Dialectology, the study of linguistic differentiation and change, or rather dialects, is a branch of linguistics that began to develop only about 130 years ago. However, in Greece, it has not yet been significantly developed.

But what exactly is a dialect, which is the subject of the science of dialectology? The traditional notion, even among Greek linguists, is that it is a linguistic form spoken primarily by rural inhabitants, has low social prestige, and does not have a written tradition. However, often a dialect is considered any linguistic form that deviates from the 'correct' standard language, in the sense that it is a kind of linguistic deviation.

As will be shown in the various sections of the book, this perception cannot be accepted, as there is no linguistic criterion to support that one dialect is inferior to another. Everyday reality shows that every speaker, depending on communication conditions, uses one or more dialects. In other words, they are multidialectal.

In Greece, although many significant studies have been published, especially before the Second World War, both by Greek and foreign scholars, dialectology as a science was not established and, of course, did not develop. Therefore, writing an Introduction to contemporary dialectology was necessary. This work aims to meet that need, hoping that there will be successors to this effort.