Homer’s Greek Was Never a Spoken Language, Yet It Lives On in Modern Greek

Homer’s Greek Was Never a Spoken Language, Yet It Lives On in Modern Greek

...

Homer’s language lives on in modern day Greece. Photo of Book I of Homer’s Iliad. Credit: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Homer‘s language—known as Homeric Greek or Epic Greek—was that which was used for the ancient Greek poet’s literary works, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which laid the foundations of Western literature. Though it was never spoken and was merely intended to serve as a literary language, it remains relevant to this day through Modern Greek.

The prevailing view among scholars was that Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were poems of the oral tradition that were later recorded in a language he had invented by drawing on the vocabulary of all Greek dialects. It is a language developed for the epic verse, in other words, which means it was created, adapted, and shaped to fit the epic meter, or hexameter.

The 8th century BC poet devised such a language to describe the characters and actions of heroes in the hexameter verse. The Homeric language was, hence, not the first Greek language but was designed with a specific purpose in mind, according to classicist William F. Wyatt, Jr. Epic poems of this length, complexity, and excellence required a long time, probably years, as is usually the case with masterpieces of such a scale. Based on ancient Greek dialects, texts, and the linguistic history of Greek, we find that Homer’s linguistic diversity results from dialect mixture and the preservation of epic archaisms.

In his poems, Homer used an archaic form of Ionic, most precisely East Ionic, with some Aeolic forms, a few from the Arcadocypriot dialect, and a written form influenced by the Attic dialect. Ancient Greek language analysts argue that Homer‘s language couldn’t have been the native language of an individual speaker and that it must have evolved over an extensive period of time. Words from various dialects occasionally have different metrical values, allowing for great flexibility of expression and poetic rhythm.

The Homeric Greek language

The term Homeric language is one that scholars use to describe the complexity but also the meanings and flow of language in the two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

British classicist Bernard Knox argues that Homeric epithets were produced to meet the demands of the meter of Greek heroic poetry, the dactylic hexameter. Since Homer improvised, he relied on various ways of fitting the name of his god, hero, or object into whatever section of the line was left after he had filled up the first half.

The oral poet did not recite from a fixed text but improvised along known lines drawn from a large stock of formulaic phrases, lines, and even whole scenes. His poems were recited in performances and likely consistently modified, changing over time. The outline remained the same, yet the oral text itself was flexible in the fashion of the pluralistic Homeric language.

The majority of scholars believe that the Iliad and Odyssey were not dictated in their entirety to a scribe by the poet widely known today as Homer. While no definitive evidence of this remains, it is likely they were refined over time through repeated performances and memorization and then put into writing in the second half of the 8th century BC by either a single individual or entire group based on the oral tradition.

How close is Modern Greek to Homer’s language?

Of course, ancient Greek dialects were quite different from Modern Greek, which is more closely related to Koine (κοινή) Greek, the spoken and written common form of the language used by people from the Hellenistic and Roman times into the early Byzantine period. Koine Greek, in turn, is likewise slightly different from Modern Greek.

Greek poet Giorgos Seferis, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1963, wrote: “From the time Homer spoke until today, we speak, breathe, and sing in the same language.” The impact of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey in ancient Greek drama and today’s literature and theater is priceless.

We may believe that Modern Greek is devoid of influences from the language of Homer, yet if one considers the hundreds of linguistic items, including compounds and the various derivatives, it soon becomes clear that this assumption is inaccurate. The etymology of Modern Greek is also highly influenced by Homeric Greek. Since the Iliad and the Odyssey were the first concise writings in the ancient Greek language, we have borrowed heavily from these works, which integrate the totality of contemporary Greek dialects.

For instance, the word for “voice” in modern Greek, “phonē,” is quite different from the Homeric word, “avthi,” for this, yet we do still use the latter word in Greek if we are to say, for instance, “I was left speechless,” which would be “emina anavthos” (“έμεινα άναυδος”).

Other Homeric words in Modern Greek

With the adverb tele (τηλέ), Homer meant from afar. Today the word is used for τηλέφωνο (telephone), τηλεόραση (television), τηλεπικοινωνίες (telecommunications), τηλεπάθεια (telepathy) and so on.

In the language of Homer, Λάας or Λας (laas or las) was the stone. Today words like λατομείο (quarry) or λαξεύω (carve on stone) are widely used.

Πέδον (Pedon) in Homer means ground, today in Greek we have words such as στρατόπεδο (stratopedo, camp) or pedio (πεδίο) meaning plain.

Poros (πόρος) is the word Homer used to refer to passage. Today the stem of the word is used in πορεύομαι (I’m moving, I’m walking), πορεία (course). Also, another use in Homer was monetary, using πόρος to refer to money or resources. From poros also stem the adjectives εύπορος (one who has money) and άπορος (one who has no money). Metaphorically, εύπορος means one who has easy passage in life, and άπορος the opposite.

Physical pain in Homer is άλγος. In modern Greek, pain relievers are called αναλγητικά (analgetika, analgesic).

From the wοrd ύδωρ (water) we have the derivatives ύδρoδότηση (water supply), ύδρευση (irrigation), υδραγωγείο (aqueduct), υδραυλικός (plumber), υδροφόρα (water carrier), υδρογόνο (hydrogen), αφυδάτωση (dehydration), ενυδρείο (aquarium), λειψυδρία (water shortage) and more.

greekreporter.com/2025/06/27/homer-greek-language/