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
2025-01-01
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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