Greek and Indo-European Poetic Language

Poetic language (German Dichtersprache) may be defined as marked language characterized by an aesthetic component, often featuring specific rhythmic patterns as well as figures of sound and speech. In premodern traditions such as the Ancient Greek one, poetic language was used to convey traditional beliefs and myths, i.e., stories that were culturally prominent within a community, e.g., because they thematized specific values, discussed the origin of rituals or preserved the memory of foundational events. Since Greek belongs to the Indo-European (IE) language family, it is to be expected that at least some features of its poetic language and mythology may find parallels (or “comparanda”) in those attested within linguistically cognate poetic traditions, such as the Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, or Germanic ones, allowing for the reconstruction of features of poetic language of their common prehistoric ancestor, Proto-Indo-European (PIE). Features of the Greek poetic language that are also common to other Indo-European languages are commonly designated as “Indo-European poetic heritage in Greek,” and scholars may refer to the “Indo-European background” of a certain Greek expression or myth. The study of Indo-European poetic heritage and the reconstruction of its Proto-Indo-European antecedents is referred to as “Indo-European poetics” and involves three main dimensions: metrics, phraseology, and stylistics. The study of these phenomena relies on the comparative method: structural or formal traits of Greek poetic texts are compared to those of poetic texts that belong to linguistically related traditions in order to evaluate if a common ancestor may account for some or all of them. As poetic corpora are not preserved in all attested Indo-European languages, the main comparanda for Greek poetic language are usually found in Indo-European traditions belonging to linguistic subfamilies that (a) were not in long-term direct contact with Greek and (b) attest poetic corpora. Texts in Indo-Iranian, Germanic, Celtic, and Balto-Slavic languages are thus the main sources of Indo-European parallels for comparative studies on Greek metrics, phraseology, and stylistics. Conversely, matches identified between Greek and Latin poetic texts are often not given much weight, because they may easily be explained as borrowings due to the historically well-attested contacts between these two traditions. Although we do not possess Anatolian and Tocharian poetic corpora, single words, phrases, or myths found in these traditions may still provide comparanda to Greek poetic texts and contribute to the reconstruction of poetic lexicon, phraseology, and myths.