Abstract/Summary

What did linguistic expertise consist of for the ancient Greeks? In the Classical and Hellenistic periods it seems to have consisted largely of knowledge of analogical rules, and that basis of expertise continued well into the Roman period. But from the second century AD onwards it was overtaken by a rival basis for linguistic expertise, knowledge of the Attic literary canon. This article argues that at least part of the catalyst for that shift came from the increasing regularization of vernacular Greek as it evolved away from the Classical standard, a change that caused laymen to have less respect for analogy.