History of the interventions on the north side of the Parthenon (in Greek)
HISTORY OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE
21
HISTORY OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE Jason Beals Box #103 NT853 Advance Greek Grammar Sept. 15, 2010
Transcript of HISTORY OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE
HISTORY OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE
Jason Beals
Box #103
NT853 Advance Greek Grammar
Sept. 15, 2010
CONTENTS
Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Pre-Homeric (up to 1000 B.C.) ....................................................................................... 2
Migration ..................................................................................................................... 4 Language development ............................................................................................... 6
The Classical Era (1000 B.C to 330 B.C.) ...................................................................... 7 800-500 B.C. ............................................................................................................... 8 500-330 B.C. ............................................................................................................... 9
The Koinh, Era (330 B.C. to 330 A.D.) ........................................................................ 12
History of Koinh, ....................................................................................................... 12
Changes of Koinh, ...................................................................................................... 13
New Testament Koinh, .............................................................................................. 14
The Medieval Era (330 A.D. to 1453 A.D.) ................................................................. 15 The Modern Era (1453 A.D. to the present) ................................................................. 16
Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 17 Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 18
1
Introduction
The history and development of the Greek language is rich, complex and at times
controversial. When the student of New Testament Greek begins to learn the language, it is
often done without any historical understanding of its development. Lars Rydbeck notes, "One
cannot discuss the language of the New Testament without first briefly shedding some light on
the over 3000-year history of the Greek language."1 It is not only important to understand the
Greek language in the New Testament era but equally important in understanding that this
language "is situated within the context of the historical development of written Greek,
stretching over a period from Alexander the Great to the first century A.D."2
Due to modern linguistics, most lexicologist and many lexicographers give priority to
synchrony, which studies Greek in the context of how it was used during a specific period of
time.3 Another approach is diachrony, which "looks at language throughout its history or, at
least, over a much longer period of time."4 Daniel Wallace notes that diachronic study of Greek
gives "an understanding of the past and how it relates to the present" and "is sometimes critical
for gaining a proper picture of the present" yet also endorses synchronic priority for his grammar
because the New Testament was written during the Hellenistic period.5 This paper will look at
the development of Greek "through time" or the diachronic approach.
1 Lars Rydbeck, "The Language of the New Testament," Tyndale Bulletin, 49, no. 1 (1998): 362.
2 Ibid., 361.
3 Daniel Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand
Rapids, MI.: Zondervan Publishing, 1996), 4.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
2
Pre-Homeric (up to 1000 B.C.) 6
The Greek language has a long and intricate history, presently going through its fifth
phase or stage in its development. 7 It is the "oldest continuously spoken and written language in
Europe."8 The ancient Greeks believed that their language and race began with Hellen, the first
born son of Deucalion and Pyrrha. These parents survived a great flood and settled down into
Thessaly, which is in northern Greece. It was their son, Hellen who "fathered Aeolus, Dorus,
and Zuthus, the progenitors of the Aeolic, Doric and Ionic Greeks."9 Though most scholars
rightfully reject this idea, they do not agree on how the Greek language actually came about.
What they do agree on is that Greek has similarities with other languages like Latin and Sanskrit
with these three being traced back to a "Proto-Indo-European" language. Linguists note that "if
two or more languages share similarities that are so numerous and systematic that they cannot be
ascribed to chance, borrowing, or linguistic universals, then the only hypothesis that provides a
satisfactory explanation for those similarities is that they are descended from the same parent
language" and this is known as the "comparative method."10
Linguists are able to trace certain features of languages and relate them to each other,
coming to a better understanding of relationships and developments within language groups.
6 The following divisions are adapted from Wallace,14-15 and John Grassmick, Principles and Practice of
Greek Exegesis (Dallas Theological Seminary, 1976), 156-161.
7 Chrys C. Caragounis, The Development of Greek and the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2004), 21.
8 Ibid., 17.
9 Robert Drews, The Coming of the Greeks: Indo-European Conquests in the Aegean and the Near East
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 3.
10 Benjamin W. Fortson, IV., Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction (Hong Kong,
Blackwell Publishing, 2010), 3.
3
Greek has been identified as a product of Indo-European people groups and languages. This
include "most of the languages of Europe and extends into southwestern Asia as far as India."11
The problem with tracing the origins of this hypothetical language is the lack of written evidence
of the language or the lack of material evidence of this people group, since none exists today.
