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Doric Greek language   The north-western dialects of the Balkan peninsula, dialects of the most part of Peloponnese (except Arcadia) and many varieties of Great Greece are united under many phonetic and morphological peculiarities in one language known as Doric. Doric tribes came to Greece with the last wave of Hellenic migrants from the north in the 13th and 12th centuries, and it was Dorians who conquered and destroyed all the famous Mycenaean civilization. But still they could not occupy the whole country, and the regions mentioned above became the Doric domain.

An important feature of Doric is the preservance of a lot of archaic peculiarities of Ancient Greek, that is why Doric words and grammar forms are always used for comparative studies of Indo-European languages. Doric language can be traced by official signs and poets' works.

The main features of the Doric language:

a) keeping the archaic long á (e.g. mátér - mother)

b) keeping the archaic Indo-European *w (e.g. newos - young)

c) keeping of the 3rd person verb endings -ti and -nti (e.g. didoti - he gives)

d) the peculiar ending in the 1st person plural of verbs -mes (e.g. didomes - we give, Greek didomen)

e) the definite article toi, tai, and the 2nd person pronoun tu (thou, Greek su)
 

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