Word Lengths in Classical and Post-Classical Greek

The purpose of this dataset is to collate average word lengths in Greek in the Classical period (using a sample from the 5th century BCE) and the average word lengths in the Post -classical period (using a sample from the 1st century CE). This dataset, which is stored as a CSV file in the Harvard Dataverse, has been used to demonstrate that the average length of words in Greek increased significantly between the Classical and Post -classical periods. It comprises two word lists and corresponding word lengths for each sample; a table of the average word lengths (for nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and total) of each sample and the statistical t -test results showing the significance of the difference in word lengths between Classical and Post -classical Greek. This dataset has a reuse potential for linguists investigating diachronic change in word lengths as well as for historical linguists looking at the evolution of Classical and Post -classical Greek.