Robert Drews states,
"There is no such thing as an Indo-European and neither is there an Indo-European
people. Instead, there are and have been communities and individuals who speak one or
another of the languages that linguists find it convenient to call Indo-European. It is
generally assumed that these languages are ultimately descended from a single language,
for which the term 'Proto-Indo-European' may also be used for either the language or the
languages that were spoken in the homeland."12
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) gave rise to Indo-European (IE) which branched into several
other major language groups. The branches recognized in the Indo-European family are " Indo-
Iranian (containing Sanskrit and the Iranian languages), Greek, Italic (containing Latin and
related languages of Italy), Celtic, and Germanic (northern Europe, including English)."13
When
people migrate, they bring with them language and culture that impacts the areas they settle.
Greek's history as a language is connected to the migration of a people group or people groups
and the language they brought with them and how that interacts with the indigenous people and
language.
11
Merritt Ruhlen, The Origin of Language (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1994), 33.
12 Robert Drews, xxi.
13 Fortson, 9.
4
Migration
Archeological discoveries show that Greek is the oldest continuously spoken language
dating to around 3000 B.C. and oldest written language with documentation dating back to the
1600 B.C. in the Linear B tablets found in Crete.14
it also shows that there were people in the
Greek lands before any written record and "long before the arrival of the historical Greeks of IE
speech."15
The early movement of Greek tribes that entered Greece, how far they got and when
they migrated are topics which are disputed.16
Two general positions are usually put forward.
The first hypothesis and the minority view puts the date of the Proto-Indo-Europeans
breakup and expansion at 6500 B.C. This proposition connects the "spread of the Indo-European
languages with the gradual, almost imperceptible, expansion of a peaceful agricultural
population, not with mounted warriors from the steppes."17
This theory views the migration in
terms of peaceful farmers from Anatolia which is modern Turkey rather than a warrior based
three pronged invasion from the area which is across the Black Sea from the Ukraine area that
conquered Europe. It was a peaceful and gradual takeover of Indo-European people that
impacted culture and language over a long period of time. The next phase of Indo-European
migration after the spread from Anatolia into Greece, is into the Balkans.
14
Caragounis, 17.
15 Andrew L. Sihler, New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin ( New York: Oxford University Press,
1995), 8.
16 Caragounis, 17. Ruhlen, 181.
17 Ruhlen, 184. For further discussion on this idea see Colin Renfew, Archaeology and Language: The
Puzzle of Indo-European Origins (London: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
5
The second hypothesis is that the inhabitants of Greece belonged to an "Old European
society" which was a mixture of several complex cultures dating back to 5000 B.C.18
Geoffrey
Horrocks asserts,
"It is now generally believed that speakers of an Indo-European dialect or dialects arrived
in the Balkan peninsula in the early second millennium BC. The language that we call
Greek developed its distinctive form there through the subsequent evolution and
diversification of the speech of those newcomers who finally settled in the region. The
process of development must have been influenced by language contact with populations
already in place, some of whom may have been indigenous, others earlier migrants."19
This civilization changed with the arrival of several Kurgan incursions into Europe,
which changed the culture and language of the Greek main lands and islands. It is thought that
the Mycenaean culture is a mixture of Old European (specifically Minoan) and Kurgan.20
This
Indo-European group have been named after their burial habits. They would bury their leaders in
large mounds which are called kurgans in Russian and archeologists adopt that name to identify
them.21
They were warriors who swept through Europe from the Black Sea area and primarily
the Pontic steppes just before the Bronze Age c.a. 3000 B.C.22
This group was a part of the
Proto-Indo-European group which had contact with Indo-Iranian, among which Sanskrit is
connected and shows the relationship of Greek to Sanskrit as an older sister.23
From here, these
18
Sihler, 9.
19 Geoffrey Horrocks, Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speakers (United Kingdom: Wiley-
Blackwell Publishing, 2010), 9.
20 Sihler, 9.
21 Ruhlen, 184.
22 Ibid.
23 Caragounis, 19.
6
groups broke up into Indo-European groups and settled the surrounding areas in Greece. This
view is the majority view.
