Talk:Doric Greek

Raves

nice work, Enkyklikos, keep going! dab (ᛏ) 18:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Introduced to Greece

The first sentence is not said quite right. This topic is covered in Chapter 1 of Chadwick's The Mycenaean World. As Chadwick says, "The traditional view of waves of Greek speaking warriors marching down through the Balkans ... is an old one ... supported by ... Kretschmer..."

But, that view contains an insoluble contradiction, that the Greeks per se lived outside of Greece and then brought Greek to it! How then can it be called Greece, and why was the region where the Greeks lived NOT Greece?

So Chadwick rightly discards that view and so do most of the other linguists. The starting point is that Greece is defined to be where the Greeks are. Wherever the Dorians were, if they were speaking Doric, then that location was Greece. So, they did not enter Greece, they were already in it.

That there was an invasion or infiltration of Indo-Europeans into the Balkans there is no doubt. The question is whether they spoke Greek. Chadwick doubts if they spoke pure Indo-European but then neither did they speak Greek. Their language became or was Proto-Greek and was not divided into dialects. Chadwick goes on to argue that Proto-Greek divided into dialects.

In addition to that, there were some tribes living in the Balkans whose language was closely related to Greek but was not exactly Greek, such as the Phrygians, who emigrated to Turkey, and the Macedonians, who did not. In other words, Greek is a Greek phenomenon. It evolved in Greece, dividing from the closely related languages and becoming characteristically Greek right there in Greece.

So, the Dorians did not enter Greece. They were in it. Now, there is the additional problem that Doric is the most archaic dialect; that is, Attic-Ionic evolved from something like Doric. Mycenaean is already removed from Doric. So, the Dorians represented a more conservative and original Greek culture. Chadwick points out the difficulty in actually locating them because archaeology does not show the Dorian invasion. That is all we get from Chadwick in that book. He promises more at some other time.

Linguistically the dialects that are most Doric were in the rugged terrain of west Greece. Buck's Greek Dialects used to be a reference on this topic but so far I have seen no mention of it at all. (However, we are only getting started). If they were anywhere that (in addition to Doris) is where they would be; however, they were probably already down the outer arc of islands. They had to have been sea-going or they never could have got to Crete, which they most decidedly did enter as invaders. They took over Mycenaean Crete.

Now, the Dorians did not enter mainland Greece. Epirus IS the mainland or was. Mainland is usually used in opposition to the islands, such as Crete. In fact Epirus probably does mean "mainland" (but I'm not getting into that now). The Proto-Greeks might have come in through Albania; it is said by some there are some Albanian words like Greek ones. I believe you may find that discussion in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

My goodnes I have gotten wordy, but I am trying to show that the situation is not as the article says in the first few sentences but is more complex. I am not saying it has to espouse any one point of view but first of all the invasion theory is pretty well out. Some of the Greeks burned all the palaces and subsequently a people whose dialect later was called Doric took over those areas where the palaces were burned. Anything else is conjecture or theory.

I hope to have given enough of a background for you to see that the article needs work. So maybe it is good as far as it goes but that is not far enough to capture today's views. Those coast-watchers of the Pylos tablets combined with the burning of Pylos are pretty tempting evidence of an enemy from the northwest. It isn't certain who they were though and now it is believed the burnings were not simultaneous, perhaps not even contemporaneous. No one wants to let go of the "Dorian Invasion" but that term needs to be defined. It almost certainly does not mean bands of Doric speakers entering the Greek mainland from outside it and wrecking everthing on the same day. We may have some Mycenaean Greek but no contemporaneous Doric Greek. Who were those enemies of Pylos? The Dorian invasion is only a theory.

So, I presume someone might take some action on these words, maybe go over the article again. I'd like also to see the main features of the dialect, their range and their attested time window presented. Buck does that in only a few pages so we can do it in even less.

Well I think you will be hearing more from me on Greek and Greek dialects as soon as I finish with Crete. Hello Bachman, how are you. I will try not to use any sarcasm, just for you. I think I'm doing better at the references. Sooner or later I am going to be in a position to show that south Indo-European is asserted. This is just so enjoyable.Dave 06:13, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Doric greek and northwest Greek

"The dialects formerly known as North-Western Greek (in Delphi, Locri and Acarnania) are now considered a part of Doric Greek. " That unsourced statement is not true. I suppose it depends on what you mean by Doric Group. If you mean the dialects of the northwest Greek group are now the dialects of the Doric group, no, they aren't. No one thinks they are. Refer to Greek dialects. Also take a look at a few web sites such as ancient Greek and ancient macedonia. There's no general recognition that the two groups are being made one. The understanding or lack of it is as it always was, as far as I can see. If on the other hand by Doric greek you mean something like Buck's west Greek, nothing has changed there either. Nobody thought they were not Doric Greek. So, I'm going to do some work here filling in more detail and taking the unsourced statement out. If you find a linguist saying that linguists generally agree the two groups are being merged by the significant core linguists of the field or the latest standards symposia then by all means put it back in. Have you got the ace up your sleeve?Dave 02:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Check this! The language is a harsh but distinctly recognizable form of North-West or Doric Greek, and the low social status of its writer, as evidenced by her vocabulary and belief in magic, strongly hint that a unique form of Doric Greek was spoken by lay people in Pella at the time the tab was written (see below, Dating and Significance) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pella_curse_tablet

The article clearly states that the dialect originated in Epirus, but the region itself isn't listed as one where the dialect was spoken ? Isn't that a bit, to say the least, incongruous ?