(where FMG,please read Feature of Modern Greek)

Greek underwent a lot of changes from the Myceanean period to the 5th cent.in order to reach its classical high mode of the 5-4th centuries.What we should note is that this mode of the language was generalised partly because of its dexterity,partly because of Athens eminence as an economical and political power and mostly because of its culture.Before that various locals diallects were the main feature of Greek and alot of changes we find in general later on had already started off since the 6-7th cents at a local scale. After Alexander the Great,the Greek world expands and incorporates foreign people.Due to the fact that the Macedons did not participate in the common historical evolution of archaic and classical mainland Greece they developed a separate national conscience.Their historical and political allienation resulted in the Greeks and the Macedons identifying themselves as distinct entities and overlooked their common ethinic origin.The latter (which was proven as Herodotus defined by common bloodline,common tongue,common religion and common ways-though the Macedonian as more conservative were stuck to the Homeric fashion)was realised after the Panhellenic campaign and after Alexander's death the new kindoms strove to prove their identity as a Greek power by maintaining cultural and political relationships with the Greek mainland(Phillip had introduced the Attic koine as the formal language of the state against the local Macedonian language of Doric/Aeolian origin).But new peoples were incorporated that found it hard to learn the complexity of Attic Greek and the its sound pattern.Gradually,changes will take place to simplify the tongue and unite the Greek world with one means of communication:the Koine.

This was not the first of movements to try generalise a language over the diversity of the Greek world (against the peripheral languages;this is the polarity of Greek language,a transcending feature of unity and diversity).Others of a smaller scale had been attempted before (the Attic,the Doric,the Aetolic Koinai).This unification is one feature of Alexandrian Koine(which includes also the first 3 cents of the early Byzantine Empire)and the other is that Modern Greek was structuraly sealed by the changes that took place during this time.

CHANGES brought about by the Koine:
1)Phonological:loss of prosody;no distinction between long and short vowels and diphthogs(FMG).The consonants change pronounciation from 'harder'to 'softer',eg.fi(f) is pronounced not as Ph but as 'F',vita(b) is pronounced not as 'B' but as 'V',delta (d)not as 'D'but as 'TH'(as in 'the') and so on.(FMG,but the older modes are saved in local diallects).
2)Silence of 'Spiritus Asper',what the Greek denoted with 'H' as in 'Hellen' later turned into a mark.This falls out of use (FMG).
3)double consonants are pronounced as one(FMG,older fashion saved in diallects)
4)Zita(z) changes use from 'zd' to simple 'z',in classical Greek 's' was also used to denote the sound'z',sth that survived into modern Greek (eg kosmos pronounced as kozmos).(FMG)
5)Morpfological/syntactical:what changes is not the categories but the way they are expressed,eg Future remains as it is,but the way its expressed(the form) alters.
i)Periphrastical expression:instead of using one word,eg gegrafa(I have written)more are used (mainly combinations of exw(I have) and eimi(I am);it will now be said 'exw grapsai'(I have written).(FMG)
ii)Moods:changes in the optative mood to a more periphrastical expression.Changes in the subjunctive mood, where the 'ina'(to) was now used to denote this mood,eg boulomai elthein(I want to come)into 'boulomai ina elthw'(FMG).
6)Structural Simplifications:the middle and passive voice merge into one against the active,which looses some of its older uses(FMG).Verbs ending in-mi(eg deiknumi)now are changed to -w(eg deiknuw)(FMG).
7)The noun:many nouns were replaced by synonyms,eg naus(ship) by 'ploion,'udwr'(water)into 'neron','amnos'(sheep) into 'provaton'.Other nouns were morphologically simplified,eg pais (boy) into paidion(FMG).Particular declensions(esp.the irregular)were assimilated to the more standard forms,eg to kreas(meat,genitive in clas.Gr.:tou krews),was now 'tou kreatos'(FMG).
In the degrees of comparison the older endings -iwn and -istos are replaced by -teros and -tatos,eg taxuteros,taxustos(faster,fastest)(FMG).The dual number falls out of use(FMG).The dative and the genitive start to loose a lot of their various uses.