The lack of evidence that verifies when and where this migration takes place is
problematic. Whichever viewpoint one takes does not affect the overall understanding of the
development of Greek from an Indo-European expansion. This is attested through linguistic
studies of the language. Most are in agreement in terms of how the language developed.
Questions will remain in terms of when, where and from whom. Benjamin Fortson notes, " We
know there are gaps in our knowledge that come not only from the inevitable loss and
replacement of a percentage of words and grammatical forms over time, but also from the nature
of our preserved texts. While no documents in reconstructed PIE are found, the structure of this
hypothesized language will always be somewhat controversial."24
Language development
Indo-European as a united language is often traced back to an estimated time of 3000
B.C. with the main branches diversifying and migration patterns commencing around 2000
B.C.25
The various Greek tribes gradually made their way into the mainland of Greece and
eventually occupied the islands.26
One of the most notable groups were the Mycenaeans, who
spoke an early form of Greek. They conquered Crete and the non-Greek civilization known as
Minoan, which is "witnessed by Linear B texts."27
Horrocks notes, "The decipherment of Linear
24
Fortson, 14.
25 Carl D. Buck, Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1933),
2.
26 Caragounis, 19.
27 Ibid.
7
B in the 1950's firmly established Mycenaean as the earliest documented variety of Greek,
making this the European language with the longest recorded history, from the 15th/14th
centuries BC to the present day."28
The Mycenean period that lasted from 1600 B.C. to 1200
B.C. points to Greeks occupying a dominate element of the population.29
After this period,
Greeks known as Dorians, with a different family of dialects, invaded from the north. They
differed enough in dialect, culture and physical appearance that the Greeks noted this invasion in
their own writings.30
The language has "many distinctive features common to all dialects"31
pointing to its development from a common language. Yet the language from its recorded
beginning was not unified but existed in numerous dialects, pointing to it being divided, possibly
"before the Greeks had even entered Greece."32
The Classical Era (1000 B.C to 330 B.C.)
The era of Greek known as classical Greek is also called the "dialect period because it
was dominated by various regional dialects, with the Attic/Ionic being the most important due to
a variety of large-scale geographical and social patterns."33
These differences in dialects are
attested to the earliest records of Greek and extend to differences developed before the Greeks
28
Horrocks, 10.
29 Buck, Comparative Grammar, 16.
30 Sihler, 9.
31 Ibid, 9-10.
32 Ibid.
33 Stanley Porter, "Greek Grammar and Syntax" in Face of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent
Research, eds. Scott McKnight and Grant R. Osborne (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 92.
8
had entered into Greece.34
Even though there are differences in the dialects, there are numerous
features that are similar in each dialect to conclude that at some period in the development,
Greek stemmed from the same base. Examples of this similarity are seen in phonology,
inflection, word-formation and syntax.35
Ancient grammarians noted several dialects of the
Greek language but four primary "literary" dialects in particular: Attic, Ionic, Aeolic and
Doric.36
The Attic and Ionic dialects were located in Attica. Athens was associated with the
Ionians.37
The Aeolic dialect is connected to Thessaly in the Macedonia area. The Dorians are
associated with the Northwest section of Greece.
Overall, the "most fundamental division of the Greek dialects" are into two categories of
East and West Greek which refer mostly to their "locations prior to the great migrations."38
This
classical era of the different dialects can be divided into two time periods.
800-500 B.C.
After the decline of the Mycenaean period, there is a gap of evidence for roughly four
hundred years and has been attributed to the Dorian invasions that led to upheavals in writing.39
The Greek language was also influenced by Phoenicians. The Greeks adopted the Phoenician
34
Buck, Comparative Grammar, 16.
35 Ibid., 17.
36 Carl D. Buck, The Greek Dialects (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1928), 3.
37 The Athenians are associated with the Ionians by both Herodotus and Thucydides. Buck, Dialects, 3.
38 Ibid., 7. The classification of the different dialects is as follows: West Greek is made up of Northwest
Greek (Phocian, Locrian, Elean, and Northwest Greek) and Doric (Laconian, Heraclean, Megarian, Argolic,
Rhodian, Coan, Theran, Cyrenean, Cretan), while East Greek is made up of Attic-Ionic (Attic, Ionic, Aeolic,
Lesbian, Thessalian, Boeotian) and Arcado-Cyprian (Arcadian, Cyprian). See Buck's chart on page 9.
