7 Social Dialect in Attica

7 SocialDialect in Attica StephenColvin r Social Dialect Socialvarieties of speechare conlrnonly designatedsocial dialects or so- ciolects.The terms refer to speechvariation that is correlatedwith social distinctions:irnmediatelythe term is more complicatedthanthe unmarked tenn dialect,which refersof courseto regionaldialect. To identift r:egional dialectwe haveto know somebasic facts about the geographyof the speech community; but in the caseof socialdialect we arc comnritting ourselves to a rangeof interlockingtheorie.s about the socialstructure of the conr- muniw, which-at leastin the caseof a corpuslanguage, and probabli'also in other cases-cannot be merely observecl,but must be abstractedfrorn whatever data are availableto the investigator. The distinction betweendialect and socialdialect is not necessarilyas fundamentalas the de{initions might imply. The disciplineswhich both termspertain to develope<iin an exoticlinguistic and sociolinguisticcotr- text, namelyWestern Europe and North America,and the languagemodel that is in some sensebuilt into them recallstheir origin (large political units with standardizednational languagesand a history of suppressing linguistic competitors).However, in very many casesthe distribution of socialvarieties of languagewill correlatewith location:a regionalvariety will havesocial implications, for example,whether the rcgion concerned 'fhe is a relativelylarge area or a small sectionof an urban environment. origins of a socialdialect will in many casesbe local. One may then ask how a socialdialect is maintaineclwithout the spatialseparation r.vhich is 'lherc' normally thought necessaryfor linguistic dill'crence. are a number of responsesto this. Firstly,and most importantly,sociolingLristic research over the last century hasshown that the creationand maintenanceof dis- tinct linguisticidentities are a centralfeature of maintaininga speci{icsocial iclentity.Secondly, in the caseof varietiesassociated with socio-ecouomic class,even small-scale spatial separation (such as a smallurban neighbour- hood) may be sufficientto maitrtain a distinctivcspeech pattern; this will 96 StephenColvirr be reinforcedby socialnetworks at home and in the rvgrkplace''ThirdlS their social dialectsmay indeedbe lesslikely to survive unspottedthap regionalcounterparts; they are in constantinteraction rvith one another, so-cialidentity is fluiti, and the rate of changemirv be rapid' It hardly needsstressing that a socialdialect is not a declinatiofrom the in the standardor prestigeuarieiy, thorrgh it may be cgnstructe<las such cliscourseof the comrnunity.It neednot, in f'act,be describedby reference is to the standard,althoughthis may bc"convenient. A spcechvarietywhich 'social' the definedas *uy i^ facthave a history more or lessindependent of Iocalstandard,althoughinteractionwithotherlocalvarieties,includingthe standard,is likely to playa role in its development.c)ne reason why a speech variety may be clefinedas a socialdialect is that, ftrr the historicalreasons per sketchedabove, we aregenerally willing tg allow just one local dialect political unit; any further dialectsare thereforcliable to be classi{iedas socialdialects. sg, for example,in the caseof Attica: it is an unusually largepolitical unit by pre-Hellenisticstandards, and unlikely to havebeen hnluistically hom.geneous.Nevertheless, owing in part to a standardized ortiography, 1^/he1-e look for linguistic variation in Attica we generally set oul to look for socialdialect. This is perhapsbecause we are used to called thirrking of linguistic movementin terms of what Anna l)avieshas ,verrical'diffqsion (betweena higher and a lower variety), as opposedto 'horiz6ntal' standard the diffusign that takesplace without referenceto a (Morpurgo Daviesryggi 7). Wearelhtrsi' dangerof beirrgmisled by our orvntertninoiogywhen we 'social'variation ppposed look for evidence6f in Greek,as to geographical variation.BartonEk long agopointed out that the term Attic-lonic is itself a curious hybrid: for Attic i.sa geographicalterm, while ionic is an ethnic g). term-and ethrricityis a sociallyconstructed quantity (BartonEktgTz: ltiswithAttic(arrdtoacertainextentitsrelatiorrshipwithionic)thatI wish to deal in the presentpaper. on comparativegrounds we may start by assumingthe existenceof socialvarieties in Atticar next we needto see ii we have.ui,l.rr.. for (a) the conceptof sociallydift'erentiated speech in Athens,and (b) the thing itself.we haveplenty of evidencefor the former from a variety of literary sources'rnost usefully Greek Conledy: (r) Aristophanes(PC(i Zo0) ?' doret . rco.itiy i1 airil p'irt rin' xc.td" tilv dypotxkt'', f1 airil t5i rcirr Erarptpirr*rt. nc,pd xoi 6 xoptxig 'll7er Aptorocl"i"Ts or contrnunities, I Seeespecially the work of I. and L. Milroy for smaller-scalcne lworks, which are'lessabstract than socialclasses' (lvlilroy t98o: t4)' SocialDialect in Attica 97 [,tripos?] 