Ionic ''kourē'')

Short a

Proto-Greek ''ă'' → Attic ''ě''. ⁓ Doric: ''ă'' remains. * Doric ''Artamis'' ⁓ Attic '' Artemis''

Sonorant clusters

Compensatory lengthening Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda, or of a vowel in an adjacent syllable. Lengthening triggered ...

of vowel before cluster of sonorant (''r'', ''l'', ''n'', ''m'', ''w'', sometimes ''y'') and ''s'', after deletion of ''s''. ⁓ some Aeolic: compensatory lengthening of sonorant. : PIE ''VsR'' or ''VRs'' → Attic–Ionic–Doric–Boeotian ''VVR''. : ''VsR'' or ''VRs'' → Lesbian–Thessalian ''VRR''. * Proto-Indo-European ''*es-mi'' (athematic verb) → Attic–Ionic ''ēmi'' (εἰμί) ⁓ Lesbian–Thessalian ''emmi'' "I am"

Upsilon

Proto-Greek and other dialects' (English ''food'') became Attic (pronounced as German ''ü'', French ''u'') and represented by ''y'' in Latin transliteration of Greek names. * Boeotian kourios ⁓ Attic kyrios "lord" In the

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

s ''eu'' and ''au'', upsilon continued to be pronounced .

Contraction

Attic contracts more than Ionic does. ''a'' + ''e'' → long ''ā''. * ''nika-e'' → ''nikā'' "conquer (thou)!" ''e'' + ''e'' → ē (written ''ει'': spurious diphthong). * PIE ''*trey-es'' → Proto-Greek ''trees'' → Attic ''trēs'' = (τρεῖς), "three" ''e'' + ''o'' → ''ō'' (written ου: spurious diphthong). * early ''*genes-os'' → Ionic ''geneos'' → Attic ''genous'' "of a kind" (genitive singular: Latin ''generis'', with ''r'' from rhotacism)

Vowel shortening

Attic ''ē'' (from ''ē''-grade of

ablaut In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut ( , from German ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its relate ...

or Proto-Greek ''ā'') is sometimes shortened to ''e'': # when it is followed by a short vowel, with lengthening of the short vowel ( quantitative metathesis): ''ēo'' → ''eō'' # when it is followed by a long vowel: ''ēō'' → ''eō'' # when it is followed by ''u'' and ''s'': ''ēus'' → ''eus'' ( Osthoff's law): * ''basilēos'' → ''basileōs'' "of a king" (genitive singular) * ''basilēōn'' → ''basileōn'' (genitive plural) * ''basilēusi'' → ''basileusi'' (dative plural)

Hyphaeresis

Attic deletes one of two vowels in a row, called hyphaeresis (). * Homeric ''boē-tho-os'' → Attic ''boēthos'' "running to a cry", "helper in battle"

Consonants

Palatalization

PIE ''*ky'' or ''*chy'' → Proto-Greek ''ts'' ( palatalization) → Attic and Euboean Ionic ''tt'' — Cycladean/Anatolian Ionic and Koine ''ss''. * Proto-Greek ''*glōkh-ya'' → Attic ''glōtta'' — East Ionic ''glōssa'' "tongue" Sometimes, Proto-Greek *ty and *tw → Attic and Euboean Ionic ''tt'' — Cycladean/Anatolian Ionic and Koine ''ss''. * PIE ''*kwetwores'' → Attic ''tettares'' — East Ionic ''tesseres'', "four" (Latin ''quattuor'') Proto-Greek and Doric ''t'' before ''i'' or ''y'' → Attic–Ionic ''s'' (palatalization). * Doric '' ti-

the ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

-nti'' → Attic ''tithēsi'' = (τίθεισι) "he places" (

compensatory lengthening Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda, or of a vowel in an adjacent syllable. Lengthening triggered ...

of ''e'' → ''ē'' = spurious diphthong (ει))

Shortening of ''ss''

Doric, Aeolian, early Attic–Ionic ''ss'' → Classical Attic ''s''. * PIE → Homeric (), ''messos'' ("palatalization") → Attic (), ''mesos'' ("middle") *Homeric () → Attic (), "I performed (a ceremony)" *Proto-Greek → Homeric () → Attic (), "by foot" *Proto-Greek → dialectal () → Attic ()

Loss of ''w''

Proto-Greek ''w'' (

) was lost in Attic before historical times. * Proto-Greek ''korwā →'' Attic ''korē'', "girl"

Retention of ''h''

Attic retained Proto-Greek ''h-'' (from

debuccalization Debuccalization or deoralization is a sound change or alternation in which an oral consonant loses its original place of articulation and moves it to the glottis (, , or ). The pronunciation of a consonant as is sometimes called aspiration ...

of Proto-Indo-European initial ''s-'' or ''y-''), but some other dialects lost it ('' psilosis'', "stripping", "deaspiration"). * Proto-Indo-European ''*si-sta-mes'' → Attic ''histamen'' — Cretan ''istamen'', "we stand"

Movable ''n''

Attic–Ionic places an ''n'' ( movable nu) at the end of some words that would ordinarily end in a vowel, if the next word starts with a vowel, to prevent '' hiatus'' (two vowels in a row). The movable nu can also be used to turn what would be a short syllable into a long syllable for use in

meter The metre (or meter in US spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of of ...

. * ''pāsin élegon'', "they spoke to everyone", vs. ''pāsi legousi'' * ''pāsi(n)'', dative plural of "all" * ''legousi(n)'', "they speak" (third person plural, present indicative active) * ''elege(n)'', "he was speaking" (third person singular, imperfect indicative active) * ''titheisi(n)'', "he places", "makes" (third person singular, present indicative active: athematic verb)

Rr instead of rs.

