Doric or Dorian, also known as West Greek, was a group of Ancient Greek dialects; its varieties are divided into the Doric proper and Northwest Doric subgroups. West Greek was spoken in a vast area of the ancient Greek world, covering much of Central Greece and Northern Greece, most of the Peloponnese, islands of the Southern Aegean (including Crete and Rhodes), as well as many Doric Greek colonies further afield. It was also spoken in the Greek sanctuaries of Dodona, Delphi, and Olympia, as well as at the four Panhellenic festivals; the Isthmian, Nemean, Pythian, and Olympic Games.
By Hellenistic times, under the Achaean League, an Achaean Doric koine appeared, exhibiting many peculiarities common to all Doric dialects, which delayed the spread of the Attic-based Koine Greek to the Peloponnese until the 2nd century BC.
The only living descendant of Doric is Tsakonian, an outlying dialect of Modern Greek that is still spoken in a small area on the southern Argolid coast of the Peloponnese, in the modern prefectures of Arcadia and Laconia. It is now critically endangered, with only a few hundred – mostly elderly – fluent speakers left. Tsakonian is the only modern Greek dialect not descended from Attic-Ionic, and is considered a likely descendant of Laconic Doric.
Doric proper Laconic
Laconic or Laconian was spoken by the population of Lacedaemon in the southern Peloponnese and also by its colonies, Taras and Herakleia in Magna Graecia. Sparta was the seat of ancient Laconia. Laconian is attested in inscriptions on pottery and stone from the seventh century BC. A dedication to Helen dates from the second quarter of the seventh century. Taras was founded in 706 and its founders must already have spoken Laconic. Many documents from the state of Sparta survive, whose citizens called themselves Lacedaemonians after the name of the valley in which they lived. Homer calls it "hollow Lacedaemon", though he refers to a pre-Dorian period. The seventh century Spartan poet Alcman used a dialect that some consider to be predominantly Laconian. Philoxenus of Alexandria wrote a treatise On the Laconian dialect.
Argolic Argolic was spoken in the thickly settled northeast Peloponnese at, for example, Argos, Mycenae, Hermione, Troezen, Epidaurus, and as close to Athens as the island of Aegina. As Mycenaean Greek had been spoken in this dialect region in the Bronze Age, it is clear that the Dorians overran it but were unable to take Attica. The Dorians went on from Argos to Crete and Rhodes.
Ample inscriptional material of a legal, political and religious content exists from at least the sixth century BC.
Corinthian Corinthian was spoken first in the isthmus region between the Peloponnesus and mainland Greece; that is, the Isthmus of Corinth. The cities and states of the Corinthian dialect region were Corinth, Sicyon, Archaies Kleones, Phlius, the colonies of Corinth in western Greece: Corcyra, Leucas, Anactorium, Ambracia and others, the colonies in and around Italy: Syracuse, Sicily and Ancona, and the colonies of Corcyra: Dyrrachium, and Apollonia. The earliest inscriptions at Corinth date from the early sixth century BC. They use a Corinthian epichoric alphabet. (See under Attic Greek.)
Corinth contradicts the prejudice that Dorians were rustic militarists, as some consider the speakers of Laconian to be. Positioned on an international trade route, Corinth played a leading part in the re-civilizing of Greece after the centuries of disorder and isolation following the collapse of Mycenaean Greece.
Northwest Doric
The Northwest Doric or Northwest Greek (with Northwest Doric now considered more accurate so as not to distance the group from Doric proper) group is closely related to Doric proper. Whether it is to be considered a part of the southern Doric Group or the latter a part of it or the two considered subgroups of West Greek, the dialects and their grouping remain the same. West Thessalian and Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Doric influence.
While Northwest Doric is generally seen as a dialectal group, dissenting views exist, such as that of Méndez-Dosuna, who argues that Northwest Doric is not a proper dialectal group but rather merely a case of areal dialectal convergence. Throughout the Northwest Doric area, most internal differences did not hinder mutual understanding, though Filos, citing Bubenik, notes that there were certain cases where a bit of accommodation may have been necessary.
