The New Greek Koine was created on the basis of southern dialects in the 18-19 centuries and spread quickly in the cities. Besides from Koine, there are 4 dialectal groups linguists have found in new Greek: Pontic with some Ionic Greek features and Middle Greek morphology; Cappadocian, close to Pontic but with strong Turkish influence; Tsakonian - the only dialect which preserves the Doric Greek traits; and Lower Italian. The literature language of Greece exists in tow main varieties: kathareusa, which continues Attic literature norms, and dimotika - the popular language, which was allowed to use officially only in the previous century.
The language keeps 5 vowels, but there are no long or short ones already. The stress became dynamic, and difference between acute and gravis disappeared. New consonants appeared: labio-dental [v], dentals voiced and voiceless [th], labial [f]. In morphology, the dual number has fallen out of use, the case system has lost dative and vocative cases (vocative form - only in masculine). Among verb tenses, nw models of creating complex perfect, future and pluperfect appeared. The infinitive is no longer used.
The vocabulary, though its biggest part is archaic Greek, has many loanwords
from Slavic, Turkish, Romance languages. The Greek language uses the alphabet
which was in use already in the 9th century BC here.
