Ancient Greek was never a homogeneous language like many modern “standardized” languages. The language of Homer’s poems was not the same as that of Leonidas of the famed 300. These different dialects were used not only by separate political entites, but also within each state, they were used for different genres of literature. The main dialects that a reader of Greek would expect to encounter are: Epic Greek, the language of homer, Ionic Greek, the language of Herodotos and Arkhilokhos, Attic, the main “classical” language of Plato, Aeolic, a more archaic variant used by Sappho, the coarse Doric Greek of the Spartans, and the Koine, the “common” dialect of Alexander the Great’s army.
Epic Greek was the language of Homer and of all epic poetry. It consisted mainly of Old Ionic with some Aeolicisms, although some Attic influence crept in through the manuscripts over the course of time. All subsequent literature was influenced by it to varying degrees, indeed, the Homeric poems were the earliest recorded literature in Western history. Epic Greek was never used as a spoken language among the Hellenes, at least, not according to archaeological and linguistical evidence, but it might have been possible that spoken variants similar to it were used in the 8th century BC. Besides the main Homeric poems, the Batrachomyomachia (the War of Frogs and Mice), a mock-epic, the Dionysiaca, a poem about Dionysis in the 4th century AD were also written in this dialect. Although it was never spoken, all Greeks understood this language; even the most uneducated of Greeks was likely to have heard a performance of the Iliad and hence this dialect.
Ionic Greek can be considered a niece to Epic Greek. It was the language of the numerous Greek colonies on the Asia Minor coast. Herodotos is the most well-known of authors in this language; his Histories recorded the rise of the Persian empire and the battle of the 300 Spartans. Attic is a close relative of Ionic such that linguists group them under the Attic-Ionic group. Indeed, Athens was founded by colonists from Ionia, colonists of colonists, you might say!
Attic Greek is the product of the cultural flowering of Athens in its heyday. The Athenian navy dominated the Aegean sea and Athenian culture flooded the gates of all Greek cities. Plato’s philosophical dialogus, Aristophanes’ plays, Xenophon’s Anabasis and many more were based on this dialect. It was regarded as the “Classical” and most correct form of Greek, quite erroneously, ever since the second century BC.
Of Aeolic, we have little but Sappho’s poems left. It was quite different from the former three dialects, and this perhaps accounts for its absence in the manuscript record; the monks who copied ancient texts didn’t understand it themselves and left it alone.
Doric Greek was another archaic variant of Greek, preserving the /a/ sound where Attic-Ionic turned it into a /e/ sound like the vowel in English “where”. It is used in the Choral portions of tragedies where it is sung to produce a primitive, sad, ambience. Little literature was produced in this dialect, after all, the Spartans were fighters rather than philosophers.
