15 Facts About Koine Greek

Koine Greek included styles ranging from more conservative literary forms to the spoken vernaculars of the time.

Literary Koine was the medium of much of post-classical Greek literary and scholarly writing, such as the works of Plutarch and Polybius.

Koine Greek continues to be used as the liturgical language of services in the Greek Orthodox Church.

Scholars such as Apollonius Dyscolus and Aelius Herodianus maintained the term Koine to refer to the Proto-Greek language, while others used it to refer to any vernacular form of Greek speech which differed somewhat from the literary language.

When Koine Greek became a language of literature by the first century BC, some people distinguished two forms: written as the literary post-classical form, and vernacular as the day-to-day vernacular.

Related searches

Koine Greek arose as a common dialect within the armies of Alexander the Great.

Passage into the next period, known as Medieval Koine Greek, is sometimes dated from the foundation of Constantinople by Constantine the Great in 330 AD, but often only from the end of late antiquity.

In other words, Koine Greek can be regarded as Attic with the admixture of elements especially from Ionic, but from other dialects.

The degree of importance of the non-Attic linguistic elements on Koine Greek can vary depending on the region of the Hellenistic world.

Koine Greek was therefore considered a decayed form of Greek which was not worthy of attention.

Reconsideration on the historical and linguistic importance of Koine Greek began only in the early 19th century, where renowned scholars conducted a series of studies on the evolution of Koine throughout the entire Hellenistic period and Roman Empire.

Finally, a very important source of information on the ancient Koine is the modern Greek language with all its dialects and its own Koine form, which have preserved some of the ancient language's oral linguistic details which the written tradition has lost.

Biblical Koine refers to the varieties of Koine Greek used in Bible translations into Greek and related texts.

Some features of Biblical Koine Greek which are thought to have originally been non-standard elements eventually found their way into the main of the Koine Greek language.

Koine Greek maintains that is merely used for designating the notion of meeting and gathering of men, without any particular character.