Daniel B. Wallace

Koine Greek (330 BC - 330 AD)

"When primitive tribes of Indo-Europeans moved into Greece, presumably they spoke a single language. Geography and politics caused it to fracture into a score of dialects, only to be united once again on the battlefield.

Thus, ironically, the first military campaign in the third millennium BC brought confusion of tongues, while the last campaign not only restored linguistic unity, but forged a new language which was destined to become a Weltsprache (world language).

The Koine was born out of the conquests of Alexander the Great. First, his troops, which came from Athens as well as other Greek cities and regions, had to speak to one another. This close contact produced a melting pot Greek that inevitably softened the rough edges of some dialects and lost the subtleties of others. Second, the conquered cities and colonies learned Greek as a second language, this further increased its loss of subtleties and moved it toward greater explicitness (e.g., the repetition of a preposition with a second noun where Attic Greek was usually comfortable with a single preposition).

...Koine Greek became the lingua Franca of the whole Roman Empire by the first century AD...Even after Rome became the world power in the first century BC, Greek continued to penetrate distant lands. (This was due largely to Rome's policy of assimilation of cultures already in place, rather than destruction and replacement) ...Greek continued to be a universal language until at least the end of the first century AD. From about the second century on, Latin began to win out in Italy (among the populace)...

...Demotic is the spoken language of Greece today, the direct descendant of the Koine."