Medieval Greek

E5872

Byzantine Greek historical language stage variety of the Greek language

Medieval Greek is the historical stage of the Greek language used from roughly the 6th to the 15th century, bridging Ancient/Koine Greek and Modern Greek and serving as the linguistic medium of the Byzantine Empire.

Try in SPARQL Jump to: Surface forms Disambiguation Statements Elicitation Referenced by

All labels observed (2)

Label	Occurrences
Medieval Greek canonical	24
Byzantine Greek	8

How this entity was disambiguated

This entity first appeared as the object of triple T62474 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.

NED1 Entity disambiguation (via context triple) gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07

Target entity: Medieval Greek
Context triple: [Koine Greek, precedes, Medieval Greek]

A. Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the common dialect of ancient Greek that served as the primary language of the New Testament and early Christian writings.
B. Middle Ages
The Middle Ages was a period of European history from roughly the 5th to the late 15th century, marked by feudalism, the rise of Christianity, and the formation of many modern European cultures and languages.
C. Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin was the everyday, non-standard form of Latin spoken by common people in the Roman Empire, from which the Romance languages later evolved.
D. Middle English
Middle English is the historical stage of the English language spoken and written roughly between the late 11th and late 15th centuries, exemplified by works like Chaucer’s "Canterbury Tales."
E. Septuagint
The Septuagint is an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that became the primary Old Testament text for early Christians and Greek-speaking Jews.
F. None of above. chosen
G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.

NED2 Entity disambiguation (via description) gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07

Target entity: Medieval Greek
Target entity description: Medieval Greek is the historical stage of the Greek language used from roughly the 6th to the 15th century, bridging Ancient/Koine Greek and Modern Greek and serving as the linguistic medium of the Byzantine Empire.

A. Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the common dialect of ancient Greek that served as the primary language of the New Testament and early Christian writings.
B. Middle Ages
The Middle Ages was a period of European history from roughly the 5th to the late 15th century, marked by feudalism, the rise of Christianity, and the formation of many modern European cultures and languages.
C. Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin was the everyday, non-standard form of Latin spoken by common people in the Roman Empire, from which the Romance languages later evolved.
D. Middle English
Middle English is the historical stage of the English language spoken and written roughly between the late 11th and late 15th centuries, exemplified by works like Chaucer’s "Canterbury Tales."
E. Septuagint
The Septuagint is an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that became the primary Old Testament text for early Christians and Greek-speaking Jews.
F. None of above. chosen

Statements (48)

Predicate	Object
instanceOf	Byzantine Greek ⓘ historical language stage ⓘ variety of the Greek language ⓘ
alternativeName	Byzantine Greek ⓘ Middle Greek ⓘ
developedInto	Modern Greek ⓘ
follows	Ancient Greek ⓘ Koine Greek ⓘ
hasDialect	learned written variety of Byzantine Greek ⓘ vernacular spoken varieties of Byzantine Greek ⓘ
hasFeature	increased use of periphrastic verb forms ⓘ merger of several vowel phonemes (iotacism) ⓘ monophthongization of many ancient diphthongs ⓘ reduction of the case system in spoken language ⓘ stress accent rather than pitch accent ⓘ transition from synthetic to more analytic structures ⓘ
hasNotableText	Byzantine court poetry ⓘ Chronicle of Morea ⓘ Digenis Akritas ⓘ
influenced	Modern Greek morphology ⓘ Modern Greek ⓘ surface form: Modern Greek phonology Modern Greek vocabulary ⓘ
influencedBy	Attic Greek ⓘ surface form: Ancient Attic Greek Arabic ⓘ Church Slavonic ⓘ Koine Greek ⓘ Latin ⓘ Turkic languages ⓘ
linguisticContinuumBetween	Koine Greek ⓘ Modern Greek ⓘ
partOfLanguageFamily	Hellenic languages ⓘ Indo-European language family ⓘ surface form: Indo-European languages
precedes	Modern Greek ⓘ
standardizedIn	Istanbul ⓘ surface form: Constantinople
subdivisionOf	Hellenic languages ⓘ surface form: Greek language
timePeriodEnd	15th century ⓘ
timePeriodStart	6th century ⓘ
usedAs	administrative language ⓘ literary language ⓘ liturgical language ⓘ
usedFor	Byzantine historiography ⓘ Byzantine legal texts ⓘ Byzantine poetry ⓘ Byzantine theological writing ⓘ hagiographic literature ⓘ
usedIn	Byzantine Empire ⓘ Byzantine Empire ⓘ surface form: Eastern Roman Empire
writingSystem	Greek alphabet ⓘ

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (32)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Koine Greek → precedes → Medieval Greek ⓘ

Koine Greek → influenced → Medieval Greek ⓘ

Modern Greek → follows → Medieval Greek ⓘ

Hellenic languages → influenced → Medieval Greek ⓘ