Greek ( el, label=
Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
family of languages, native to
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...
,
Cyprus, southern
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
(
Calabria and
Salento), southern
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and share ...
, and other regions of the
Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
, the
Black Sea coast,
Asia Minor, and the
Eastern Mediterranean. It has the
longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records.
Its writing system is the
Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as
Linear B and the
Cypriot syllabary. The alphabet arose from the
Phoenician script
The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization.
The Phoenician alpha ...
and was in turn the basis of the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
,
Cyrillic,
Armenian,
Coptic,
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
, and many other writing systems.
The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the
Western world. Beginning with the epics of
Homer,
ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the
European canon
The Western canon is the body of high culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly valued in the West; works that have achieved the status of classics. However, not all these works originate in the Western world, an ...
. Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The
New Testament of the
Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
texts and traditions of the
Roman world, the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute the objects of study of the discipline of
Classics.
During
antiquity
Antiquity or Antiquities may refer to:
Historical objects or periods Artifacts
*Antiquities, objects or artifacts surviving from ancient cultures
Eras
Any period before the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the histo ...
, Greek was by far the most widely spoken
lingua franca in the Mediterranean world. It eventually became the official language of the
Byzantine Empire and developed into
Medieval Greek. In its
modern form, Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24
official languages of the European Union. It is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, Albania,
Turkey, and the many other countries of the
Greek diaspora.
Greek
roots
A root is the part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors the plant body, and absorbs and stores water and nutrients.
Root or roots may also refer to:
Art, entertainment, and media
* ''The Root'' (magazine), an online magazine focusing ...
have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages;
Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of
international scientific vocabulary.
History
Greek has been spoken in the
Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC,
[; .] or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a
Linear B clay tablet found in
Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's
oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct
Anatolian languages.
Periods
The Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods:
*
Proto-Greek: the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the
Greek peninsula sometime in the
Neolithic era or the
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
.
*
Mycenaean Greek: the language of the
Mycenaean civilization. It is recorded in the
Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards.
*
Ancient Greek: in its various
dialects, the language of the
Archaic and
Classical periods of the
ancient Greek civilization. It was widely known throughout the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...
. Ancient Greek fell into disuse in western Europe in the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, but remained officially in use in the
Byzantine world and was reintroduced to the rest of Europe with the
Fall of Constantinople and
Greek migration to western Europe.
*
Koine Greek (also known as Hellenistic Greek): The fusion of
Ionian with
Attic, the dialect of
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...
, began the process that resulted in the creation of the first common Greek dialect, which became a
lingua franca across the
Eastern Mediterranean and
Near East. Koine Greek can be initially traced within the armies and conquered territories of
Alexander the Great; after the Hellenistic colonization of the known world, it was spoken from
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
to the fringes of
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
. After the
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
* Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...
conquest of Greece, an unofficial
bilingualism of Greek and
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
was established in the city of
Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...
. The origin of
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...
can also be traced through Koine Greek because the
Apostles
An apostle (), in its literal sense, is an emissary, from Ancient Greek ἀπόστολος (''apóstolos''), literally "one who is sent off", from the verb ἀποστέλλειν (''apostéllein''), "to send off". The purpose of such sending ...
used this form of the language to spread Christianity. Because it was the original language of the
New Testament, and the
Old Testament was translated into it as the
Septuagint, that variety of Koine Greek may be referred to as New Testament Greek or sometimes Biblical Greek.
*
Medieval Greek (also known as Byzantine Greek): the continuation of Koine Greek up to the demise of the
Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. ''Medieval Greek'' is a cover phrase for a whole continuum of different speech and writing styles, ranging from vernacular continuations of spoken Koine that were already approaching Modern Greek in many respects, to highly learned forms imitating classical Attic. Much of the written Greek that was used as the official language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine.
*
Modern Greek (also known as Neo-Hellenic):
Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period, as early as the 11th century. It is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several
dialects of it.
Diglossia
In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of
diglossia: the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the
Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek:
Dimotiki
Demotic Greek or Dimotiki ( el, Δημοτική Γλώσσα, , , ) is the standard spoken language of Greece in modern times and, since the resolution of the Greek language question in 1976, the official language of Greece.
"Demotic Greek" ( ...
, the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and
Katharevousa, meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and
Ancient Greek developed in the early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to
Standard Modern Greek
The linguistic varieties of Modern Greek can be classified along two principal dimensions. First, there is a long tradition of sociolectal variation between the natural, popular spoken language on the one hand and archaizing, learned written form ...
