The meaning of the word "koine. Greek language

means everyday communication, which connects people who speak different regional or social variants given language. In the role of Koine, supra-dialect forms of the language can act - a kind of inter-dialects. An example of Koine is an urban Koine serving the needs of everyday, mainly oral communication. different groups urban population, in which masses of people with different speech skills are mixed. In addition to urban Koine, the Koine of the area, i.e., a certain territory in which a given language is spoken, is distinguished. Thus, in the multilingual Republic of Mali (Africa), the Bamana language, which has a supra-dialectal form, is used as Koine. The concept of Koine is also applied to written forms of the language, such as Latin, which was used as the language of science in medieval Europe.

Great Definition

Incomplete definition ↓

Koine

An oral means of inter-dialect (more rarely - inter-ethnic) communication, developed during social and linguistic contact of various groups of the population. Initially, the term "Koine" was used to refer to oral speech that arose during the communication of speakers of various dialects in Ancient Greece. In modern linguistics, K. is understood as a means of everyday communication used by people who speak different social and regional variants of the language (cf .: interdialect). Historically, language may precede the appearance of writing and serve as the basis for the formation of a literary language. For example, the Central Russian dialect is K., which was formed in Moscow and the Moscow region as a result of a long interaction between the North Russian and South Russian dialects, on the basis of which the Great Russian literary language was created. As a rule, K. is a means of oral communication, but sometimes this term is also used in relation to the written forms of the language. For example, the London city language acted as a supra-dialectal form both in the sphere of everyday communication and in the spheres of city administration, legal proceedings, etc. jurisprudence, arts in countries Western Europe. The social prerequisite for the emergence of an inter-dialect means of communication is the mixed composition of the population living in a certain territory and interacting in trade, cultural, political, and other spheres of activity. The term “trade language” is close to the term “Koine”, since historically, Koine, as a rule, was formed as a result of trade contacts.

Urban K. is an oral language that is being formed as a means of communication for a mixed population living in the city;

Koine

The term "Koine" (Greek ko1UG | - " mutual language") was originally applied only to the common Greek language, which developed in the 4th-3rd centuries BC and served as a single language of business, scientific and fiction Greece to the I-III centuries. AD

In modern sociolinguistics, Koine is understood as a means of everyday communication that connects people who speak different regional or social variants of a given language. The role of Koine can be played by supradialectal forms of the language - a kind of interdialects that combine the features of different territorial dialects, or one of the languages ​​functioning in a given area.

The concept of "Koine" is especially relevant when describing the language life of large cities, in which masses of people with different speech skills mix. Intergroup communication in a city requires the development of such a means of communication that would be understandable to everyone. This is how urban koine appeared, serving the needs of everyday, mainly oral communication of different groups of the urban population.

In addition to the urban Koine, the Koine of the area are distinguished. those. a certain territory in which a given language (or languages) is spoken. Thus, in the multilingual Republic of Mali (Africa), the Bamana language, which has a supra-dialectal form, is used as Koine (Vinogradov, 1990). The concept of Koine is sometimes applied to written forms of the language, such as Latin, which was used as the language of science in medieval Europe.

vernacular

Vernacular is the speech of an uneducated and semi-educated urban population who does not own literary norms. Vernacular can be seen as a variation of Koine. The term "vernacular" itself is used mainly in Russian sociolinguistics, since vernacular is the "most Russian" linguistic subsystem, specific to the Russian national language. If territorial dialects, and even more so the literary language, have direct analogues in other national languages, then vernacular has no such analogues. Neither the French subsystem of langue populaire, nor what is called nonstandard or illiterate speech in English linguistic literature, are similar to Russian vernacular, differing from the latter both in terms of the social base (i.e. the composition of carriers) and in terms of structural and functional properties.

Thus, langue populaire only approximately corresponds to Russian vernacular: although this kind of speech stands between slang and the familiar style of literary French, it is argotized, i.e. saturated with elements of various social argots - to a much stronger extent than Russian vernacular (although the end of the 20th century was marked by the increased influence of various argots and jargons on this subsystem of the Russian language). In addition, and most importantly, langue populaire is not only a social, but also a stylistic variety of the French language: native speakers of the literary language use elements of langue populaire in situations of easy communication. In Russian literary speech, colloquial units can only be used for the purpose of irony, jokes, conscious stylistic contrast, etc.

