The decipherment of the clay tablets in the script known as Linear B has revealed a Greek dialect of the 15 to 13 cent. B.C.
This dialect, which we have provisionally named Mycenaean after the archaeological culture with which it is associated, is found in documents from Mycenae, (Messenian) Pylos, and Knossos.
Owing to the clumsy script and the scanty remains so far known it is impossible to determine its treatment of all the important linguistic features which would enable us to classify it in relation to the historic dialects. But there is enough clear evidence to show its affinities, and what is more to confirm some of the dates proposed above.
The ancients, from Hesiod on, distinguished generally three major families of Greek speaking peoples : Dorians, Ionians, and Aeolians.
Modern scholars accepted this as a rough basis, for the Doric and Ionic dialects were plainly recognizable.
It proved necessary to split Doric or West Greek into North-West Greek (Phocian, Locrian, Macedonian, Epirotan and Elean) and Doric proper or Peloponnesian Doric (including all the Peloponnese together with Corinth and Megara, but excluding Elis and Arcadia; also the southern Aegean islands, Crete, Melos, Thera, Rhodes, Cos, etc.)
Ionic was divisible into Attic and Ionic, and in the latter three regional
Aeolic was less easily identified, but generally Lesbian, Thessalian, and Boeotian were grouped under this label, though the latter two were distinguished by being 'mixed' dialects, which had suffered strong Doric or North-West Greek influence.
Furthermore, it was necessary to postulate a fourth group, clumsily named Arcado-Cyprian, to account for the remarkable coincidences between the historically isolated areas of Arcadia and Cyprus. This was closely linked with Aeolic.
Source:
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogu...8#contributors
http://www.alpha.edu.gr/general/100106591789633.shtml
Edited by akritas - 16-May-2006 at 16:03