Attic and Euboean Ionic use rr in words, when Cycladean and Anatolian Ionic use rs: * Attic (χερρόνησος) → East Ionic (χερσόνησος), "peninsula" * Attic (ἄρρην) → East Ionic (ἄρσην), "male" * Attic (θάρρος) → East Ionic (θάρσος), "courage"

Attic replaces the Ionic ''-σσ'' with ''-ττ''

Attic and Euboean Ionic use tt, while Cycladean and Anatolian Ionic use ss: * Attic (γλῶττα) → East Ionic (γλῶσσα), "tongue" * Attic (πράττειν) → East Ionic (πράσσειν), "to do, to act" * Attic (θάλαττα) → East Ionic (θάλασσα), "sea"

Morphology

* Attic tends to replace the ''-ter'' "doer of" suffix with ''-tes'': ''dikastes'' for ''dikaster'' "judge". * The Attic adjectival ending ''-eios'' and corresponding noun ending, both having two syllables with the

''ei'', stand in place of ''ēios'', with three syllables, in other dialects: ''politeia'', Cretan ''politēia'', "constitution", both from ''politewia'', whose ''w'' is dropped.

Grammar

Attic Greek grammar follows

Ancient Greek grammar Ancient Greek grammar is morphologically complex and preserves several features of Proto-Indo-European language, Proto-Indo-European morphology. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, articles, numerals and especially verbs are all highly inflected. A comp ...

to a large extent. References to Attic Grammar are usually in reference to peculiarities and exceptions from Ancient Greek Grammar. This section mentions only some of said peculiarities.

Number

In addition to singular and plural numbers, Attic Greek had the

dual number In algebra, the dual numbers are a hypercomplex number system first introduced in the 19th century. They are expressions of the form , where and are real numbers, and is a symbol taken to satisfy \varepsilon^2 = 0 with \varepsilon\neq 0. D ...

. This was used to count exactly two of something and was present as an inflection in nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs (i.e., any categories inflected for number). Attic Greek was the last dialect to retain it from older forms of Greek, and the dual number had died out by the end of the 5th century BC. In addition to this, in Attic Greek, any plural neuter subjects will only ever take singular conjugation verbs.

Declension

With regard to

declension In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence by way of an inflection. Declension may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and det ...

, the stem is the part of the declined word to which case endings are suffixed. In the alpha or first declension feminines, the stem ends in long ''a'', which is parallel to the Latin first declension. In Attic–Ionic the stem vowel has changed to ''ē'' in the singular, except (in Attic only) after ''e'', ''i'' or ''r''. For example, the respective nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative singular forms are γνώμη (''gnome''), γνώμης (''gnomes''), γνώμῃ (''gnome(i)''), γνώμην (''gnomen''), "opinion"; but θεᾱ́ (''thea''), θεᾶς (''theas''), θεᾷ (''thea(i)''), θεᾱ́ν (''thean''), "goddess". The plural is the same in both cases, ''gnomai'' and ''theai'', but other sound changes were more important in its formation. For example, original ''-as'' in the nominative plural was replaced by the diphthong ''-ai'', which did not change from ''a'' to ''e''. In the few ''a''-stem masculines, the genitive singular follows the second declension: ''stratiotēs'', ''stratiotou'', ''stratiotēi'', etc. In the omicron or second declension, mainly masculines (but with some feminines), the stem ends in ''o'' or ''e'', which is composed in turn of a root plus the

thematic vowel In Indo-European studies, a thematic vowel or theme vowel is the vowel or from ablaut placed before the ending of a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word. Nouns, adjectives, and verbs in the Indo-European languages with this vowel are thematic, and ...

, an ''o'' or ''e'' in

Indo-European ablaut In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut ( , from Standard High German, German ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). An example of ablaut in English is the Germanic strong verb, strong ...

series parallel to similar formations of the verb. It is the equivalent of the Latin second declension. The alternation of Greek ''-os'' and Latin ''-us'' in the nominative singular is familiar to readers of Greek and Latin. In Attic Greek, an original

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...

singular ending ''*-osyo'' after losing the ''s'' (like in the other dialects) lengthens the stem ''o'' to the spurious diphthong ''-ou'' (see above under Phonology, Vowels): logos "the word" ''logou'' from *''logosyo'' "of the word". The dative plural of Attic–Ionic had ''-oisi'', which appears in early Attic but later simplifies to ''-ois'': ''anthropois'' "to or for the men".

Classical Attic

Classical Attic may refer either to the varieties of Attic Greek spoken and written in Greek

majuscule Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally '' majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally '' minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing syste ...

in the 5th–4th centuries BC ( Classical-era Attic) or to the Hellenistic- and Roman-era standardized Attic Greek, mainly on the language of

Attic orators The ten Attic orators were considered the greatest Greek orators and logographers of the classical era (5th–4th century BC). They are included in the "Canon of Ten", which probably originated in Alexandria. A.E. Douglas has argued, however, t ...

and written in Greek

uncial Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for ...

. Attic replaces the Ionic ''-σσ'' with ''-ττ'': * Attic () → Ionic (), "tongue" * Attic () → Ionic (), "to do, to act, to make" * Attic () → Ionic (), "sea"

Varieties

* The

vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...

and poetic dialect of

. * The dialect of

(mixed Old Attic with

neologisms In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...

). * The dialect and orthography of Old Attic inscriptions in Attic alphabet before 403 BC; the Thucydidean orthography is similar. * The conventionalized and poetic dialect of the Attic tragic poets, mixed with

Epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale Epic(s) ...

and

and used in the episodes (in the choral odes, conventional Doric is used). * Formal Attic of

,Platonic style is poetic