, used today for all official purposes and in
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...
.
Historical unity
The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, "
Homeric Greek
Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used by Homer in the '' Iliad'', '' Odyssey'', and Homeric Hymns. It is a literary dialect of Ancient Greek consisting mainly of Ionic, with some Aeolic forms, a few from Arcadocypriot, ...
is probably closer to
Demotic than 12-century
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old Englis ...
is to
modern spoken English".
Geographic distribution
Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and share ...
near the Greek-Albanian border.
A significant percentage of Albania's population has some basic knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s. Prior to the
Greco-Turkish War and the resulting
population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in
Turkey, though very few remain today.
A small Greek-speaking community is also found in
Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable
Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
,
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...
,
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...
,
Brazil,
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
,
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...
, the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
, and throughout the
European Union, especially in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
.
Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout the
Eastern Mediterranean, in what are today
Southern Italy, Turkey, Cyprus,
Syria,
Lebanon,
Palestine,
Israel,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
, and
Libya; in the area of the
Black Sea, in what are today Turkey,
Bulgaria,
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
,
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
,
Georgia,
Armenia, and
Azerbaijan; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western
Mediterranean in and around
colonies
In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...
such as
Massalia,
Monoikos
The early history of Monaco is primarily concerned with the protective and strategic value of the Rock of Monaco, the area's chief geological landmark, which served first as a shelter for ancient peoples and later as a fortress. Part of Liguri ...
, and
Mainake. It was also used as a liturgical language in Christian Nubian kingdom of
Makuria which was in modern day
Sudan.
Official status
Greek, in its modern form, is the
official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside
Turkish).
[ states that ''The official languages of the Republic are Greek and Turkish''. However, the official status of Turkish is only nominal in the Greek-dominated Republic of Cyprus; in practice, outside Turkish-dominated Northern Cyprus, Turkish is little used; see A. Arvaniti (2006): Erasure as a Means of Maintaining Diglossia in Cyprus, ''San Diego Linguistics Papers'' 2: pp. 25–38 7] Because of the membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's
24 official languages.
Greek is recognized as a
minority language
A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities. With a total number of 196 sovereign states recognized internationally (as of 2019) ...
in Albania and used co-officially in some of the municipalities in
Gjirokastër
Gjirokastër (, sq-definite, Gjirokastra) is a city in the Republic of Albania and the seat of Gjirokastër County and Gjirokastër Municipality. It is located in a valley between the Gjerë mountains and the Drino, at 300 metres above sea ...
and
Sarandë. It is also an official minority language in the regions of
Apulia and
Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. However, th ...
, Greek is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia,
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...
, Romania, and Ukraine.
Characteristics
The
phonology,
morphology,
syntax, and
vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to the modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it.
Phonology
Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only
oral vowels
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the Human nose, nose and the human mouth, mouth simultaneously, as in the French language, French vowel or Amoy diale ...
and a fairly stable set of consonantal
contrasts. The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see
Koine Greek phonology
The Greek language underwent pronunciation changes during the Koine Greek period, from about 300 BC to 400 AD. At the beginning of the period, the pronunciation was close to Classical Greek, while at the end it was almost identical to Modern G ...
for details):
* replacement of the
pitch accent with a
stress accent.
* simplification of the system of
vowels and
diphthongs: loss of vowel length distinction, monophthongisation of most diphthongs and several steps in a
chain shift of vowels towards (
iotacism).
* development of the
voiceless aspirated plosives
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), li ...
and to the voiceless
fricatives and , respectively; the similar development of to may have taken place later (the phonological changes are not reflected in the orthography, and both earlier and later phonemes are written with
φ,
θ, and
χ).
* development of the
voiced plosives , , and to their voiced fricative counterparts (later ), , and .
Morphology
In all its stages, the
morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of
productive
Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...
derivational affix
Morphological derivation, in linguistics, is the process of forming a new word from an existing word, often by adding a prefix or suffix, such as For example, ''unhappy'' and ''happiness'' derive from the root word ''happy.''
It is different ...
es, a limited but productive system of
compounding
In the field of pharmacy, compounding (performed in compounding pharmacies) is preparation of a custom formulation of a medication to fit a unique need of a patient that cannot be met with commercially available products. This may be done for me ...
and a rich
inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in the
nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the
dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the
genitive). The verbal system has lost the
infinitive, the
synthetically-formed future, and
perfect tense
The perfect tense or aspect (abbreviated or ) is a verb form that indicates that an action or circumstance occurred earlier than the time under consideration, often focusing attention on the resulting state rather than on the occurrence itself. ...
s and the
optative mood. Many have been replaced by
periphrastic (
analytical) forms.