What can be compared with Russian vernacular in English, in particular in its American version, - this is the so-called general slang, which, however, does not have its own carriers, but is a functional-stylistic variety in English(elements of common slang are widely used in the media; in recent times some domestic linguists insist that the so-called common jargon can be distinguished in the Russian language, which occupies an intermediate position between vernacular and social jargon) (Ermakova et al., 1999).

An even more complex picture in German, where intermediate (between literary language and territorial dialects) forms Halhmundart and Umgangssprache contain a whole range of linguistic, functional and social features that do not allow one to unambiguously qualify these language education and, in any case, equate them to the Russian vernacular in terms of status and properties.

In related Slavic languages, vernacular also does not have an exact correspondence. For example, obecna cestina, a functional and stylistic variety of the modern Czech language, which is closest to Russian vernacular, differs from it in one (at least) essential feature: it can be used - mainly in everyday situations - and people are quite cultured (Neschimenko, 1985), while

for the speakers of the modern Russian literary language, vernacular is undoubtedly "contraindicated" (it is perceived as a sign of low culture or as a conscious "scoffing"). Polish urban dialects, to a much greater extent than Russian vernacular, rely on peasant dialects; Bulgarian, Serbian and Croatian urban Koines are close to their dialect base, which also distinguishes them from Russian vernacular (Tolstoy, 1985).

Vernacular is realized exclusively in oral form. The most typical spheres and situations for the implementation of vernacular; family (communication within the family and with relatives), a queue, "gatherings" in the yard of communal houses, a court (witness testimony, an appointment with a judge), a doctor's office (a patient's story about an illness) and a few others. In general, in terms of areas of functioning, vernacular is comparable to territorial dialects: in both cases, narrow everyday and intra-family situations of communication prevail.

Since vernacular was formed as a result of mixing different dialect and slang flows, their transformation in the conditions of urban language life, features of southern and northern dialects coexist in it (for example, both [r] explosive and [y] fricative, faq, go, places, want , in a coat, etc.), and elements of slang speech (on the sly, in a quick way, go crazy, got stuck in a cheeky way, etc., personal appeals such as friend, sidekick, owner, etc.) - more about this and others properties of modern Russian vernacular (Krysin, 1989).

Sometimes they talk about the anormatization of vernacular: everything that is allowed by the system of a given language, its vocabulary and grammatical capabilities can be represented in it. This is not entirely true. Indeed, in common speech there is no norm in the narrow sense of this term, since no one codifies this subsystem of the language. But vernacular, like other non-codified subsystems of the language, has a certain tradition of using language tools. It is another matter that here the variability of the units used is much wider: the carrier of vernacular can say and you want, and you want, and doing, and doing (genitive case plural), and ride, and ride, and ride, etc.

ABOUT SLAVIC KOINE.

What is "RUSSIAN LANGUAGE"?
I have always been interested in this question: why is the so-called "Russian language" so surprisingly similar to Bulgarian? I write "Russian" in quotation marks, because SUCH A NATION OR PEOPLE NEVER EXISTED IN NATURE, but SUCH A PHENOMENON AS "RUSSIAN LANGUAGE" EXISTS. What is it historically? When was HE born? And why is HE so similar to the language of the PODUNAV BULGAR? Almost 90-95% of matching words. Why is OH much less similar to other Slavic languages, for example, to Ukrainian and Belarusian (Litvinian); there are 40-45 percent coincidences (these two mov themselves coincide by 80 percent). But still, 40% is a lot. And what does it really mean?

