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Thessaly has a distinctively Aeolic coloring.[1] Aside from those special evolutions in vocalization to which the Boeotian dialect first gave graphical expression, and the Aeolisms af Boeotian speech, there is a remainder of Dorisms the explanation of which has offered no inconsiderable difficulty to the dialectologist.[2]
That the inhabitants of Boeotia and Thessaly were of the Aeolic race is proved by the close similarity of their dialects, and by the indisputable belief of the ancients that the Boeotians were of kindred race with the Aeolians. Boeotians joined the κτίσαντες Αἰολεῖς expelled by the Dorians, in the emigration to Aeolis, Lesbos and Tenedos, a union of émigrés scarcely possible had there existed no ties of consanguinity between them.
Two great tribes occupied Greece north of the Corinthian Gulf—the Aeolic in the east, the Doric chiefly in the west and centre,[3] the Dores themselves being referred to North Thessaly. From that western clement came the Pelopennesian Doric as an offshoot,[4] now expelling the idiom of the original settlers, now absorbing its forms, which stand out as isolated landmarks of a bygone age (e. g. Ποοἵδαια in Sparta, the only example of the οι ablaut in this name). Though the Locrian dialect offers certain peculiarities, reappearing in Elean, it can nevertheless be adjudged to be a descendant of North-Doric speech.
Whether a dialectical separation between Peloponnesian and North-Greek Dorians took place at the time of the return of the Heraclidae, or whether they continued to use one and the same speech, is a question admitting merely a tentative solution, though the latter seems the more probable assumption, since there exist in North Doric a few remnants which are parallel to Pelopannesian Doric (gen. in -ω and -ως).
- ↑ This is not the place to enter upon a discussion of Collitz’s assertion: die thessalische Muadart bildet . . . die Uebergangstufe vom böotischen zum lesbischen, vom lesbischen zum kyprisch-arkadischen und vom kyprisch-arkadischen zum böotischen Dialekte.
- ↑ Wilamowitz-Möllendorf regards the Boeotian idiom as a mixture of Achaean and Aeolic elements. Of the exact nature of the former we know too little to permit us to treat it as a basis of argumentation. When Aeolic and Doric agree it is difficult to determine to which the phenomenon in question is to be referred, e. g. Boeot. gen. in -ω.
- ↑ The authority of Herodotus should not be invoked to militate against this assertion, since it rests solely on the supposition of the Ionic historian that the Dorians alone were originally pure Hellenes. From this πρῶτον ψεῦδος he concludes that the Dorians lived in Phthiotis, the seat of Hellen.
- ↑ The consensus of historical investigation now relegates the wanderings of the Dorians to a period anterior to the irruption of the Boeotians.
