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The Proto-Greek language is the common ancestor of the Greek dialects, including the Mycenean Language , the classical Greek dialects Attic - Ionic , Aeolic , Doric and North-Western Greek , and ultimately the Koine and Modern Greek . Some scholars would include the fragmentary Ancient Macedonian Language , either as descended from an earlier "'''Proto-Hellenic'''" language, or by definition including it among the descendents of Proto-Greek. Proto-Greek would have been spoken in the late 3rd Millennium BC , most probably in the Balkans . The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants, speaking the predecessor of the Mycenaean Language , entered the Greek peninsula roughly around 2000 BC . They were separated from the Dorian Greeks, who entered the peninsula roughly one millennium later (see Dorian Invasion , Greek Dark Ages ), speaking a dialect that had in some respects remained more archaic. The evolution of Proto-Greek should be considered with the background of an early Palaeo-Balkan Sprachbund that makes it difficult to delineate exact boundaries between individual languages. The characteristically Greek representation of word-initial Laryngeals by prothetic vowels is shared by the Armenian Language , which also shares other phonological and morphological peculiarities of Greek. The close relatedness of Armenian and Greek sheds light on the Paraphyletic nature of the Centum - Satem Isogloss . Close similarities of Ancient Greek and Vedic Sanskrit suggest that either both Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian were still quite similar to late Proto-Indo-European , which would place the latter somewhere in the late 4th Millennium BC , or a post-PIE Graeco-Aryan proto-language. Graeco-Aryan has little support among linguists, since both geographical and temporal distribution of Greek and Indo-Iranian fit well with the Kurgan hypothesis of Proto-Indo-European. PHONOLOGY Greek is a Centum language, which would place a Graeco-Aryan protolanguage before Satemization, making it identical to late PIE. Proto-Greek does appear to have been affected by the general trend of Palatalization characteristic of the Satem group, evidenced for example by the (post-Mycenaean) change of labiovelars into dentals before ''e'' (e.g. ''kwe'' > ''te'' "and"), but the Satemizing influence appears to have reached Greek only after it had lost the palatovelars (i.e. after it had already become a Centum language). The primary sound changes separating Proto-Greek from the Proto-Indo-European Language included
Sound changes between Proto-Greek and Mycenaean include:
These sound changes are already complete in Mycenaean. For changes affecting most or all later dialects see Ancient Greek . MORPHOLOGY Noun The PIE dative, instrumental and locative cases are syncretized into a single dative case. Some desinences are innovated (dative plural ''-si'' from locative plural -''su''). Nominative plural ''-oi'', ''-ai'' replaces late PIE ''-ōs'', ''-ās''. The superlative on ''-tatos'' becomes productive. The peculiar oblique stem ''gunaik-'' "women", attested from the Thebes Tablets is probably Proto-Greek; it appears, at least as ''gunai-'' also in Armenian . Pronoun The pronouns ''houtos'', ''ekeinos'' and ''autos'' are created. Use of ''ho, hā, ton'' as articles is post-Mycenaean. Verb An isogloss between Greek and the closely related Phrygian is the absence of ''r''-endings in the Middle in Greek, apparently already lost in Proto-Greek. Proto-Greek inherited the augment, a prefix ''é-'' to verbal forms expressing past tense. This feature it shares only with Indo-Iranian and Phrygian (and to some extent, Armenian ), lending some support to an "Graeco-Aryan" or "Inner PIE" proto-dialect. However, the augment down to the time of Homer remained optional, and was probably little more than a free sentence particle in the proto-language, that may easily have been lost by most other branches.
The future tense is created, including a future passive, as well as an aorist passive. The suffix ''-ka-'' is attached to some perfects and aorists. Infinitives in ''-ehen'', ''-enai'' and ''-men'' are created. NUMERALS
EXAMPLE TEXT Eduard Schwyzer in his ''Griechische Grammatik'' (1939, I.74-75) has translated famous lines of Classical Greek into Proto-Greek. His reconstruction was ignorant of Mycenaean and assumes Proto-Greek loss of labiovelars and syllabic resonants, among other things. Thus, Schwyzer's reconstruction corresponds to an archaic but post-Mycenaean dialect rather than actual Proto-Greek. Notes: The reconstruction assumes that the old combinations of Approximant s + ''s'' in either sequence () were pronounced as unvoiced approximants () before they were simplified as short voiced approximants with compensatory lengthening in most dialects or as long voiced approximants in Aeolic. Is is also assumed that the PIE syllabic Nasals () was pronounced as Nasal , before it split into in most dialects and as a variant in some dialects (Mycenaean, Arcadian, Aeolic).
SEE ALSO
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