History of PODUNAV BULGARIANS.
Let's take a closer look at the PODUNAV BULGAR. In the 7th century A.D. under the leadership of Khan Asparuh, they, leaving the hordes of the Khazars, came from Phanagoria (this is where Taman is now, and before the Bulgarians there was the BOSPOR KINGDOM) to the Danube, to the Byzantine province of MIZIA and managed to conquer it and settle there. Emperor Constantine IV the Bearded (ruled from 668 to 685 A.D.), a good strategist, in general, failed to defeat them in battle. Byzantium even paid tribute to the Bulgarians for some time, and then MISIA-BULGARIA became a friendly buffer state for Byzantium.
But here we are interested in something else. Who were the FANAGORSKY BULGARS? TURKIC people speaking the language of the Turkic group. Similar to the one spoken now by the related VOLGA BULGARS. It was in the 7th century. And already in the 9th, at the time of the Thessalonica brothers, KONSTANTINE and METHODIUS, all the PODUNAV BULGARS spoke the language of the SLAVIC group. And this language was NOT A LANGUAGE AT ALL, but SLAVIC KOINE, i.e., something like SLAVIC ESPERANTO.
Why did the Bulgarians change the language? There are many reasons: passing through KIEVAN RUS, they picked up a lot of Russians with them, as if they were speaking Slavonic, in MIZIA there were also many Slavic tribes, who, being dissatisfied with Byzantium, joined Asparuh. But still, this is speculation and not the main thing. And the main thing is that, having come to MIZIA, the brave but wild Bulgars, having won the war with Byzantium and conquered the Promised Land, could not oppose the Empire culturally and religiously. BYZANTINE CHRISTIANITY turned out to be MORE THAN BULGAR PAGANISM, and the PRIESTS conducted sermons in MIZIA not at all in GREEK KOINE, as in Constantinople, but in SLAVIC KOINE.
These BYZANTINE PRIESTS were cunning! They understood that RELIGION SHOULD SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF THE PEOPLE, ELSE IT WILL BE REJECTED FROM IT. They won't take it. But to translate ALL the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, the Apocalypse into the languages ​​of ALL SLAVIC PEOPLES inhabiting the EMPIRE, and even those who do not inhabit it, but depend on it through the PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE, oh, what a boring thing! Even unbearable. And THEY decided to create a kind of KOINE-ESPERANTO, in which ALL SLAVIC-CHRISTIANS would UNDERSTAND sermons. And it was called SLAVIC KOINE - OLD SLAVIC LANGUAGE. Or rather, that's what we call it now. And then just SLAVIC. It was an OFFICE LANGUAGE INVENTED BY CHRISTIAN PRIESTS to CARRY OUT SERVICES and TRANSLATE BOOKS INTO IT, first of all, the NEW TESTAMENT OF THE GREEK CANON.
This SLAVIC KOINE was created long before the arrival of the Bulgars in MISIA. But it worked for Bulgar too! And in a century or two, the Bulgars COMPLETELY FORGOT their TURKOBOULGAR (sorry for the term) and SPOKEN IT. For others, for the SLAVIC peoples who accepted CHRISTIANITY, this is KOYNE, this OLD SLAVIC simply left a DEEP SIGNATURE in their native language, and the Danubian Bulgars COMPLETELY FORGET THEIR OLD NATIVE LANGUAGE and began to speak this KOYNE in its PURE FORM. Like the MEXICAN INDIANS speaking SPANISH. It can be seen also because it so happened that this KOINE was very DIFFERENT from their old TURKOBOULGAR, and, if in the languages ​​of other Slavic peoples IT ORIGINALLY ENTERED IN THE FORM OF ITS COMPONENT PART, then for the Turkic-Bulgarians IT REPLACED their old native language FULLY. Just like the Maya Indians.

ABOUT COIN IN GENERAL.
A few words about the history of the term.
KOINE - a special language form that serves to communicate with native speakers different dialects or closely related languages.
KOINE - (Greek koine, from koinos - general):
1) a common language that arose in the 4th century. BC e. in Ancient Greece on the basis of Attic with elements of the Ionic dialect;
2) The language of intertribal or interdialect communication for a number of kindred tribes or peoples, formed on the basis of the most common language or dialect, which has absorbed the features of other languages ​​or dialects.
In the original sense, KOINE is the GENERAL GREEK LANGUAGE. But its difference from the ANCIENT GREEK is HUGE. Initially, KOINE is a MIXTURE OF DIFFERENT GREEK DIALECTS, then KOINE began to be called that LANGUAGE OF THE HELLENISTIC WORLD, created by the empire of Alexander the Great, continued by Rome, and then byzantine empires. It was also a kind of ESPERANTO, an artificial language of INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION. This was understood by the KOINE in Rome, and in Macedonia, and in Palestine. The gospels and the entire NEW TESTAMENT were written on this KOINE. The gospel Jesus spoke KOINE. The OLD TESTAMENT was also translated into this KOINE. Sermons were read and liturgical books were written on this KOINE. But the Slavs DID NOT UNDERSTAND THIS KOINE. Therefore, they had to invent their own, SLAVIC KOINE. It is on HIM that I am writing this text.

