05-29-2008, 12:27 AM
When reading about the Persian invasion of Greece one of them main points mentioned is that Greece did not unify against the Persians because to the Greeks there was no such thing as Greece.
At the time Athens, Sparta, Argos, etc, they all considered themselves as members of their seperate cities. The unifying concept did not exist.
So this got me wondering.
If an Athenian and a Spartan sit down at a table in a tavern together. Can they talk to each other?
Did the members of the various city-states all speak the same Greek language? Was it one language with dialects like American ones that take very little effort to understand? Were they like German dialects each one practically its own language?
Even further along how different would the language of Illyria or Macedonia be from what was spoken in Athens, Corinth, Olympia, or Argos?
If they were all different languages or very different dialects then which one can we trace modern Greek back to most solidly?
At the time Athens, Sparta, Argos, etc, they all considered themselves as members of their seperate cities. The unifying concept did not exist.
So this got me wondering.
If an Athenian and a Spartan sit down at a table in a tavern together. Can they talk to each other?
Did the members of the various city-states all speak the same Greek language? Was it one language with dialects like American ones that take very little effort to understand? Were they like German dialects each one practically its own language?
Even further along how different would the language of Illyria or Macedonia be from what was spoken in Athens, Corinth, Olympia, or Argos?
If they were all different languages or very different dialects then which one can we trace modern Greek back to most solidly?
Timothy Hanna
