Arcadocypriot Greek

Arcadocypriot Greek
RegionArcadia, Cyprus
Erac. 1300 – c.300[citation needed] BC
Indo-European
Early forms
Proto-Greek
  • Achaean
    • Proto-Arcado-Cypriot
Greek alphabet
Cypriot syllabary
Language codes
ISO 639-3
grc-arc
Glottologarca1234
Distribution of Greek dialects in Greece in the classical period.[1]

Arcadocypriot, or southern Achaean, was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia in the central Peloponnese and in Cyprus. Its resemblance to Mycenaean Greek, as it is known from the Linear B corpus, indicates that they are closely related to it, and belong to the same dialect group, known as Achaean.[2]

In Cyprus the dialect was written using solely the Cypriot syllabary. The most extensive surviving text of the dialect is the Idalion Tablet.[3] A significant literary source on the vocabulary comes from the lexicon of 5th century AD grammarian Hesychius.

  1. ^ Roger D. Woodard (2008), "Greek dialects", in: The Ancient Languages of Europe, ed. R. D. Woodard, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 51.
  2. ^ van Beek 2022, pp. 174, 182–184, 190
  3. ^ Georgiadou, Anna (2015). "The Tablet of Idalion (ICS 217)". Kyprios Character. History, Archaeology & Numismatics of Ancient Cyprus.