Byzantine Greek

The Greek of the medieval Roman Empire, from the close of antiquity to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Its speakers called themselves Rhōmaîoi, Romans, and their spoken language Rhōmaïká; “Byzantine” is the modern label. The learned register held close to classical norms while the spoken language moved on, and the pronunciation had shifted far from the classical values: the vowels collapsed toward i (itacism), β became v, and the aspirates became fricatives, so the same written form sounded quite different in the tenth century than it had in the fifth.

In this atlas the file hosts names that arise or change in the medieval period: new coinages, administrative names of the theme system, and popular renamings. Classical forms that simply continued in Byzantine use remain under Ancient Greek with their own attestation windows; this file begins where the medieval story adds something the classical entry does not tell.

@misc{onomastikon-byzantine-greek,
  author = {Rajagopal, Shriram},
  title = {Byzantine Greek},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://onomastikon.org/languages/byzantine-greek}},
  note = {Onomastikon: A Digital Atlas of Ancient Names}
}