| Group |
Greek |
| Geography |
Arcadia was the internal district of the Peloponnessus peninsula. In
ancient times, there was no large cities here, the region was rural and
therefore few documents of the Arcadian dialects can be found. The Cypriot
dialects resembles Arcadian very much and obviously represents the same
subgroup of Greek. The speech of Pamphylia, a small Greek-speaking region
of South Asia Minor, is also sometimes referred to this subgroup. |
| History |
It is often thought that Arcado-Cypriot is a descendant of the language
spoken by Achaeans - the first Greeks on the Balkan peninsula, those who
built Mycenae and struggled
with Troy. At least the archaism of phonetics and morphology make the Mycenaean
and the Arcado-Cypriot languages cognate. After Doric tribes come to Greece
in the 12th century BC,
the dialect of Achaeans could survive only in the mountainous center of
Peloponnessus, and in Cyprus. |
| Phonetics |
In phonetics, Arcadian demonstrates its archaism in conserving the
initial w-, and the long Indo-European Р±. |
| Morphology |
One of the interesting features of Arcadian is the form of the genitive
singular of nouns which had -au ending unique among Greek
dialects. |
| Lexicon |
A lot of ancient vocabulary was preserved. |
| Writing |
Greek alphabet |
| Close Contacts |
Aeolian is the closest relative in Greece. |
| Sample |
|
| Picture |
 |
| More info |
|