Ionic Greek

Ionic Greek
Ἰωνικὴ διάλεκτος
Region	Circum-Aegean, Magna Graecia
Era	c. 1000–300 BC
Language family	Indo-European Hellenic Ancient Greek Eastern Ionic Greek
Early form	Proto-Greek
Writing system	Greek alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Linguist List	grc-ion
Glottolog	ioni1244
Distribution of Greek dialects in Greece in the classical period.[1] Western group:   Doric proper   Northwest Doric   Achaean Doric (probably Northwest Doric) Central group:   Aeolic   Arcado-Cypriot Eastern group:   Attic   Ionic Distribution of Greek dialects in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy and Sicily) in the classical period. Western group:   Doric proper   Northwest Doric   Achaean Doric (probably Northwest Doric) Eastern group:   Attic-Ionic

Ionic or Ionian Greek (Ancient Greek: Ἰωνική, romanized: Iōnikḗ) was a subdialect of the Eastern or Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek. The Ionic group traditionally comprises three dialectal varieties that were spoken in Euboea (West Ionic), the northern Cyclades (Central Ionic), and from c. 1000 BC onward in Asiatic Ionia (East Ionic), where Ionian colonists from Athens founded their cities.^[2] Ionic was the base of several literary language forms of the Archaic and Classical periods, both in poetry and prose.^[3] The works of Homer and Hesiod are among the most popular poetic works that were written in a literary form of the Ionic dialect, known as Epic or Homeric Greek. The oldest Greek prose, including that of Heraclitus, Herodotus, Democritus, and Hippocrates, was also written in Ionic. By the end of the 5th century BC, Ionic was supplanted by Attic, which had become the dominant dialect of the Greek world.^[2]