Nouns and adjectives
Pronouns show distinctions in
person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd),
number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual number ...
(singular,
dual, and plural in the ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and
gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and
decline for
case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Containers
* Case (goods), a package of related merchandise
* Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component
* Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books
* Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ca ...
(from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both
attributive
In grammar, an attributive expression is a word or phrase within a noun phrase that modifies the head noun. It may be an:
* attributive adjective
* attributive noun
* attributive verb
or other part of speech, such as an attributive numeral.
...
and
predicative adjectives
agree with the noun.
Verbs
The inflectional categories of the Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have
synthetic Synthetic things are composed of multiple parts, often with the implication that they are artificial. In particular, 'synthetic' may refer to:
Science
* Synthetic chemical or compound, produced by the process of chemical synthesis
* Synthetic ...
inflectional forms for:
Syntax
Many aspects of the
syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow the noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the
modern form of the language. Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks the infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO.
Vocabulary
Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of
borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in
Mycenaean texts; they include a large number of Greek
toponyms. The form and meaning of many words have changed.
Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin,
Venetian
Venetian often means from or related to:
* Venice, a city in Italy
* Veneto, a region of Italy
* Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area
Venetian and the like may also refer to:
* Venetian language, a Romance language s ...
, and
Turkish. During the older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
and
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from
South Slavic (
Macedonian
Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia.
Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to:
People Modern
* Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Ma ...
/
Bulgarian) and
Eastern Romance languages
The Eastern Romance languages are a group of Romance languages. Today, the group consists of the Daco-Romance subgroup, which comprises the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian), Aromanian language and two other related minor languages, Meglen ...
(
Aromanian and
Megleno-Romanian).
Greek loanwords in other languages
Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: ''
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
'', ''
physics'', ''
astronomy'', ''
democracy'', ''
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...
'', ''
athletics
Athletics may refer to:
Sports
* Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking
** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport
* Athletics (physical culture), competi ...
,
theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...
,
rhetoric'', ''
baptism'', ''
evangelist
Evangelist may refer to:
Religion
* Four Evangelists, the authors of the canonical Christian Gospels
* Evangelism, publicly preaching the Gospel with the intention of spreading the teachings of Jesus Christ
* Evangelist (Anglican Church), a co ...
'', etc. Moreover, Greek words and
word elements continue to be productive as a basis for coinages: ''
anthropology'', ''
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...
'', ''
telephony'', ''
isomer'', ''
biomechanics'', ''
cinematography
Cinematography (from ancient Greek κίνημα, ''kìnema'' "movement" and γράφειν, ''gràphein'' "to write") is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography.
Cinematographers use a lens to focu ...
'', etc. Together with
Latin words, they form the
foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary; for example, all words ending in ''–logy'' ("discourse"). There are many
English words of Greek origin.
Classification
Greek is an independent branch of the
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be
ancient Macedonian, which most scholars suggest may have been a
dialect of Greek itself,
but it is poorly attested and it is difficult to conclude. Independently of the Macedonian question, some scholars have grouped Greek into
Graeco-Phrygian, as Greek and the extinct
Phrygian share features that are not found in other Indo-European languages. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to
Armenian (see
Graeco-Armenian) or the
Indo-Iranian languages (see
Graeco-Aryan), but little definitive evidence has been found for grouping the living branches of the family. In addition,
Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian by some linguists. If proven and recognized, the three languages would form a new Balkan sub-branch with other dead European languages.
Writing system
Linear B
Linear B, attested as early as the late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek.
It is basically a
syllabary, which was finally deciphered by
Michael Ventris and
John Chadwick
John Chadwick, (21 May 1920 – 24 November 1998) was an English linguist and classical scholar who was most notable for the decipherment, with Michael Ventris, of Linear B.
Early life, education and wartime service
John Chadwick was born at ...
in the 1950s (its precursor,
Linear A, has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language).
The language of the Linear B texts,
Mycenaean Greek, is the earliest known form of Greek.
Cypriot syllabary
Another similar system used to write the Greek language was the
Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate
Cypro-Minoan syllabary), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet.
Greek alphabet
Greek has been written in the Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the
Phoenician alphabet, with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late
Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical
Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit a faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of
ink and
quill.