39 Caragounis, 26.
9
alphabet in place of the Mycenaean Linear B script from traders and also incorporated various
words for commerce, clothing, measurement and so on.40
Outside of invasion or Phoenician
influence, geographical regions and political city-states contributed to the isolation and
continuation of regional dialects within the Greek language. The oldest and most influential
work during this time is Homeros, a work written mainly in Ionic but having a mixture of other
dialects.41
Another writer is Hesiodos who uses mostly Aeolic in constrast to Homeros.42
The
Aeolians are the first attested developers of epic songs in the Asia Minor region where it then
moved into the region of the Ionians.43
It is in this period that no one dialect rose to prominence
nor did any one dialect "influence other dialects expect within narrow geographical limits."44
500-330 B.C.
This period of the classical era is called the "Attic"45
or "heroic"46
period often portrayed
in Homer's writings. The West Greek tribes and dialects were no longer a major factor during
the heroic age.47
The earliest prose writers wrote in the 6th and 5th century B.C. and were Ionic
40
Buck, Comparative Grammar, 18. Herodotus confirms that the Greeks modified letters that were
borrowed from the Phoenicians. See Caragounis, 27, n. 35.
41 Caragounis, 28.
42 Ibid.
43 Buck, Dialects, 14.
44 Ibid., 174.
45 Caragounis, 32.
46 Sihler, 10.
47 Buck, Comparative Grammar, 19
10
philosophers.48
The term Classical Greek technically refers to all four major dialects during this
era but is normally used in reference to Attic Greek because of most of the literary works that
come from this dialect.49
Greece's struggle with the Persian empire between 490-479 B.C. helped bring together
the city states and also had "immense consequences for the political and especially the cultural
life of Athens" with the period of the Golden Age of Athens.50
During this time, the language
moved from the use of independent regional dialects "which were broad phonological,
morphological and lexical differences, toward the ascendance of a single dialect, Attic Greek."51
This Attic prose is a mixture of Attic, Ionic and Aeolic dialects.52
The Attic dialect began to
influence the Ionic53
with the Ionic the first dialect to lose its identity until it practically ceased
from being a distinct dialect.54
The Ionic alphabet also became the standard Greek alphabet
when officially adopted by Athens in 403 B.C. and would eventually move its way into the other
48
Ibid., 21.
49 Wallace, 15.
50 Caragounis, 32.
51Stanley Porter, "Did Jesus Ever Teach in Greek?," Tyndale Bulletin, 44, no. 2 (1993): 206.
52 Wallace states that this Attic prose is an "offspring of Ionic," 15. Buck points out that this prose "Old
Ionic but with an admixture of undoubtedly Aeolic forms. These can only be explained as survivals from an earlier
period of Aeolic lays," 20. Blass points out that "Attic mixed most intensively with the dialect to which it was most
closely related, the Ionic." F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early
Christian Literature, translated and edited by Robert W. Funk (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 2.
53 Goodwin notes three distinct stages of the dialects of the Ionians. He notes Old Ionic is the Epic
language whereas New Ionic is during the 5 century B.C. Attic is the third stage of Ionic and was used by Athens
during its literary dominance of Greece. William W. Goodwin, Greek Grammar (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1900),
4.
54 Buck, Dialects, 175-176.
11
parts of Greece.55
One significant change that influenced the Attic through the Ionic is the lost
digamma « which is still found in the Aeolic and Doric dialects.56
The Attic-Ionic dialect is
noted for its "refinement, precision, and beauty."57
This literary dialect will give rise to works of
the "tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the comedies of Aristophanies, the
histories of Thucydides and Xenophon, the orations of Demosthenes, and the philosophical
treaties of Plato."58
Moulton rightly notes, "The history, geography, and ethnology of Hellas are
jointly responsible for the remarkable phenomena which even the literature of the classical
period represents."59
This new dialect of Athens during its golden age would be used throughout Greece due to
Athens' political and literary supremacy. Yet it is important to remember that though Attic is the
main dialect, the other dialects are still functioning due to the political climate of the Greek city
states. Carl Buck notes,
"Greece was as decentralized in language as in politics. As there was no unified Greece
as a state, but only a number of city states and changing leagues, so there was no standard
Greek language, but only a series of local dialects. Not only in early times, but also, in
most parts of Greece, long after Attic had become the norm of literary prose, each state
employed its own dialect, both in private monuments of internal concern and in those of a
more external or interstate character, such as decrees in honor of foreigners, decisions of
interstate arbitration, and, in general, communications between different states. Many of
the dialects remained in common written use down till about 200 B.C., and some till the
beginning of our era, though more or less mixed with Attic...eventually they were
55
Buck, Comparative Grammar, 72.