Changes brought about by the Medieval/Byzantine Greek(6-18th cents.AD)
This is the period in which the changes that will shape MG continue to take place and its main feature is the division between the more conservative written language and the oral one that continued the tradition of the Hellenistic age.The future Greek language would be the result of the dynamic interaction of both tendencies.
1)Iwtakism of 'u'.This 'u'(pronounced like the french 'une')along with its similar diphthog 'oi' are pronounced as iwta 'i'(english 'e' as in 'eat'.(FMG)
2)combinations as 'ae,ia,eo,io,iu' were merged with 'i',eg fwlea(nest) into 'fwlia',palaios(old) into 'palios'(FMG).Of course the older forms survived in many local diallects and are still used.
3)contraction of vowels,eg emera (proun.'imera'=day)into mera,oligos(=little,few)into ligos,erwtw(=ask)into pwtw.(FMG)
4)silence of the ending -n,eg ouranon(=sky)into ourano.

So these are the main changes in the evolution of the language.The fact that Greek was influenced by the so-called 'return movements' is true,but this is a case observed already by the Hellenistic period and the deliberate tendency of Alexandrian scholars to establish Attic Greek.However we should notice that the ordinary people of Thucidides and Plato's times did not speak their 'High Greek',as always is the case between the intellects and the common folk.Even Xenophon who is a contemporary and an intellect uses a much simpler form of Greek closer to the Koine.But language is the outcome of both the common tongue and the refinement of the intellects.This division was most noted in the Byzantine era and resulted in the so called 'Language Question' of modern Greece that divided the people linguistically.Kathareuousa which was an artificial reintroduction of ancient Greek refined the common tongue by many grammatical and vocabualry mistakes,but it exceeded its beneficiary role when it tried to reverse the natural evolution of the language;the new form of Greek had suffered more morphological alterations than structural and therefore still retained its coherence and vocabulary.Written language that had been uninterrupted and always more conservative(already by the Hellenistic Koine)interracted with the oral language and enrichened it.

All linguists agree that the example of Greek as a natuarl language that has been evolving uninterrupted over 40 centuries is without parallel.It cannot be compared neither to Italian with Latin (which have a different relationship),nor to Chinese (which was replaced in the turn of the previous century by newer language-diallects and survived only as the language of literature under the name we-yan)or Sanscrit(which survived in particular cases of archaic religious language).The structural infrastructure of Greek maintains the same features with that of Ancient(Classical) Greek(eg,the distinction between number,genre and case in nouns and adjectives,the distinction between tense,agent,person,voice,number and mood in the verbs,the continous use and not rediscovery of the same words),because the changes that took place were in the expression of these structural categories not the categories themselves.The Greeks pride themselves on speaking,breathing and singing the same language from the time of Homer.Greek cannot be identified with one face,eg that of Classical or Koine or Medieval or Modern,as a living being cannot be separated by any of the phases of its evolution.None of us is the same person 10 or 20 years ago or even yesterday as we evolve,but we are the same living being at all stages.The only difference an alive language has to this analogy is that contrary to living organisms it doesn't have to die,unless external factors force her to.She is virtually immortal.Greek never had any reason to cease to exist and therefore is still a living organism and one only has to learn modern Greek to see that.In 25 centuries there was not one century where poetry was not written in Greek!

Robert Browning('Medieval and Modern Greek',London)shall remark:"Ever since the 7th century Greek aquires a continuous tradition that reaches our age.There were changes but there was no rift in the continuity,as was the case with the Romanic languages and Latin.Ancient Greek is no foreign tongue for the contemporary Greek,as is the case with Anglosaxon and the contemporary English...The continuity of the vocabulary reservoir of Greek is impressive...and despite the fact that there were rearrangements in the morphological forms,there was also a great coherence;so that Greek even today retains an archaic indoeuropean type of language like Latin and Russian".