8rd,\exror'{yovra pdorlvrt5Ae<'ts oitr' d.oreiaviro9qAurlpau oiir' tu'd,ed|epov ir aypo, xory'. pav. fthc grammarianssay thatJ . the idiom of those who live in rural areas is cliffcrentfrom that of city dwellers.Concerning which Ari.stophanesthe 'lhisl comic poet says: languageis the normal dialectof the cit,v-not the fhncy high-s<lcietyaccent, nor uneducated,rustic talk'. The question to be considered for my purPoses is whether there is evidencc tbr a prestige variety within Attica, or simply for the recognition that dif- fbrent social groups speak in different ways. We are used to the notion that there was uo standard language in ancient Greece; whether this was true for the individual citv-states is a separate question, ancl is likely, in my view, t6 have a differelt answer in each case, fbr it seems clear that sociolinguistic culture was no more uniform across the Greek world than the language it.self.My answer to this question is that we have some evidence that certain idioms within Attica were disparaged,and for the corollary that others were approved. It is true that some of the evidence conrprises what we might consicler stylistic features: but sonte of it also ciearly pertains to phonology-for example,we have attacks on populardemagogues for allegedinability to articulateAttic correctly: (z) Plato,I-Iyperbohs (PCGtSf) fl)d.rcovl,.ivrot iv'YnepBltAq 6'1rat{er}v dveuroi y lpfiou' ,is papSopol, ),ly<ovofirus- ci 6' orl 1,,ipirri.xriev, tt Motpat $iArut, "6n1rr-1"r1r" d),A'6n1rt, ptv ypeil A(Yeu', "6qn':<!:pqv", t$aoxe 6ndre 6' einetv\bt "ri,\io,"') ",\)[y,,v", ( iA<ye, Plato, however,in his Hyperbolusmocked the dropping of g as barbarous,as 'He fbllows: didn't spcakAttic, yc gods,but wheneverhe had to saydiefimal he said djetoman,and when he had to sayoligos he came out rvith olios . ' .' Evidence for disfavoured morphological forms is lessdirect: but the fact of 'chancellery an Athenian language which retained forms such as c-stem dative plurals in -aorl-rlorLtntil the late fifth centurt' at least indicates what we would have expected, that morphological difference played a role in linguistic variation within Attic:a. What is interestjng is that some of the evidence connects the disparaged 2 SecDover (rq8r:$z). q8 StephenColvin of f'eaturesof Attic with a foreign idiom: either rvith the vaguecharge lonic barbarism,or with other dialectsof Greck.F'or example, perceived 'chatteringclasses' characteristicsin the speechof what would be calledthe that in the Murdoch pressare the objectof comic attention'3The evidence and the I wish to pr.r..rt here concernsthe relationshipbetween Attic irleologicalconverse of lonic, namelyBoeotian' z Ostracism is we have alreadynoted one of the ways in which epigraphiclanguage governed by ruies which do not necessarilyapply to the Umgangssprache' in a and this is the greatparadox in looking for colft:quialspeccir varicties tablets, corpuslanguag"e. In ihe caseof Attic we can examinegraffiti, curse of infor- "nd ul,,uri*tyof privateinscriptions. A potentiallyvaluable source mation is piovided by ostraca'since there is a high likelihoodthat-ostracon voteswere in many casescast by peoplewho did not in generalpractise the epigraphichabit, and it is preciselyby virtuc of being semi-lettered evidence that suchwriters may provideevidence fr:r socialdialect. In fhct, provided that many ostracon-wielclingcitizens were wholly unletteredis pre- both by anecdote'rancl by the discoveryof a cacheof nearly 'oo slopeof inscribedostraca bearing ih. .tu-. of Themistocleson the north either the Acropolis.sOstracism was introduced by thc radicaldemocracy, before under Cfeisthenesin 5o8(accorcling to the 416, Pol.,zz. r) or shortly the tirst ostracismin 481.The decisionwhether to hold an ostrakoplnria vote was macleeach year by a full meeting of the popular assembly:the were cast itselfwas held perhapsaround ten weekslater. lf sulficientvotes in for an indiviclual,he wasbanisired for ten years.6Ostraca do therefore 'texts' generally some senserepresent the vox pttp;the problem is that are (that name restrictedto the designationof a single individual is t0 say, and low- 3 seecassio (rq8r) and Brixhe (rqS8)for the similaritiesbetween'barbarized' classAttic. 4 the name of that citizen plut. Arirtides 7:'F.ach voter took an crstracon,wlote on it agora which rvas whom he wished t6 remo\€ frorn the city, anclbrought it to a placc in the rvasspcaking,.as the voters all tfnced about rvith railings . Now at the time ol'wlrich I fellow handed were inscribing their ostraca',it is saiclthat an unlettered and utterly boorish and askedhirn his ostraconto Aristicles,whom he took

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