Ancient Greek as a Fragmentary Language: What Is ‘Alexandrian Greek’?

This paper focuses on the notion of ‘Alexandrian Greek’ by comparing the direct evidence available for Alexandria with the ways in which ancient Greek erudite sources employ the category of ‘Alexandrian Greek’. Given that the dearth of direct sources prohibits any linguistic definition of ‘Alexandrian Greek’ within the macro‑category of Hellenistic Greek, this elusive variety may at first glance qualify as a Restsprache. However, the picture is complicated by ancient erudite sources in which ‘Alexandrian’ refers not to the Greek spoken in Alexandria, but rather to a sociolinguistic category that corresponds to the lower registers of the koine. The ideologically charged term ‘Alexandrian Greek’ thus identifies a diastratic and diaphasic—rather than diatopic—variety within post‑Classical Greek. Given that informal and colloquial language may indeed qualify as a fragmentary variety of Greek, the notion of ‘Alexandrian Greek’ adopted by the erudite sources documents its metalinguistic perception and the different ways in which ancient grammarians and lexicographers grappled with it.