The lexica produced by the Atticist movement in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE deal with various kinds of linguistic change, described with a rich technical vocabulary (including μεταβολή). In their puristic ideology, satirised by contemporary authors such as Lucian and Tatian, forging ‘adulterated’ words or changing the letters of a word is tantamount to a criminal offence. However, the Atticists’ attitudes towards change were more complex and nuanced: not all kinds of change were evaluated negatively. Through a study of some representative lexical entries, this paper discusses some of the ways in which Atticism confronted the evolution of Greek.
Metabole: Some Atticistic Attitudes Towards Linguistic Change
Roberto Batisti
2025
Abstract
The lexica produced by the Atticist movement in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE deal with various kinds of linguistic change, described with a rich technical vocabulary (including μεταβολή). In their puristic ideology, satirised by contemporary authors such as Lucian and Tatian, forging ‘adulterated’ words or changing the letters of a word is tantamount to a criminal offence. However, the Atticists’ attitudes towards change were more complex and nuanced: not all kinds of change were evaluated negatively. Through a study of some representative lexical entries, this paper discusses some of the ways in which Atticism confronted the evolution of Greek.
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