When the first edition of this book went out of print a year or two ago, colleagues and friends in this country and abroad urged me to bring it up to date. The kind offer by the Cambridge University Press to publish a second edition was thus particularly welcome, and for many reasons. Much work has been done in the last fifteen years on the history of Greek in the post-classical and medieval periods. The political events in Greece since 1967 have been reflected in an unusually rapid change in linguistic usage, which has made all earlier discussions of the ‘language question’ to some extent out of date. Partly as a consequence of this students of linguistics have shown a lively interest in modern Greek in recent years.

In revising the earlier edition I have tried to remove as many as possible of the errors and infelicities which disfigured it. Much has been rewritten, and there is scarcely a page which stands unchanged from the first edition. The bibliography, which lists only works referred to in the notes, bears witness to the flourishing state of medieval and modern Greek studies today.

I am glad to be able to thank the Cambridge University Press for the efficiency and courtesy with which they have transformed an untidy manuscript into a book; Mandy Macdonald, the Press's subeditor, whose skill and alertness enabled many inconsistencies and ambiguities to be corrected in time; and the Trustees for Harvard University for appointing me to a Fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, in spring 1982, during which most of the work on this book was done.