This volume is a welcome contribution to the growing body of work on ancient Greek contact linguistics. As many previous ones, it has emerged from a conference with the same theme: the various contact-related phenomena that have shaped the linguistic landscape of ancient Greek. This being the case, the volume includes a remarkable selection of topics from different areas and periods where and when Greek was spoken. At the same time this volume is a result of a conference with a specific theme, linguistic (not language; sic) contact and the effects it has left in Greek in space and time; therefore, the contents are more uniform than for most publications of conference proceedings.

The volume is written in three languages: the primary language French, and English and Spanish (with abstracts in other languages). There is a useful index, and the introduction is a good source of information on the topic, including details on the general research history related to the always present language contact with Greek and more than two pages of references. The volume is organised into three parts: contact with other languages, contact related to writing systems and interdialectal contact within ancient Greek.

The first part focuses on contact between ancient Greek and other languages. It offers chapters on interesting topics such as the linguistic and cultural contacts in Eastern Macedonia (D. Dana), onomastics and linguistic contact in Aegean Thrace (P.G. Ruano), interlinguistic names in the ancient Mediterranean, looked at from the point of view of taxonomy and phenomenology of onomastic acculturation (S. Minon), research into Lycian-Greek assonance names, with an outline of a methodology (F. Réveilhac), linguistic contacts and lexical borrowings from non-Greek languages in the Tarentine dialect (A. Viredaz), and an example of Roman Greek from Isthmia, studying Greek and Latin in contact (L. Nastasi). All contributions are well written; especially interesting is Réveilhac’s account of Lycian-Greek cover names and their form being based on assonance.

The second part focuses on the lesser-researched topic of the diffusion of writing systems and linguistic contacts. In this section readers are offered research focusing on writing systems, with P. Steele investigating the regional approaches to the development of writing systems in Greece and Cyprus and J.V. Méndez Dosuna the differing conventions for the depictions of the letter X in local archaic Greek scripts. Both chapters are engaging, with Steele offering a thorough account of the (small, but rather surprising) impact of the Greek alphabetic system on the Cypriot syllabic script.

The third part focuses on Greek-internal variation through dialect contact. L. van Beek studies the athematic infinitives in Lesbian, Homer and other Greek dialects, examining whether they are linguistic innovations, archaisms or a result of contact (with other Greek varieties). O. Tribulato digs into the -εσσι datives in Sicilian Doric, again wondering whether the forms had come about due to borrowing through contact or as independent developments (or a combination of the two). These kinds of ideas have also been presented (in a rather different form and framework) in a recent study (M. Capano and M. Bianconi, TPhS 121 [2023]). M.L. del Barrio Vega writes about the cult-related legacy of linguistic contact connected to the calendars that Greek colonists brought with them from their cities of origin: in cases where the months of a city are unknown or lacking in definition, they can be reconstructed from the calendars in their colonies. J. Curbera gives thoughts on Phryne’s name, offering a new explanation for the names in Φρυν- through a folkloric figure bearing the same name as the toad. A. Blanc writes about Boeotian anthroponyms in -ει and the name of the Theban Τελλη in Delphic inscriptions. E. Nieto Izquierdo studies an isogloss of the Dorian dialects of the south-eastern Aegean Sea, focusing on the extension of the suffix -εια in onomastics. Finally, Alonso Déniz studies the dialectal variation in ancient Crete in the seventh to fifth centuries bce.

Many of the contributions are excellent pieces of research, offering novel information on the subjects they examine. Due to limitations of space, I will focus on two chapters in more detail, both from the second part of the volume. The first of these is Steele’s chapter on the writing systems of Greece and Cyprus, studying the regional approaches of these in terms of the development of the writing systems (in general), and their individual traditions and practices. The chapter offers a remarkably insightful and thorough introduction into writing systems; how they relate to grapheme-phoneme correspondences and act in borrowing individual signs or whole systems from the writing systems of other languages; what kinds of internal developments they can go through due to language changes and what kinds of cognitive aspects are required for writing; all this is combined with references to the general history of research into writing systems etc. (pp. 147–53). The introduction is so informative that it is highly recommended reading for anyone studying text (i.e. corpus) languages with only written material available as well as to phonologists and researchers of orthography.

Steele moves on to explain how graphic change can come about in contact, using archaic Greek regional diversity as a paradigmatic case study. This type of graphic change is often connected to linguistic factors, and they show a connection with graphic and dialectal diversity in the case of Greek alphabetic variations, but sometimes it concerns other factors such as sign confusability: when two signs look too similar with one another, or what signs are selected to match the phoneme inventory available in a given regional variety (pp. 153–7). However, purely graphic change may be possible without any linguistic connection, simply by way of becoming aware of an innovation in another writing system and copying it into one’s own. Steele makes a compelling case that the letter X, available in many Greek dialects in the archaic era, may have been borrowed by the Cypriot syllabic writing system from the Greek alphabet and not the other way around, as has previously been hypothesised (pp. 157–60). There is no reason to doubt Steele’s reasoning as people in antiquity obviously had the same curiosity towards trying new inventions as those in modern times, which is proven by the transference of foreign material culture into societies through contact. But not only is this outcome logical from the point of view of the possibility of borrowability, Steele’s article is written clearly, and the thinking behind the analysis is described in a way that leaves no room for vagueness.

Second, continuing in the realm of writing systems, is Méndez Dosuna’s account of the differing phonemic realisations in Greek dialects of the letter X. This is a nice continuation of Steele’s chapter as Méndez Dosuna not only studies the same grapheme, but Steele also credits Méndez Dosuna for finding the link between the letter X in the Greek alphabets and its appearance in the Cypriot one(s). Méndez Dosuna goes into great detail in presenting the variants in the archaic Greek dialectal areas and, after providing arguments for phonetic and non-phonetic reasons behind the variation, comes to the same conclusion as Steele in her much wider look at all the Greek regional variants compared to the Cypriot ones: the variation is non-phonetic. The placement of the two articles makes the reading experience very enjoyable, even if I do not agree with all aspects of Méndez Dosuna’s argumentation (e.g. allophones are often heard quite clearly by second language users, and it is not unimaginable that some of the writers of Greek could have been second language speakers; see pp. 174–6).

One of the riches of this volume is that it offers information on language (or linguistic) contact scenarios that have not been the focus of recent somewhat similar volumes on contact-related variation in ancient Greek (e.g. M. Leiwo, M. Vierros and S. Dahlgren [edd.], Papers On Ancient Greek Linguistics [2020] and S. Dahlgren, M. Leiwo and M. Vierros [edd.], Scribes and Language Use in the Graeco-Roman World [2024]). Many earlier volumes have largely concentrated on Egyptian–Greek and Latin–Greek contact through papyrological evidence; in the present volume there are accounts of a more varied contact-base with Greek and research focusing on earlier contact. The only issues with the volume are technical ones. The division of the volume into three parts seems a little artificial, especially since Part 2 has only two chapters. Furthermore, while it is understandable to include the interdialectal part within the volume, it nevertheless stands out as somewhat unconnected to the general theme as can be understood from the title of the volume. Technically, even dialectal contact is linguistic contact, but the phenomena of language contact (with other languages) are often very different. The chapters are worthwhile explorations of the historical changes in ancient Greek, but perhaps the title of the book could have better reflected the contents if titled with an overall theme of variation. These, however, are small matters and in no way diminish the quality of the research in the volume, which is an excellent addition to any ancient Greek linguist’s library.