The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase (
majuscule) and lowercase (
minuscule) form. The letter
sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word:
Diacritics
In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of
diacritical signs: three different accent marks (
acute
Acute may refer to:
Science and technology
* Acute angle
** Acute triangle
** Acute, a leaf shape in the glossary of leaf morphology
* Acute (medicine), a disease that it is of short duration and of recent onset.
** Acute toxicity, the adverse ef ...
,
grave, and
circumflex), originally denoting different shapes of
pitch accent on the stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks (
rough and
smooth breathing), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the
diaeresis, used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in
handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of the acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in
typography.
After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified
monotonic orthography
Greek orthography has used a variety of diacritics starting in the Hellenistic period. The more complex polytonic orthography ( el, πολυτονικό σύστημα γραφής, translit=polytonikó sýstīma grafī́s), which includes fiv ...
(or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system), is still used internationally for the writing of
Ancient Greek.
Punctuation
In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ''
ano teleia'' (). In Greek the
comma also functions as a
silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing (''ó,ti'', 'whatever') from (''óti'', 'that').
Ancient Greek texts often used ''scriptio continua'' ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries.
Boustrophedon
Boustrophedon is a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style. This is in contrast to modern European languages, where lines always begin on the same side, usually the le ...
, or bi-directional text, was also used in Ancient Greek.
Latin alphabet
Greek has occasionally been written in the
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...
, especially in areas under
Venetian rule or by
Greek Catholics. The term / applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because / is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe was under the control of the
Frankish Empire). / (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of
Chios. Additionally, the term
Greeklish
Greeklish, a portmanteau of the words Greek and English, also known as Grenglish, Latinoellinika/Λατινοελληνικά or ASCII Greek, is the Greek language written using the Latin alphabet. Unlike standardized systems of Romanization of G ...
is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications.
The Latin script is nowadays used by the
Greek-speaking communities of
Southern Italy.
Hebrew alphabet
The
Yevanic dialect was written by
Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the
Hebrew Alphabet.
Arabic alphabet
Some
Greek Muslim
Greek Muslims, also known as Grecophone Muslims, are Muslims of Greek ethnic origin whose adoption of Islam (and often the Turkish language and identity) dates to the period of Ottoman rule in the southern Balkans. They consist primarily of th ...
s
from Crete wrote their
Cretan Greek in the
Arabic alphabet. The same happened among Epirote Muslims in
Ioannina. This usage is sometimes called
aljamiado
''Aljamiado'' (; ; ar, عَجَمِيَة trans. ''ʿajamiyah'' ) or ''Aljamía'' texts are manuscripts that use the Arabic script for transcribing European languages, especially Romance languages such as Mozarabic, Aragonese, Portuguese, S ...
, as when
Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet.
Example text
Article 1 of the ''
Universal Declaration of Human Rights'' in Greek:
:
Transcription of the example text into
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...
:
:
Article 1 of the ''Universal Declaration of Human Rights'' in English:
:"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
See also
*
List of medical roots, suffixes and prefixes
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
; General background
Greek Language Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia.
The Greek Language and Linguistics Gateway useful information on the history of the Greek language, application of modern Linguistics to the study of Greek, and tools for learning Greek.
* Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
a portal for Greek language and linguistic education.
The Perseus Projecthas many useful pages for the study of classical languages and literatures, including dictionaries.
Berkeley Language Center of the University of California, Berkeley
; Language learning
Hellenistic Greek LessonsGreek-Language.com provides a free online grammar of Hellenistic Greek.
komvos.edu.gr a website for the support of people who are being taught the Greek language.
New Testament Greek Three graduated courses designed to help students learn to read the Greek New Testament
Books on Greek language that are taught at schools in Greece
*
Greek Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's
Swadesh list appendix)
USA Foreign Service Institute Modern Greek basic course* Identifies the grammatical functions of all the words in sentences entered, using Perseus.
; Dictionaries
descriptions of both online lexicons (with appropriate links) and Greek Lexicons in Print.
dictionaries of all forms of Greek (Ancient, Hellenistic, Medieval, Modern)
* scanned images fro
S. C. Woodhouse's English–Greek dictionary 1910
; Literature
a non-profit organization that promotes modern Greek literature and culture
a large e-library of modern Greek texts/books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greek Language
Graeco-Phrygian
Fusional languages
Greek alphabet
Languages of Albania
Languages of Apulia
Languages of Armenia
Languages of Calabria
Languages of Cyprus
Languages of Georgia (country)
Languages of Greece
Languages of Hungary
Languages of Romania
Languages of Sicily
Languages of Turkey
Languages of Ukraine
Languages with own distinct writing systems
Subject–verb–object languages