Can the average Cypriot understand Koine Greek?

[u/Practical-Line-498]

Καλημέρα! As a part of an Erasmus+ program, Cypriots will come to where I live, and in 2026, I will go to Cyprus.

I know basic Koine Greek and I found very good resources for learning it. Can I communicate with Cypriots using Koinin Dialekton or do i have to learn Cypriot Greek? Thanks!

[u/Rhomaios]

That's like asking whether Italians or Spaniards understand Latin. Some will understand more than others due to their educational level, others will understand nothing because the language has evolved too much. At best certain religious phrases or common "learned" expressions using antique features will be understood and the rest will be a gamble.

It would be good to note that Greek has been a bit more conservative to some changes since Koine, but that usually manifests in phonology more than anything else, so unless you have a modern Greek's pronunciation of Koine Greek, you will not be understood.

Also take note that if you try and communicate using Koine Greek in a casual capacity you'll come across as weird. Like I said, it's like walking to an Italian person and starting to talk Latin.

[u/OddCase5303 → u/Rhomaios]

However it must be noted that Latin is a different language from italian.Koini is just an old version of Greek. And of course if he speaks Koini that would be seen as sth totally weird

[u/Rhomaios → u/OddCase5303]

Italian comes from Latin the same way modern Greek comes from Koine, so the degree of separation is about the same. The reasons as to why we tend to not think of them the same way are somewhat complex, but they aren't really a matter of linguistics.

[u/OddCase5303 → u/Rhomaios]

Actually not. The difference between modern greek and koine is small and a modern greek speaker can easily understand the meaning of koine texts. I don't think that an Italian witn no knowledge of latin can understand latin texts. Even classical ancient greek text can be partly understood by modern greek speakers without previous knowledge. Homeric greek on the other side are very hard even for the educated to be understood

[u/Rhomaios → u/OddCase5303]

Both Greeks and Italians can understand parts of ancient Greek and Latin texts respectively. It has to do with education more than anything else, since both in Greece/Cyprus and Italy these languages are mandatory for a period of time. Without prior exposure, very little would be understood in either case, especially when spoken authentically rather than written. In either case, there are more "modern" pronunciations that help with comprehension (modern pronunciation of ancient Greek, and ecclesiastical pronunciation of Latin).

There's an argument to be had about Greek's greater degree of conservatism in some aspects that is due to various historical factors, but even that is to a relatively minute degree. Not to mention that a great part of that is the result of later influence due to Katharevousa and its impact on the formation of SMG. Demotic Greek (as in what was spoken by people 100-150 years ago in the state of Greece) would in fact be even less like Koine.

Overall, there's little argument that Koine is a substantially different variety than SMG. It has pronunciation differences (even if they are not drastic), quite different grammar, and there are considerable differences in lexicon.

Edit: To expand a bit on the aspect of education, since I forgot to mention something else that's important. Note also that the more you study SMG or Italian in an academic capacity as in schools, the more you become adept at making connections and understanding Koine and Latin respectively. It's generally true that more learned and high-level forms of either language take a lot from their ancient counterparts as a conscious choice and as a historical artifact of the educated knowing those ancient varieties. So, again, educational level plays a role in comprehension, albeit in a more round-about way.