56 Herbert W. Smyth, Greek Grammar (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1956), 3.
57 Ibid., 4.
58 Wallace, 15.
59 J. H. Moulton, Prolegomena, vol. 1 of A Grammar of New Testament Greek (Edinburgh: T & T Clark,
1967; Reprint 2006), 23.
12
replaced by the koinh, both as the written and spoken language and from this descended
Modern Greek."60
The Koinh, Era (330 B.C. to 330 A.D.)
The rise of the Attic dialect in literary works throughout Greece would become
influential in the rising Macedonia power in the north of Greece. This dialect would become the
language of diplomacy for the Macedonians and give birth to the "common language of the
hellenistic world receiving the name 'new dialect' (h` koinh. dia,lektoj) or what is called 'Koine' (h ̀
koinh,)."61 This is attested in a text by Kolotes, an Epicurean philosopher born around 325 B.C.
62
The rise of Alexander the Great and his conquest of the known ancient world would be the
vehicle that would spread this new dialect.
History of Koinh,
Philip II of Macedon began the process of implementing the Attic dialect as the empire's
language of diplomacy. This continued with his son Alexander who was educated by Aristotle
under Attic Greek. This Macedonian period will become the impetus of spreading Attic koinh,
across the ancient world. Alexander's conquest would also establish the Greek culture and life
across this empire. The time of h ̀koinh, is neither the beginning of Greek, nor its end but it is a
major development of the language that directly impacts the New Testament. Though
geographical and political circumstances of Greece caused the differing dialects, it would now
become a unified language that spans across vast territory. As soldiers and merchants began to
60
Buck, Comparative Grammar, 20.
61 Rydbeck, 362.
62 Ibid.
13
move away from their city states and their regions, the dialects of their Greek language began to
mingle with others using different dialects resulting in "a standardization of Greek varieties into
a 'common dialect.'"63
It was this "perfect storm" that came together in history that provided
New Testament writers a common language understood by most in the empire which could be
spoken, heard and read by the masses.
Changes of Koinh,
The koinh, of this period was based significantly in Attic Greek that had been influenced
by Ionic and to a lesser extent Aeolic. Yet this Greek was used by soldiers and merchants of
various dialects along with expanding across vast territories and other cultures that helped
change this into a "common" language and not simply a literary dialect from Athens. Wallace
calls this interaction and changing of the language as a "melting pot Greek that inevitably
softened the rough edges of some dialects and abandoned the subtleties of others."64
Maximilian
Zerwick states, "the syntactical differences between Biblical and classical Greek are in the
direction of making the sense of words or phrases more emphatic or explicit...in this we have the
combined effect of Hebrew influence and the evolution of popular Greek speech."65
Many
exceptions that the New Testament Greek student comes across can often be traced to the
borrowing of different dialects. It is in light of these changes that another group arose to bring
63
Porter, Language Jesus Spoke, 206.
64 Wallace, 15.
65 Maximilian Zerwick, Biblical Greek: Illustrated by Examples (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico,
2001), 161.
14
Greek back to the language of the classical writers. This movement is called Atticism and
dominated the literary development from the second century onward.66
New Testament Koinh,
There are several types of koinh, during this era. There is the vernacular or common
language of the people attested in the papyri and other writings. The study of this type of koinh,
show that there was a variety of literary education that is even wider than what is observed in the
New Testament.67
Another form of koinh, is a more polished language of scholars, writers and
historians called Literary Koinh,.68 The koinh, of the New Testament was the language that had
developed from a mixture of Attic with other dialects and other language influence as it spread
across the ancient world. It was also influenced by Jewish culture and language or Semitic
influence. The New Testament Greek needs to be seen in light of this rich and complex
background. It also needs to be understood in light of Koine's vernacular, literary and Semitic
background.69
New Testament Greek, though not the same Greek as the Attic or classical Greek
is still not to be disparaged and seen as a lesser Greek as is the case with some classical
grammarians.
