Byzantine Greek

Byzantine Greek is the medieval form of Greek used across the Byzantine Empire. It developed from Koine Greek and served administration, literature, and worship, alongside regional spoken varieties.

Koine Greek: The common Greek language that spread across the eastern Mediterranean after the conquests of Alexander the Great. Byzantine Greek developed from this shared Hellenistic foundation.
Iotacism: The historical convergence of several Greek vowel sounds toward a pronunciation like modern Greek iota. This sound change shaped Byzantine Greek pronunciation and often obscures older spelling distinctions.
Byzantine bureaucracy: The administrative offices and procedures through which the Byzantine state governed its territories and subjects. Greek served many imperial records, laws, and official communications.
Eastern Roman Empire: The eastern continuation of the Roman Empire, centered on Constantinople and lasting until the city's fall in 1453. Its institutions and Greek-speaking population formed the setting for Byzantine Greek.
Latin: The Indo-European language of ancient Rome, later used widely in law, scholarship, and the Western Church. Latin remained an imperial and ecclesiastical counterpart to Greek in the medieval Mediterranean.
Ancient Greek: The language of ancient Greek communities, with dialects and literary forms documented from the early first millennium BCE. Its classical literary register remained a prestigious model in Byzantine writing.
Greek phonology: The system of speech sounds and sound patterns used in Greek. Its medieval developments distinguish Byzantine pronunciation from classical reconstructions.
Byzantine liturgy: The rites and services of the Eastern Orthodox tradition as practiced in the Byzantine world. Greek was a principal language of worship and liturgical texts in the empire.
Greek language: An Indo-European language with a written history spanning more than three millennia. Byzantine Greek is one historical stage within this continuous language history.
Old Church Slavonic: The earliest literary Slavic language, standardized for Christian missions in the ninth century. Its translation tradition carried Byzantine Christian texts beyond Greek-speaking communities.

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