SLAVIC KOINE and MOSCOVIA.
About KOINE I will continue the story, and now let's return to History. On the territory of the Moscow region in the XI century A.D. was the Finnish land MOKSEL, and the name MOSCOW in Finnish is ROTTEN WATER. Dirty, marshy area. There was no smell of Slavs there, but there were various small Finno-Ugric settlements. "Shelter of a wretched Chukhonian," Pushkin would have written; well, let not Chukhonets, but Moksha, Moksel, Tmutarakan - is there a big difference? In short, ugrofinna. Then the Kyiv conquerors came there in the person of Yuri Dolgoruky, but how many were there? A drop of Slavs in a sea of ​​Finns? Then the Mongols (also ethnically close to the Ugro-Finns) captured this land, Ulus Jochi appeared ( Golden Horde), then the Moscow Ulus stood out from it as an administrative unit, then the Moscow Khanate (Kingdom) and only after 1700, introducing a new chronology, Sir Peter the First (Min Hertz), who loved everything Western so much and rightly considered the name Muscovy obscurantist, ordered to call its Empire by Russia or Rus, having stolen the name from its neighbors-Ukrainians, because the assignee of the Kyiv RUSIA was by no means MOSCOW, but the LITHUANIAN-RUSSIAN PRINCIPALITY of Vitovta, and after the GREAT PRINCIPALITY OF LITHUANIA, which also included Belarusians (Litvins) and Novgorodians. MOSCOW has always been hostile to these peoples, remember the plunder by despot Ivan III ( Tatar name Yakub) Novgorod, Livonian War etc. Already in those days Muscovites were sworn enemies of the Slavs.
Now let's turn to Philology. Naturally, Finno-Ugric people before Dolgoruky, and both under him and after him, spoke their own Finnish. Then the Kyiv conquerors came, they began to rule, and, of course, KNOWING SPEAK KIEV, i.e. on the old Russian language, but what about the common people? Of course not! But, like the PODUNAV BULGARS, but already from the BULGAR BOOKS in the SLAVIC KOIN, through the CHRISTIAN SERVICE, this OFFICE LANGUAGE gradually took root in the FINN-MOSCOVITES. They stopped speaking their YERZA LANGUAGE and switched to THIS KOINE. This process lasted 6 centuries and ended only in the reign of Catherine II. (Bulgars coped in two centuries). And again, this KOINE displaced almost the entire Old Finnish composition of the folk language, as happened in the case of the Bulgarians, because the Finnish language is not Slavic. Almost only hydronyms and toponyms remained: Moscow, Tver, Narovchat, Murom, Nogai steppe and so on and so forth. But KOINE was enriched with many Mongolian and Turkic words, for example: Scarlet, Batyr (Bogatyr), Baska, Kans (from Kan - Blood), Kirdyk, Ataman (from Turk. At - Horse), etc.
This is KOINE - de facto "DOTURKANIC" OLD OB-LGARIAN (of the times of KONSTANTINE and METHODIUS) is the very GREAT RUSSIAN LANGUAGE, the dictionaries of which were later compiled by the Dane Vladimir Dahl and the German Max Vasmer. Again, there were no “Russians” of our own.

