Although members of the general Classics constituency may too readily overlook this volume, especially given its title, its 22 studies will be of value to anyone with an interest in oracles, Greeks as interstate actors, trade in the Mediterranean, movements of populations, ethnic identity, the uptake of particular cults, Hellenisation and acculturation, the history of scholarship and the impact of ideology, the early stages of the transmission of literature (especially of Archilochus), the language of Sappho and the implications for the development of epos of sharpened understandings of the dialect geography of central Greece early in the first millennium bce, to name just a few of the topics that its 20 contributors explore. In light of newer evidence and through fresh examination of familiar inscriptions, long-standing debates, both about relationships between dialects and about particular features, are either revisited and furthered or refuted and reframed.
Approximately one-seventh of the volume consists of the survey by J.L. García Ramón, which, like the ‘Introductory Remarks’, provides a state of the art with particular attention not only to geographical and social variation with dialects, but also to linguistic contact and areal linguistics, with suggestions about the biggest gains still to be made. García Ramón focuses on what can be done within the limitations of our epigraphic evidence while longing for different kinds of evidence. His discussion is thorough-going and refreshingly realistic, but, at times, borders on polemic. H. Parker (as elsewhere in this volume), M. Finkelberg and C. Brixhe receive particular attention.
García Ramón helpfully opens up a question (pp. 67–70) that is crucial both for this volume and for Greek dialectology as well as other fields that involve a family-tree model to some extent, whether explicitly (e.g. textual stemmatics) or implicitly (e.g. cultural continuity or contact). How can we distinguish – reliably – between shared innovations, which are sometimes taken to be the only criteria for establishing genetic relationships, and independent, but identical, innovations that are simply coincidental? (The application by M. Scarborough of statistical models and probability theory may help to distinguish reliably between innovations that could only be inherited and innovations that could, and did, occur anywhere.) This question is variously approached and instructive comments are made. García Ramón expresses caution about bundles of isoglosses (p. 61), while R. Janko suggests that Boeotian's treatment of syllabic r, which is identical with that in Thessalian and Lesbian, might have an explanation other than inheritance from Aeolic (i.e. it may be from the Mycenaean elites of Thebes and Orchomenos; p. 122). Others acknowledge the impossibility of excluding independent emergence of the same innovations (N. Pantelidis, pp. 168–9) and uncertainty about whether a particular feature is a shared or an exclusive innovation, an archaism or an isogloss (R. Hodot, p. 461; cf. B.D. Joseph, p. 209; P. Filos, p. 239; M.B. Hatzopoulos, p. 303). Dialects may have faced the same morphological problem independently and may have selected independently from a specific range of possible solutions (Pantelidis, p. 160).
R. Janko, in his updated response to J. Chadwick's ‘Who were the Dorians?’ (1976), rightly criticises the dichotomy between archaeology and linguistics in the Late Bronze Age and the false allocation of scripts and alphabets within that dichotomy. He particularly emphasises that the chronological dimension of sound change has been unduly neglected. Parker again receives attention, but this time with partial agreement (pp. 110, 119 and 122). He proposes a new North (i.e. West) Greek isogloss that involves laryngeals preserved as such (between consonants) and treated in one way in North Greek (e.g. πρᾶτος and ἱαρός: contrast B. Helly, p. 367) and in another in South Greek (πρῶτος, ἱερός). His treatment of ἱαρός (North Greek), ἱερός (South Greek) and ἰρός (East Ionic; not Lesbian *ἴρρος) should touch on the text and dialect of Sappho 44.6 L–P (cf. 94.25 and, e.g., Alcaeus 42.4 L–P). Janko's conclusions that Ionic and Aeolic alike emerged in 1400–1200 bce surely have implications for the development of the Kunstsprache of epos, but any such implications remain to be explored, and the distinguishing features of that Ionic are not discussed (except syllabic r as ar/ra). Janko's tabulations of distinguishing features and of interrelations are illuminating.
The remaining studies will not receive here the detailed consideration that they deserve. A. Striano discusses (with a focus on terminology) the existence of one North-West Doric κοινά in the Aetolian League or several such κοιναί and the implications of this for the history of such varieties. V. Bubenik approaches a single North-West Doric κοινά with ‘sociolinguistic concerns’ (with much of value about morphological change). Boeotian, already separated from Aeolic by Janko (p. 122), is considered as part of a dialect continuum (with a thorough and accessible analysis of the features of Boeotian) by Pantelidis, while Joseph argues against Sprachbund as the right label for linguistic contact between Ancient Greek and Albanian. A. Cassio sees a multiplicity of factors behind the repeated formation of datives in -(ε)εσσι in various non-Aeolic dialect areas and, thus, rules out an Aeolic substrate in Doric areas (e.g. Heraclean and Cyrenaean Doric) and presents ἐπέεσσι etc. in Homer not as artificial, but as a metrically convenient extension in real Aeolic. We return to the crucial question already discussed about innovations that appear shared, but may have various origins at multiple times of innovation, while the discussions of Koineization, dialect continua and linguistic contact well exemplify the approaches outlined by the ‘Introductory Remarks’ and by García Ramón.
