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| region = eastern Mediterranean | era = | familycolor = Indo-European | fam2 = Hellenic | ancestor = Proto-Greek | ancestor2 = Ancient Greek | ancestor3 = Koine | script = Greek alphabet | iso3 = grc | iso3comment = | linglist = qgk | glotto = none | notice = IPA }} Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, is the stage of the Greek language between the end of Classical antiquity in the 5th-6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally dated to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. From the 7th century onwards, Greek was the only language of administration and government in the Byzantine Empire. This stage of language is thus described as Byzantine Greek. The study of the Medieval Greek language and literature is a branch of Byzantine Studies, or Byzantinology, the study of the history and culture of the Byzantine Empire. The beginning of Medieval Greek is occasionally dated back to as early as the 4th century, either to 330 AD, when the political centre of the Roman Empire was moved to Constantinople, or to 395 AD, the division of the Empire. However, this approach is rather arbitrary as it is more an assumption of political as opposed to cultural and linguistic developments. Indeed, by this time the spoken language, particularly pronunciation, had already shifted towards modern forms.〔Peter Mackridge, ("A language in the image of the nation: Modern Greek and some parallel cases" ), 2009.〕 The conquests of Alexander, and the ensuing Hellenistic period, had caused Greek to spread to peoples throughout Anatolia and the Eastern Mediterranean, altering the spoken language's pronunciation and structure. Medieval Greek is the link between this vernacular, known as Koine Greek, and the Modern Greek language. Though Byzantine Greek literature was still strongly influenced by Ancient Greek, it was also influenced by vernacular Koine Greek, which is the language of the New Testament and the liturgical language of the church. ==History and development== With the transfer of the Roman imperial court to Byzantium (Constantinople) between 324 and 330, the political centre of the Roman Empire was moved into an area where Greek was the dominant language. At first, Latin remained the language of both the court and the army and it was used for official documents, but its influence soon waned. From the beginning of the 6th century, amendments to the law were mostly written in Greek. Furthermore, parts of the Roman Corpus Iuris Civilis were gradually translated into Greek. Under the rule of Emperor Heraclius (610–641 AD), who also assumed the Greek title ''Basileus'' (βασιλεύς, "monarch") in 629, Greek became the official language of the Eastern Roman Empire.〔.〕 This was in spite of the fact that the inhabitants of the empire still considered themselves ''Romaioi'' ("Romans") long after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Despite the absence of reliable demographic figures, it has been estimated that less than one third of the inhabitants of the Eastern Roman Empire, around eight million people, were native speakers of Greek.〔.〕 The number of those who were able to communicate in Greek may have been far higher. The native Greek speakers consisted of many of the inhabitants of the southern Balkan Peninsula, south of the Jireček Line, and all of the inhabitants of Asia Minor, where the native tongues (Phrygian, Lycian, Lydian, Carian etc.), except Armenian in the east, had become extinct, replaced by Greek, by the 5th century. In any case, all cities of the Eastern Roman Empire were strongly influenced by the Greek language.〔: "Here too Coptic and Greek were progressively replaced by Arabic, although less swiftly. Some dates enable us to trace the history of this process. The conquest of Egypt took place from 639 to 641, and the first bilingual papyrus (Greek and Arabic) is dated 693 and the last 719, while the last papyrus written entirely in Greek is dated 780 and the first one entirely in Arabic 709."〕 In the period between 603 and 619, the southern and eastern parts of the empire (Syria, Egypt, North Africa) were occupied by Persian Sassanids and, having been recaptured by Heraclius in the years 622 to 628, they were conquered by the Arabs in the course of the Muslim conquests a few years later. Alexandria, a center of Greek culture and language, fell to the Arabs in 642. During the seventh and eighth centuries, Greek was replaced by Arabic as an official language in conquered territories such as Egypt.〔 Thus, the use of Greek declined early on in Syria, Egypt, and North Africa. This left Greek-speaking Sicily, Cyprus, Asia Minor, and the southern Balkans. From the late 11th century onwards, the interior of Anatolia was invaded by Seljuq Turks, who advanced westwards. With the Ottoman conquests of Constantinople in 1453, the Peloponnese in 1459/1460, the Empire of Trebizond in 1461, Athens in 1465, and two centuries later the Duchy of Candia in 1669, the Greek language lost its status as a national language until the emergence of modern Greece in the year 1821. Language varieties after 1453 are referred to as Modern Greek. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Medieval Greek」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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