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Arcadocypriot, or southern Achaean, was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia in the central Peloponnese and in Cyprus. Its resemblance to Mycenaean Greek, as it is known from the Linear B corpus, suggests that Arcadocypriot is its descendant.
| Arcadocypriot Greek | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Region | Arcadia, Cyprus | |||
| Era | c. 1200 – 300 BC[citation needed] | |||
| ||||
Early forms | ||||
| Greek alphabet Cypriot syllabary | ||||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | – | |||
grc-arc | ||||
| Glottolog | arca1234 | |||
Distribution of Greek dialects in Greece in the classical period.[1]
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In Cyprus the dialect was written using solely the Cypriot syllabary. The most extensive surviving text of the dialect is the Idalion Tablet.[2] A significant literary source on the vocabulary comes from the lexicon of 5th century AD grammarian Hesychius.
Proto-Arcadocypriot (around 1200 BC) is supposed to have been spoken by Achaeans in the Peloponnese before the arrival of Dorians, so it is also called southern Achaean. The isoglosses of the Cypriot and Arcadian dialects testify that the Achaeans had settled in Cyprus. As Pausanias reported:
Agapenor, the son of Ancaeus, the son of Lycurgus, who was king after Echemus, led the ArcadianstoTroy. After the capture of Troy the storm that overtook the Greeks on their return home carried Agapenor and the Arcadian fleet to Cyprus, and so Agapenor became the founder of Paphos, and built the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Palaepaphos (Old Paphos).[3]
The establishment happened before 1100 BC. With the arrival of Dorians in the Peloponnese, a part of the population moved to Cyprus, and the rest was limited to the Arcadian mountains.
According to John T Hooker, the preferable explanation for the general historico-linguistic picture is
that in the Bronze Age, at the time of the great Mycenaean expansion, a dialect of a high degree of uniformity was spoken both in Cyprus and in the Peloponnese but that at some subsequent epoch the speakers of West Greek intruded upon the Peloponnese and occupied the coastal states, but made no significant inroads into Arcadia.[4]
After the collapse of the Mycenaean world, communication ended, and Cypriot was differentiated from Arcadian. It was written until the 3rd century BC using the Cypriot syllabary.[5][6]
Tsan was a letter in use only in Arcadia until around the 6th century BC. Arcadocypriot kept many characteristics of Mycenaean, early lost in Attic and Ionic, such as the /w/ sound (digamma).
| Arcadian word | English transliteration | Meaning | Other Greek dialects |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἀμφιδεκάτη | amphidekatê | 21st of the month ἡ μετὰ εἰκάδα ἡμέρα | (ampheikas)(dekatê tenth) |
| ἄνωδα | anôda | up-side | Attic ἄνωθε anôthe |
| ἄρμωλα | armôlaorἀρμώμαλα armômala | food seasoning | Attic ἀρτύματα artymata; ἀρτύω artyo |
| ἄσιστος | asistos | nearest | Attic ἄγχιστος anchistos |
| δάριν | darin or dareir | span of all fingers; see Ancient Greek units of measurement | Attic σπιθαμή spithame, inch) |
| Ἑκατόμβαιος | Hecatombaios | epithet for Apollo in Athens and for Zeus in Gortys (Arcadia) and Gortyna, Crete | |
| Ϝιστίαυ | Wistiau | Attic Hestiou, eponym genitive of Hestios; Cf.Hestia and gistia) | |
| ϝοῖνος | woinos | wine | Cypriot, Cretan, Delphic, Magna Graecian; Attic oinos |
| ζέλλω | zellô | "throw, put, let, cast" | Attic βάλλω ballô |
| ζέρεθρον | zerethron | pit | (Homeric, Attic βέρεθρον berethron; (Koine barathron) |
| θύρδα | thyrda | outside | Attic ἔξω exô, thyra door; (Paphian θόρανδε thorande |
| ἴν | in | in, inside | Attic en; Cypriot id. |
| κάθιδος | kathidos | water-jug | Attic ὑδρία hydria; (Tarentine huetos) |
| κάς | kas | and | Attic καί kai; Cypriotic id. |
| κίδαρις | kidaris | Arcadian dance (Athenaeus 14.631d.)[7] and Demetra Kidaria in Arcadia. | |
| κόρϝα | korwa | girl | Attic korê; Pamphylian name Κορϝαλίνα Korwalina |
| Κορτύνιοι | Kortynioi | (Kortys or Gortys (Arcadia)) | |
| κυβήβη | kubêbê | boot, shoe | Attic hypodema |
| Λῆναι | Lênai | Bacchae (Lenaeus Dionysus, Lenaia festival | |
| μωρίαι | môriai | horses, cattle | |
| οὔνη | ounêorounei | come on! Go! | Attic δεῦρο, δράμε deuro, drame |
| πέσσεται | pessetai | it is cooked, roasted | Attic ὀπτᾶται optatai |
| πος | pos | towards, into | Attic προς pros; Cypriot id. !
ποσκατυβλάψη[8] poskatublapse (Attic proskatablapsei) |
| σίς[9] | sis | who, anyone | Attic tis; Laconian tir; Thessalian kis; Cypr. sis (si se) |
