Aeolic Greek


In linguistics, Aeolic Greek, also known as Aeolian, Lesbian or Lesbic dialect, is the set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia ; in Thessaly; in the Aegean island of Lesbos; and in the Greek colonies of Aeolis in Anatolia and adjoining islands.
The Aeolic dialect shows many archaisms in comparison to the other Ancient Greek dialects, as well as many innovations.
Aeolic Greek is widely known as the language of Sappho and of Alcaeus of Mytilene. Aeolic poetry, which is exemplified in the works of Sappho, mostly uses four classical meters known as the Aeolics: Glyconic, hendecasyllabic verse, Sapphic stanza, and Alcaic stanza.
In Plato's Protagoras, Prodicus labelled the Aeolic dialect of Pittacus of Mytilene as "barbarian", because of its difference from the Attic literary style: "He didn't know to distinguish the words correctly, being from Lesbos, and having been raised with a barbarian dialect".

Phonology

Consonants

Labiovelars

and Proto-Greek * changed to Aeolic p everywhere. By contrast, PIE * changed to Attic/Ionic, Arcadocypriot, and Doric t before e and i.
Similarly PIE/PGk * always became b and PIE * > PGk * always became ph.
Labiovelars were treated the same way in the P-Celtic languages and the Sabellic languages.

Sonorant clusters

A Proto-Greek consonant cluster with h and a sonorant changed to a double sonorant in Aeolic by assimilation. In Attic/Ionic and Doric, the h assimilated to the vowel before the consonant cluster, causing the vowel to lengthen by compensatory lengthening.
Lesbian Aeolic lost in initial h- from Proto-Indo-European s- or y-. By contrast, Ionic sometimes retains it, and Attic always retains it.
In Thessalian and Boeotian and Doric, the Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Greek semi-vowel w was retained at the beginning of a word.

Long a

In Aeolic and Doric, Proto-Greek long ā remains. By contrast, in Attic, long ā changes to long ē in most cases; in Ionic, it changes everywhere.
In Boeotian, the vowel-system was, in many cases, changed in a way reminiscent of the modern Greek pronunciation.
In Lesbian Aeolic, the accent of all words is recessive, as is typical only in the verbs of other dialects.
Contracted or vowel-stem verbs that are thematic in Attic/Ionic are often athematic in Aeolic.
Aeolic athematic infinitive active ends in -men or -menai. ~ Attic/Ionic has -enai.
In the Lesbian dialect this ending also extends to the thematic conjugation, where Attic/Ionic has -ein. All three of these Aeolic endings occur in Homer.
Proto-Greek -ans and -ons → -ais and -ois ~ Attic/Ionic -ās and -ōs.
Dative plural -aisi and -oisi ~ Attic/Ionic -ais and -ois.
The participle has -ois and -ais for Attic -ōs, -ās.

Glossary

Aeolian