Re: CHAT: oldest known records of vernacular languages [was Re:

On Thursday, June 27, 2002, at 02:37 , John Cowan wrote:

> Thomas R. Wier scripsit:
>
>> Perhaps I have not been clear.  My purpose in using the word
>> "vernacular" was in contradistinction to "classical", i.e.,
>> learned languages after the fall of Rome.
I well observed your use of "vernacular".  Vernacular languages were
used well before the rise of Rome as well as after its fall.

>> Of course Greek
>> constitutes a much older tradition, since Ancient Greek
>> orthography still influences modern Greek Dimotiki, and of
>> course, Chinese beats even that.  But this wasn't my question.
>
> Well, fair enough for Chinese, but I think that Greek writing can
> soundly be called vernacular in Greece (including the Byzantine Empire),
> though it was "classical" elsewhere.
Very true.   The Greek cities in the earliest periods (8th & 7th cents BC)
  used
their local vernacular with their own variant of the early Greek alphabet.
  It took a long while for standards to establish themselves and a
"classical'"
norm to based on the Attic dialect of the 5th cent and written in a
standardized
version of the eastern Ionic alphabet.   Even then vernacular inscriptions
still
occur and the papyri of the Hellenistic period which survived in Egypt are
practically all in the vernacular form.

My contention is that Greek vernaculars have been attested in an unbroken
tradition since the 8th cent BC - well before the so-called "Ancient Greek
orthography" was standardized.

Ray.