ABOUT "WEALTH" OF SANSKRIT AND SLAVIC KOYNE.
History is rich in examples of KOINE. Remember Sanskrit. This is also KOINE, and even what! To all KOINE KOINE!
Here Mikhail Zadornov found Agni (Fire), Tada (Then), Kada (When) there - and rejoices. And immediately the conclusion: Sanskrit originated from "Great Russian". Yes, there can be no more nonsense! Here the German will look there and see many words similar to the Gothic ones. And the Latvian will find words similar to Latvian. And the Swede will find, and the Anglo-Saxon. But the Finn will not find it. And the Estonian too. And Hungarian. Because they are not Aryans, but Finno-Ugric peoples. But all Indo-Europeans will find in Sanskrit a bunch of words similar to words from their native languages. And all because SANSCRIT IS ARYAN KOINE. I don't know how it happened, but the fact is the fact. Here is a link to an English-Sanskrit (and vice versa) dictionary: http://spokensanskrit.de/. I typed the most common word Bird and it turned out that there are about 500 words in Sanskrit that designate this same Bird, about 50 are just a Bird, and the rest: Bird of Prey, Bird of Prey, etc. 500 different words for the Bird, this is some kind of horror! And there is only one conclusion: SANSCRIT is still KOINE, cleaner than SLAVIC! It's a wild mix of languages different peoples. And it is not surprising that in Sanskrit one can find the roots of the ancient proto-language.
And the so-called "Great Russian language" is the SLAVIC KOINE. It was used to glorify the PODUNAV BULGAR, to glorify the Finnish population of medieval Muscovy. This KOINE was composed of the old Russian language (Ukrainian), Belarusian, Polish, Czech, Moravian, Slovak and other Slavic autochthonous languages, well, and also not without the influence of Byzantine common Greek (Koine), Latin and Aramaic (also Koine). Having absorbed so many languages, this KOINE absorbed the ancient Aryan words, more precisely, the roots of the Aryan words that were included in these languages. Searching for the etymologies of the words "Russians", these Aryan roots can be found, for example, Ga - Go, Way, from here Ladoga - Way to Lada, but in an explicit form, in the form of words, in "Russian" these roots are still less common than in Sanskrit.
What is the main difference between KOYNE and the language of the AUTOCHTON PEOPLE? It is in the presence of an excessive, exceeding all the limits of necessity, the number of synonyms - times, and in the presence of several DIFFERENT ORIGINS of root, original source words denoting various objects and concepts known since ancient times (for example, parts of the human body, earth, water, upper bottom, etc), - two. Roughly speaking, it is as if several related languages ​​were combined into one. Manufactured, artificial. And then spread with the help of religion, literature, and now the media.
Koine is always "RICHER" than a separate AUTOCHTONOUS LANGUAGE. KOINE IS CONVENIENT, more streamlined, because it was created NOT SPONTANEOUSLY, but by Pundits.
There are, of course, disadvantages: KOINA IS VERY DIFFICULT TO LEARN TO A FOREIGNER, and from Sanskrit, for example, it is often IMPOSSIBLE TO TRANSLATE INTO A NORMAL LANGUAGE AT ALL due to the ambiguity of the translation.
All this is true, and as if there is nothing special about it, but one thing must always be remembered: THOSE WHO SPEAK one of these KOINE, for example, SLAVIC, or, let's say better, UNDERSTAND THIS KOINE, are not a PEOPLE at all. So these "Russians" or "Great Russians" are NOT THE PEOPLE. This is a multi-tribal community, a conglomeration of different ethnic groups, mainly of UGRO-FINNIC ORIGIN.
So what if she has a MEANS OF COMMUNICATION? It doesn't say much. People define BLOOD and ONLY BLOOD. Algerian - is that a Frenchman, or what, he even live in Paris? And a Jew living in America will still remain a Jew, even if he DOES NOT KNOW HEBREW. What is "Russian"? The stolen name of a neighboring people? Who are the "Russians"? Yes, no one. Where, tell me, in Russia, in the Russian Federation is the LAND, REGION, TERRITORY, SLOBODA, finally, where are THEIR ROOTS themselves, where did the "RUSSIAN" GO?
THERE IS NO SUCH LAND AND THERE WAS NEVER.
THEY ARE NOT SLAVES AT ALL.
WHAT "RUSSIAN WORLD" ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT?

INSTEAD OF CONCLUSION.
Certainly, Putin will become the gravedigger of his delusional ideology of the "Russian world".
Jews all over the world can, in a sense, not get enough of Putin: anti-Semitism has sharply declined, and Russophobia has risen sharply. All over the world, now every day they hate the "Russians" more and more, and for this Putin "great thanks to the Komsomol."
And here are two more quotes.
One Count Tolstoy, the author of "Banka", "Peter I", a notorious Stalinist at the end of his life and an obscurantist nationalist at the beginning. But he was also a talented person (without quotes), sometimes he was visited right thoughts. WHITE, and then RED COUNT A.N. Tolstoy wrote:
"There are two Russias. The first Kievan has its roots in world, and at least in European culture. The ideas of goodness, honor, freedom, justice, this Russia understood the way the entire Western world understood it.
And there is also a second Russia - Moscow. This is Russia of the Taiga, Mongolian, wild, bestial. This Russia has made bloody despotism and wild bitterness its national ideal. This Muscovite Russia, from ancient times was, is, and will be a complete denial of everything European and a bitter enemy of Europe.
The second, however, is not Russia, but Muscovy. And the rest is all the same.
And here is another.
“In the bloody swamp of Muscovite slavery, and not in the harsh glory of the Norman era, stands the cradle of Russia… Having changed names and dates, we will see that the policy of Ivan III and the policy of the modern Muscovite empire are not only similar, but also identical… Russia was born and brought up in disgusting and humiliated school of Mongol slavery. It became strong only because it was unsurpassed in the skill of slavery. Even when Russia became independent, it remained a country of slaves. Peter I combined the political cunning of the Mongol slave with the greatness of the Mongol ruler, to whom Genghis Khan bequeathed to conquer the world. Russian policy is unchanged. Russian methods and tactics have changed and will change, but the main goal of Russian politics - to conquer the world and rule in it - is and will be unchanged. "Moscow pan-Slavism" is just one of the forms of conquest." (Karl Marx. "Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the 18th Century." Chapter 4.).