The corpus that receives the most linguistic study is the 4,000 recently-published lemellae from the interstate sanctuary of Dodona (500–167 bce). These exhibit ‘a dialect diversity that defies comparison with other Pan-Hellenic sanctuaries’ (p. 265), the first attestations of some forms and ‘mutually contradictory’ features (p. 273). S. Tselikas focuses on Doric inquiries, J. Méndez Dosuna on non-Doric (Attic-Ionic, Thessalian [subdivided geographically], Boeotian and perhaps Macedonian). The caution about singular misspellings is welcome. The preceding study of the dialect of Epirus by Filos situates this dialect's features in relation to North-West Doric, its κοινά and linguistic contact, after discussion of sources and script. We have here significant groundwork for fruitful study of an invaluable corpus of low-register dialect documents.
Thessalian is the single dialect to which most studies are dedicated. Helly combines recent approaches in linguistics with inscriptions published in the last 40 years towards a diachronic description of the dialect. Nineteenth-century Dialektgeographie is superseded by necessary consideration of areal phenomena. E. Nieto Izquierdo questions the existence of palatalised consonants and shows that gemination without palatalisation is also plausible. The discussion of the absorption of yod after /s, r/ (as also in Lesbian) should be applied to questions about the text and language of Sappho 44.9–10 L–P. Méndez Dosuna argues that the secondary third-plural ending -(ι)εν arose not from the optative, but from the imperfect (an inherently more plausible source). One Thessalian inscription published first in 2013 (AEML 92/40) provides J. de la Villa with a test bed for the study of verbal aspect and modality. Perfectivity is presented as the sole opposition (rather than durative present against punctual aorist and both against the resulting-state perfect), and the imperative is shown to have a particular role as the closing part of a series of instructions. A. Lillo presents a new explanation for the Thessalian conjunction πόκκι (πότ (τὸ) κί ~ Koiné πρὸς τὸ τί) on the basis that the Thessalian text in IG IX, 2 517 is not a translation of the preceding Koiné letter of Philip V, but the Thessalians’ report and decree in response. An exemplary close analysis follows.
E. Crespo considers the distinguishing feature of Macedonian (appropriately qualified as ‘(Ancient)’) of <β, δ, γ> either for <π, τ, κ> or for <φ, θ, χ> in comparison with Western Proto-Romance and Insular Celtic. These interchanges are found not to be unconditioned sound changes, but internal developments within a Greek dialect. Hatzopoulos also sees this phenomenon as a ‘tendency … under certain conditions’ (p. 323). His survey of approaches to Macedonian and discussion of the various kinds of evidence available will fuel subsequent debate.
Lesbian is the focus of two studies: first, by Finkelberg, in relation to Ionic and the ‘Aeolic’ dialects and second, by Hodot, in the precise sense of the dialect of Lesbos, not of Asiatic Aeolic in general. Finkelberg engages with the important question of ‘the provenance of Lesbian’ (p. 448) and argues against Parker and E. Risch, on the basis of innovations, selections and retentions shared with Thessalian and other non-Ionic dialects, that Lesbian already had its East Greek features before (some of) its speakers migrated and came into contact with speakers of Ionic in the Eastern Aegean. The categorisation of the evidence is questionable and, thus, the presentation of the case, through numbers in each category, is weakened. Again, the problem is what counts as a significant innovation or a selection or a retention. The presentation increases the number of shared innovations between Lesbian and non-Ionic dialects, while reducing selections and retentions, a point of particular value if only shared innovations are thought admissible for establishing genetic relationships between dialects. It is noteworthy that Lesbian psilosis does not feature (a contrast with Thessalian, but not with Ionic in Asia Minor). Hodot also responds to the arguments advanced by Parker in his survey of what little can be known about the where, when and how of Lesbian from its earliest attestations as far as the fourth century ad. He asserts that the shortfall cannot be remedied either by prehistoric dialectology or by comparison with remote dialects. Along the way, he reports invaluable clarifications of the exact nature of features of Lesbian that have been central to its study, such as the use of adjectives in -ιος.
Two of the three studies in ‘North Ionic and the Black Sea’ concern the script and dialect of the metropolis of Paros and its colony Thasos, with a particular focus on psilosis in the colony, but not the metropolis. A. Alonso Déniz uses this discrepancy to explain aspiration in the text of Archilochus (himself a Parian pioneer to Thasos) on the basis that Thasos played a role in the transmission of his compositions. The presence of -εος as the genitive singular of masculine ᾱ-stems in Archilochus, a feature of Thasian Greek, is adduced in support. The use of the accusative counterpart in masculine ᾱ-stems in Hipponax (77.1 W.), without Thasian connections, is not considered. M.L. del Barrio Vega's first study continues beyond Thasos to its peraea, Samothrace, Abdera and Maroneia, and ends with Greek and Thracian (theophoric) onomastics of the North Aegean. Her second study examines linguistic contacts between the dialects of Doric and non-Doric colonies. She finds common developments in the Greek of Pontus and that Ionic was more influential than Doric. Linguistic data are used to evaluate hypotheses based on literary sources exactly in line with Janko's desires.
The individual studies, which are bibliographically self-contained, are fruitfully grouped so as to be in dialogue with one another. The indexes, both general and locorum (literary and epigraphic separately), will facilitate further dialogue. However, the absence of an index verborum leaves the various explanations of φάρω and forms of ἱερός unhelpfully isolated, although some connections (e.g. datives in -εσσι) can be followed through the general index.
