Greek language extinct before 1000 AD

Was it possible for Greek to go extinct before 1000 AD?

  • Very unlikely (0-20%)

    Votes: 43 58.1%
  • Unlikely (20-40%)

    Votes: 21 28.4%
  • Possible (40-60%)

    Votes: 8 10.8%
  • Likely (60-80%)

    Votes: 1 1.4%
  • Very likely (80-100%)

    Votes: 1 1.4%

  • Total voters
    74
Funny I saw this as 1000 BC and thought "Well that's not too hard" - before Linear B was deciphered nobody knew they spoke Greek anwyay! And if the Luwians (as we now call them) had prevailed and come Westward then Greek would have been the losing language. Then you have the whole invasion thing where the invaders adopted Greek.

But as asked 1000AD - well it could have been completely Romanised. It was only cos the Romans valiued Greek heritage that it had a different trajectory than Carthage or Gaul or Iberia. Full Romanification would render Greek a dying secondary language
 
But it was called Greek too, wasn't it? Doric dialects were widespread, but all Doric dialects of Antiquity are usually considered Greek.
True. If Spartan / Doric / Lakedaimonian won out over Attic, it would probably still be called Greek. If, however, they wanted to politically distinguish themselves, they might call themselves something different.

My point was that if it DID take over the 'Greek' that resulted would be significantly different from what we know as 'Greek'.
 
We still have people speaking forms of Assyrian, Veps, and Native American languages, I doubt something held in the light like Greek can be utterly removed from the Earth.

I mean if we still had Goths speaking Crimean Gothic until the 1800s and native Prussians speaking Baltic Prussian until the 1700s, I'm sure Greek can survive whatever is thrown at it in some regard.
 
We still have people speaking forms of Assyrian, Veps, and Native American languages, I doubt something held in the light like Greek can be utterly removed from the Earth.
Perhaps Greek could lose alot of ground in it's core areas of Greece proper and Anatolia as it did in Magna Graecia and other areas in OTL. Then Greek may survive on some islands and some small parts of the mainland while the majority of mainlanders speek non Greek languages.
I mean if we still had Goths speaking Crimean Gothic until the 1800s and native Prussians speaking Baltic Prussian until the 1700s, I'm sure Greek can survive whatever is thrown at it in some regard.
I think that even prestige languages can die off. Languages like like Akkadian, Sumerian or Punic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_time_of_extinction
 
True. If Spartan / Doric / Lakedaimonian won out over Attic, it would probably still be called Greek. If, however, they wanted to politically distinguish themselves, they might call themselves something different.

My point was that if it DID take over the 'Greek' that resulted would be significantly different from what we know as 'Greek'.
You are right that this different form of Greek would not be the same as OTL Greek, but my point was that it would still be called Greek and be associated with Greeks.
 
We still have people speaking forms of Assyrian, Veps, and Native American languages, I doubt something held in the light like Greek can be utterly removed from the Earth.

I mean if we still had Goths speaking Crimean Gothic until the 1800s and native Prussians speaking Baltic Prussian until the 1700s, I'm sure Greek can survive whatever is thrown at it in some regard.
Coptic died out OTOH. Though it took a long time for it to disappear completely. There a few other quite high-profile languages that went extinct entirely without direct descendants despite having been vehicles of high culture with a strong written tradition with considerable prestige and, in a couple of cases, notable geographical extent: Sumerian, Akkadian, Punic, Etruscan, Sabaic, Elamite, Hittite, Luwian, Hurrian... lower profile cases include Taymanitic, presumably Meroitic, and Tartessian, among others. However, only Akkadian and Egyptian/Coptic (perhaps Punic too?) can be compared to Greek for prestige and geographical extent, and both were more local in scope than Greek was.
I think that in a scenario where the Arabs take Constanople in the early Conquest period, holding Anatolia and bits of coastal European Rhomania, might lead to a relatively rapid Arabization of most of the area. At the same time, the Greek-speaking parts of the Balkans outside Muslim control shift to Slavic (as they had done to an extent historically, only to be re-hellenized by Rhoman reconquest).
This is unlikely to lead to complete extinction of Greek by 1000 AD, but might set the stage for it. Maybe some Turkic group settles Anatolia ITTL and establishes its language as the dominant variety ITTL as well.
 
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We still have people speaking forms of Assyrian, Veps, and Native American languages, I doubt something held in the light like Greek can be utterly removed from the Earth.

I mean if we still had Goths speaking Crimean Gothic until the 1800s and native Prussians speaking Baltic Prussian until the 1700s, I'm sure Greek can survive whatever is thrown at it in some regard.

The modern Assyrian is simply Syriac/Aramaic, the trade tongue of the Mid East prior to Arab conquest. The Assyrian language related to Akkadian, is most definitely and totally extinct except from records kept by rock and scholars. Greek could be brought as low as the traditional Assyrian by way of absolute and total conquest and assimilation by mass waves of Slavic invaders. These Slavs then perhaps make their Slavic tongue simply possessors of an Hellenic substratum.
 
The modern Assyrian is simply Syriac/Aramaic, the trade tongue of the Mid East prior to Arab conquest. The Assyrian language related to Akkadian, is most definitely and totally extinct except from records kept by rock and scholars. Greek could be brought as low as the traditional Assyrian by way of absolute and total conquest and assimilation by mass waves of Slavic invaders. These Slavs then perhaps make their Slavic tongue simply possessors of an Hellenic substratum.
Modern Assyrian (Suret) is no longer regarded by scholars as the direct descendant of Syriac, though both belong to the Eastern branch of Aramaic. Of course, neither language is directly related to the Assyrian dialect of Akkadian, or Assyrian language as sometimes is called, that was spoken in Antiquity in the Assyrian Empire.
 
Perhaps Greek could lose alot of ground in it's core areas of Greece proper and Anatolia as it did in Magna Graecia and other areas in OTL. Then Greek may survive on some islands and some small parts of the mainland while the majority of mainlanders speek non Greek languages.

Certainly, but the same factors which led to the decline of Greece in Magna Graecia, Greece proper, and Anatolia would be at play in the remaining refuges of the Greek language. Cyrenaica and Crimea (Bosporan Kingdom) had thriving Greek language communities and were pretty isolated from the rest of the Greek world, but by the 5th century both were under attack by outside groups (Huns, Berbers, etc.). It would hard to imagine a circumstance where either or both places survive while the rest of the Hellenic world is destroyed.

And if they did, how "Greek" would they be? Cyrenaican Greek was a Doric dialect, although I don't know if the Greek spoken in Cyrenaica in Late Antiquity was more similar to Koine Greek (like the modern Griko language), and of course due to Cyrenaican Greek being extinct since not long after the Arab conquest, we can only imagine how it might have evolved. Crimean Greek was like Pontic Greek, although without a millennia of rule from Byzantium, it would evolve different than OTL. Crimea and Cyrenaica are not good places to build lasting states--whoever controls Egypt can easily subdue Cyrenaica, while Crimea is easy for nomadic empires of the Eurasian steppe to plunder, as well as is vulnerable to attack from northern Anatolia. However, it's interesting to imagine the last refuge of Hellenic languages being either place.
 
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