Byzantine Greek

Medieval Greek
Byzantine Greek
Ἑλληνική Ellinikí
Region	eastern Mediterranean
Era	developed into Modern Greek by ca. 1500
Language family	Indo-European Hellenic Medieval Greek
Early forms	Proto-Greek Ancient Greek Koine Greek
Writing system	Greek alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	(i.e. with Ancient Greek
Linguist list	`qgk`
Glottolog	None
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Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, is the stage of the Greek language between the end of Classical antiquity in the 5th-6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally dated to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. From the 7th century onwards, Greek was the only language of administration and government in the Byzantine Empire. This stage of language is thus described as Byzantine Greek. The study of the Medieval Greek language and literature is a branch of Byzantine Studies, or Byzantinology, the study of the history and culture of the Byzantine Empire.

The beginning of Medieval Greek is occasionally dated back to as early as the 4th century, either to 330 AD, when the political centre of the Roman Empire was moved to Constantinople, or to 395 AD, the division of the Empire. However, this approach is rather arbitrary as it is more an assumption of political as opposed to cultural and linguistic developments. Indeed, by this time the spoken language, particularly pronunciation, had already shifted towards modern forms. The conquests of Alexander, and the ensuing Hellenistic period, had caused Greek to spread to peoples throughout Anatolia and the Eastern Mediterranean, altering the spoken language's pronunciation and structure. Medieval Greek is the link between this vernacular, known as Koine Greek, and the Modern Greek language. Though Byzantine Greek literature was still strongly influenced by Ancient Greek, it was also influenced by vernacular Koine Greek, which is the language of the New Testament and the liturgical language of the church.

With the transfer of the Roman imperial court to Byzantium (Constantinople) between 324 and 330, the political centre of the Roman Empire was moved into an area where Greek was the dominant language. At first, Latin remained the language of both the court and the army and it was used for official documents, but its influence soon waned. From the beginning of the 6th century, amendments to the law were mostly written in Greek.

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