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What is the difference between Ecclesiastical Greek, and normal Greek?


Dominus Vobiscum,


Sam

The answer to that question, I think, depends entirely on what one means by 'normal Greek'.

To me, 'normal Greek' refers to Classical Attic Greek - the language of Athens in the 5th century B.C. - while to others it refers to the modern language as it exists among Greeks now.

Medieval Greek: The continuation of Hellenistic Greek during medieval Greek history as the official and vernacular (if not the literary nor the ecclesiastic) language of the Byzantine Empire, and continued to be used until, and after the fall of that Empire in the 15th century. Also known as Byzantine Greek.

Modern Greek: Stemming independently from Koine Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the late Byzantine period (as early as 11th century).
A section of the Codex Alexandrinus. This section contains Luke 12:54-13:4.Two main forms of the language have been in use since the end of the medieval Greek period: Dhimotik� (Δημοτική), the Demotic (vernacular) language, and Kathar�vousa (Καθαρεύουσα), an imitation of classical Greek, which was used for literary, juridic, and scientific purposes during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Demotic Greek is now the official language of the modern Greek state, and the most widely spoken by Greeks today.

Hope this helps to explain the 2 different forms of Greek used in Church and daily life.

ICXC
NIKA

Κοινη (that's pronounced Key-knee, accent on second syllable, but usually spelled in English Koine) Greek originated with a trade language based on a simplified classical Greek and eventually spread all over the Mediterranean before the time of Christ. This is of interest to us because Κοινη is the language of the Septuagint, the New Testament, and much of the patristic and liturgical corpus. No one actually speaks it as a vernacular language anymore.

Closely related to Κοινη, however is Φαναριοτη, which is not the lingo of light-house keepers (nor of maids who do light housekeeping, for that matter) but is instead the variety of Greek used at the Phanar for official documents and semi-official letters - it's somewhere between Κοινη and Καθαρεβουσα, but closer to Κοινη.

As if all that were not enough, there are any number of local variants of Greek, depending not only on the place but also on the period.

English, in all fairness, is equally complicated. Not only does the ability to read the New York Daily News not indicate that someone is able to read Alexander Pope, let alone Chaucer, but even someone who reads Chaucer fluently may find Beowulf incomprehensible. "Hear a Yorshireman or worse, hear a Cornishman converse - I'd rather hear a choir singing flat!" Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady knew what he was talking about.

Better yet: about 20 years ago I had a visitor from Romania, who had an earned doctorate from Oxford and believed herself to speak English (which she did, fluently). I introduced a student from the USA who, despite holding an earned MA, had no spoken language but American slang of that period; my guest from Romania spent most of the evening attempting - unsuccessfully - to discern what the Yank was saying.

Incognitus