Language

We are all introduced to the alphabet when we are young, but never did I stop to think about where the  alphabet originated.  It actually came to us through the Greeks!  The Greeks created the alphabet after seeing the Phoenicians using a form of written language.  The Greeks took this idea and changed it a bit in order to suit their language. One of the most important, and valuable, changes was their addition of vowels.  The word "alphabet" is a made-up word that combines the first two letters of the Greek alphabet-alpha and beta- alphabet.  

This alphabet is the reason why the Greeks have a long and well-documented history.  In fact, the Greek language has the longest history of any Indo-European language--it spans 34 centuries!

Greek is the primary language is spoken in Greece. 

As the Greeks became more cosmopolitan, coming into wider and more frequent contact with each other and with other nations, the Greek language became more uniform.  The development of literature and song also became a force for standardization.

 

The principal divisions of Greek dialect are between Aeolic, Ionic, and Doric. 

Doric is mainly in the south, from the Peloponnesus down to Crete and up to Rhodes. Aeolic is in the northeast, and Ionic across the center.

Attic-Ionic Dialect

This group defines a series of closely related dialects spoken by Athenians and the Ionians occupying islands in the Aegean and the coast of modern day Turkey, but it also includes several dialects spoken by peoples on the Aegean coast of the Greek mainland. This suggests that the Athenians are culturally related in some way to the Ionian Greeks.

Due to the fact that Ionia and Athens are two of the greatest contributors to Greek cultural development (especially literature) and since they become, over time, the most economically successful, this group of dialects eventually becomes the most pervasive. Most literature surviving from ancient Greece today is in the Attic or Ionic dialects.

Doric Dialect

This group is the largest category of West Greek dialects, including those spoken by all the Greeks of the Peloponnese except the Arcadians, Eleans, and some Achaians. The two most prominent Doric dialects are Argolic, spoken by the Argives of Argos, and Laconian, spoken by the Spartans. But Corinth, Megara, Rhodes, Cyrene, and Crete are all home to different Doric dialects as well.