The earliest epigraphic texts for Northwest Doric date to the 6th–5th century BC. These are thought to provide evidence for Northwest Doric features, especially the phonology and morphophonology, but most of the features thus attributed to Northwest Doric are not exclusive to it. The Northwest Doric dialects differ from the main Doric Group dialects in the below features:Mendez Dosuna, Doric dialects, p. 452 online at Google Books). Dative plural of the third declension in (-ois) (instead of (-si)): Akarnanois hippeois for Akarnasin hippeusin (to the Acarnanian knights). (en) + accusative (instead of (eis)): en Naupakton (into Naupactus). (-st) for (-sth): genestai for genesthai (to become), mistôma for misthôma (payment for hiring). ar for er: amara /Dor. amera/Att. hêmera (day), Elean wargon for Doric wergon and Attic ergon (work) Dative singular in -oi instead of -ôi: , Doric , Attic (to Asclepius) Middle participle in -eimenos instead of -oumenos
Four or five dialects of Northwestern Doric are recognised.
Phocian
This dialect was spoken in Phocis and in its main settlement of Delphi, where a local form known as the Delphian dialect was spoken. Plutarch says that Delphians pronounce b in the place of p ( for ). Greek questions 9.
Locrian
Locrian Greek is attested in two locations: Ozolian Locris, along the northwest coast of the Gulf of Corinth around Amfissa (earliest );IG IX,1² 3:609 Opuntian Locris, on the coast of mainland Greece opposite northwest Euboea, around Opus.
Aetolian The dialect of ancient Aetolia. Livy reports that Aetolians spoke the same language with Acarnanians and Macedonians. Thucydides claims that Eurytanes spoke a very difficult language and ate their food completely raw; they were described as semi-barbaric, warlike, and predatory.
Northwest Doric koine
The Northwest Doric koine refers to a supraregional North-West common variety that emerged in the third and second centuries BC, and was used in the official texts of the Aetolian League. Such texts have been found in W. Locris, Phocis, and Phtiotis, among other sites. It contained a mix of native Northwest Doric dialectal elements and Attic forms. It was apparently based on the most general features of Northwest Doric, eschewing less common local traits.
Its rise was driven by both linguistic and non-linguistic factors, with non-linguistic motivating factors including the spread of the rival Attic-Ionic koine after it was recruited by the Macedonian state for administration, and the political unification of a vast territories by the Aetolian League and the state of Epirus. The Northwest Doric koine was thus both a linguistic and a political rival of the Attic-Ionic koine.
Acarnanian The dialect of ancient Acarnania.
Epirote
Epirote Greek was spoken at the Dodona oracle, (earliest –500 BC)Lamelles Oraculaires 77. firstly under control of the Thesprotians; later organized in the Epirote League (since ) under the control of Molossians.Cabanes, L'Épire de la mort de Pyrrhos a la conquête romaine (272–167 av. J.C.). Paris 1976, p. 534,1.
Upper Macedonian In the region of Upper Macedonia, the tribes of Elimiotae, Orestae, Lyncestae, and Pelagones, were all Epirotic Molossian tribes and used the Northwest Greek dialect.
Ancient Macedonian
Most scholars maintain that ancient Macedonian was a Greek dialect, probably of the Northwestern Doric group in particular. Olivier Masson, in his article for The Oxford Classical Dictionary, talks of "two schools of thought": one rejecting "the Greek affiliation of Macedonian" and preferring "to treat it as an Indo-European language of the Balkans" of contested affiliation (examples are Bonfante 1987, and Russu 1938); the other favouring "a purely Greek nature of Macedonian as a northern Greek dialect" with numerous adherents from the 19th century and on (Fick 1874; Hoffmann 1906; Hatzidakis 1897 etc.; Kalleris 1964 and 1976).
Masson himself argues with the largely Greek character of the Macedonian onomastics and sees Macedonian as "a Greek dialect, characterised by its marginal position and by local pronunciations" and probably most closely related to the dialects of the Greek North-West (Locrian, Aetolian, Phocidian, Epirote). Brian D. Joseph acknowledges the closeness of Macedonian to Greek (even contemplating to group them into a "Hellenic branch" of Indo-European), but retains that "[t]he slender evidence is open to different interpretations, so that no definitive answer is really possible".Brian D. Joseph: "Ancient Greek". In: J. Garry et al. (eds.): Facts about the world's major languages: an encyclopedia of the world's major languages, past and present. Online paper , 2001. Johannes Engels has pointed to the Pella curse tablet, written in Doric Greek: "This has been judged to be the most important ancient testimony to substantiate that Macedonian was a north-western Greek and mainly a Doric dialect".Johannes Engels: "Macedonians and Greeks", p. 95. In: Joseph Roisman, Ian Worthington: A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. Chapter 5. John Wiley & Sons, New York 2011. Georgios Giannakis supports the view that recent scholarship has established the position of ancient Macedonian within the dialect map of North-West Greek. There has been some recent scholarly agreement, often expressed as cautious or tentative, that ancient Macedonian belongs to the Northwest Greek group.