Byzantine Greek on Maltese soil : evidence from Tristia ex Melitogaudo

Abstract

The development of languages over time can be described succinctly by two words: continuity and change. At a given moment in its history, a language contains elements which have been inherited from previous stages of its evolution and which continue to exist in it beside those innovations that the constant processes of change have created. As for the Greek language, it is possible to claim that continuity is more dominant than change over long periods of its history. That becomes apparent when we compare Greek to other European languages. It is true, of course, that Italian and Spanish are almost as close to Latin as Modern Greek is to the classical language, but two other important Romance languages, French and Rumanian, have changed much more, and so have the Germanic and the Celtic languages. The Greek language, in particular the varieties appearing in literary and formal texts, is characterized by an “ingrained conservatism”, and comparatively few innovations turn up in such texts. [excerpt]