Literature.
1. The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, 1991.
2. Desnitskaya A. V. Supra-dialect forms of oral speech and their role in the history of language. L., 1970.
3. Wikipedia http://wikipedia-info.ru/tag/kojne-wikipediya/.
4. Bilіnskiy V. - Kraina Moksel, or Moskoviya. Historical reference. In 3 books. K.: Vidavnitstvo named after Oleni Teligi, 2012.

Koine Greek, a popular form of the Greek language that appeared in post-classical antiquity (300 BC - 300 AD), marks the third period in the history of the Greek language. Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Common, or New Greek. Koine is important not only for the history of the Greek language because of being the first common dialect and the main ancestor of modern Greek, but also because of its impact on Western culture as the lingua franca for the Mediterranean. It was also the original language of the New Testament christian bible, as well as the language of teaching and the spread of Christianity. Koine Greek was unofficially the first or second language in the Roman Empire.

Koine emerged as a common dialect within the armies of Alexander the Great. Allied Greek states under Macedonian leadership that conquered and colonized known world, their newly formed common dialect was spoken from Egypt to India. Although Koine elements took their form during the latter part of the Classical Era, the postclassic period from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, when Hellenistic-influenced cultures in turn began to influence the language. Transition into the next period, known as Medieval Greek, beginning with the founding of Constantinople by Constantine I the Great in 330. The postclassical Greek period thus refers to the creation and development of Koine Greek throughout the Hellenistic and Roman eras of Greek history until the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Term Koine

Koine (?????), Greek word meaning "ordinary" is a term that was previously applied by ancient scholars to several forms of Greek speech. A school of scholars such as Apollonis Discolus and Aelius Herodianus maintained the use of the term Koine to refer to Proto-Greek, while others began to use the term to refer to any vernacular form of Greek that differed from the literary language. As Koine gradually became a literary language, some people distinguished it in two forms: Greek (Greek) as the literary postclassical form, and Koine (ordinary) as the colloquial popular form. Others continued to refer to Koine as an Alexandrian dialect or a dialect of Alexandria, a term often used by modern classicists.

The linguistic roots of the Common Greek dialect have been obscure since ancient times. During the Hellenistic period, most scholars thought of Koine as the result of a mixture of four major ancient Greek dialects. This view was supported at the beginning of the 19th century by the Austrian linguist P. Kretschmer in his book "Die Entstehung der Koine" (1901), while the German scholar Wilamowitz and the French linguist Antoine Mellier, based on Koine's intense Attic elements - such as?? instead of?? and?? instead of?? - believed that Koine was a simplified form of the Ionic dialect. The final answer, which is academically accepted today, was given by the Greek linguist - N. Gatsidakis, who proved that, despite the "composition of four", the "stable core" of Koine Greek is Attic. In other words, Koine can be regarded as an Athenian dialect with some elements mixed in, especially from Ionic, but also from other dialects. The degree of importance of non-Attic linguistic elements in the Koine may vary depending on the area of ​​the Hellenistic World. The literary Koine of the Hellenistic period resembles the Athenian dialect to such an extent that it is often referred to as the General Athenian dialect.

The first scholars who studied Koine, both in Alexandria and in modern times, were classics, the prototype of which was the literary Attic language of the Classical period. Therefore, Koine was considered a decomposed form of the Greek language, which was not worthy of attention. Reconsideration of the historical and linguistic importance of Koine did not begin until the early nineteenth century, when eminent scholars conducted a series of studies on the development of Koine throughout the Hellenistic and Roman period. The sources used in Koine's research were numerous and not always reliable. Koine's most significant sources are postclassical inscriptions and papyri. Other significant sources are the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old and New Testaments.