ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the factors that led to the rise of the koine, and by so doing give a sketch of what, in the view, a definition of the koine might look like. It focuses on the willingness or otherwise of speakers in the Greek world to modify the way they wrote more or less before 400 BC. The Ionic alphabet was in widespread use in fifth-century Attica; Threatte puts the main period of transition at 480-30, and concludes that 'Ionic script was employed by most persons for private purposes by the last quarter of the century'. For further evidence of standardization authors can turn from script to language proper, and they do indeed find differences between private and public inscriptions at the phonological and morphological levels. The authors consider the question they posed above regarding the change from Latin to Romance, where the link between linguistic consciousness and written standard seems to have played a central role.