66
Rydbeck, 363.
67 Moulton, 5.
68 Wallace, 21.
69 Ibid., 28.
15
The Medieval Era (330 A.D. to 1453 A.D.)
While Koinh, Greek was the trade language of the world, Latin was the official language
of the Roman Empire. The emperor Constantine would bring Christianity to the forefront of the
Roman Empire and would set the stage for a shift in the Greek language. He reversed the edicts
of Diocletian's persecution, thereby setting the stage for the language to move into a largely
religious realm.70
Yet it would be the emperor Justinian who would make Greek the official
language of the Byzantine empire.71
This move was inevitable as the Roman empire had split
into West and East regions with Latin being the dominate language of the West. The evidence of
this era point to the spoken form of Greek, called Demotic speech, as a proto-Modern Greek
form or "incipient ModGreek."72
The written form of the language used for treaties was a form
of Atticism.73
The latter part of the Medieval Era saw the Eastern empire loose provinces due to
invasions which again broke Greek speakers into fragmented areas that were isolated from each
other.74
This would bring about through the years another phase of dialects, this time Modern
Greek dialects in the Demotic speech. Yet the other half of life in the empire, the language of
the church, administration, sermons,, theological treaties and official documents were written in
the "puristic, Atticistic Greek."75
This period would begin to develop the separation of spoken
and written Greek which will influence the Modern Era.
70
Wallace, 16.
71 Caragounis, 45.
72 Ibid.
73 Ibid.
74 Ibid., 47.
75 Ibid., 48.
16
The Modern Era (1453 A.D. to the present)
Historical events have shaped much of the Greek language. Just as Athens' golden age,
Alexander the Great's conquests, the split of the Roman empire into east and west influenced the
development of the Greek language, so will another event in 1453 A.D. This is when the Turks
invaded Byzantium. This forced scholars to flee the empire with copies of Greek literature and
would be one aspect of influencing the Renaissance.76
The Reformation was helped in part
because of New Testament Greek manuscripts were now available and studied. The War of
Independence in 1821 from the Turks made it possible for Greece to become a free state in 1828.
Because of the different developments through the years along with the regional dialects through
spoken Greek and the written language, the Greek authorities had a problem of which Greek
should be adapted as the national language.77
The spoken language was especially challenging
to figure out because of the isolation through Turkish rule alongside of the various dialects that
developed at various times throughout Greece. Yet the literary form of Greek had been handed
down through time provided an easier way to unite the nation. The literary form came to be
known was Katharevousa or "pure" Greek.78
The problem with adopting this as a spoken
language as that most could understand this Greek but could not speak it and therefore also
adopted a spoken language. This spoken language is linked to Koine Greek. A.T. Robertson
notes, "The modern Greek popular speech does not differ materially from the vernacular
76
Wallace, 16.
77 Caragounis, 50.
78 Ibid.
17
Byzantine, and thus connects directly with the vernacular koinh,."79 Though there are changes in
grammar and vocabulary that take place in most languages over time, the "present spoken
language is naturally quite different from ancient Greek, but it is its lineal descendant in the same
sense that Italian is a modern form of Latin."80
Conclusion
Understanding the long, rich, multifaceted history of Greek helps the New Testament
student understand the complexities of the language. The Greek of the New Testament did not
appear suddenly but has been shaped "through time." The dialectical differences also help the
student understand changes that have occurred at various stages of the language yet still impacts
both the written form and the student studying it. Even the eight versus five case debate can be
understood in terms of a diachronic study. The parent speech or Proto-Indo-European language
had eight cases. Yet as the Indo-European language began to branch out, several languages
began to merge or lose cases.81
Understanding the diachronic history of the language helps one
see the transition and development of the language over time and gives the NT student a
background that is valuable. Ultimately, this study shows the sovereign work of God shaping
events to use koinh, Greek in the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4) to provide a "common" language in
which the good news of His Son would be spread throughout the world.
79
A.T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in Light of Historical Research (Nashville,
TN: Broadman Press, 1934), 44.
80 Buck, Comparative Grammar, 22.
81 Buck, 171. Eight cases are preserved in Indo-Iranian, seven in Balto-Slavic, six in Latin, five in Greek,
four in Celtic and Germanic. This is known as case syncretisim. Ibid.
18
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