Greek language

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For the Greek language used during particular eras; see Proto-
Greek, Mycenaean Greek, Ancient Greek, Koine Greek, Medieval
Greek and Modern Greek.

Greek

Ελληνικά

Pronunciation [eliniˈka]

Region Greece
Cyprus
Asia Minor
Balkans
Black Sea coast
Eastern Mediterranean
Southern Italy

Ethnicity Greeks

Native speakers 13.4 million (2012)[1]

Language family Indo-European

 Hellenic
o Greek

Early form Proto-Greek

Dialects Ancient dialects

Modern dialects

Writing system Greek alphabet

Language codes
el
ISO 639-1
gre  (B)
ISO 639-2
ell (T)

ISO 639-3 Variously:

ell  – Modern Greek
grc  – Ancient Greek
 cpg  – Cappadocian Greek
gmy  – Mycenaean Greek
pnt  – Pontic
tsd  – Tsakonian
yej  – Yevanic

gree1276 [2]
Glottolog

Linguasphere 56-AAA-a
56-AAA-aa to -am (va
rieties)

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without

proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or
other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory
guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Greek (Greek: Ελληνικά, romanized: Elliniká) is an independent branch of

the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, Albania and
other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. It has the longest
documented history of any living Indo-European language, spanning at least
3,500 years of written records.[3] Its writing system has been the Greek
alphabet for the major part of its history; other systems, such as Linear B and
the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously.[4] The alphabet arose from
the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of
the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems.
The Greek language holds an important place in the history of the Western
world and Christianity; the canon of ancient Greek literature includes works in
the Western canon such as the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey. Greek is also
the language in which many of the foundational texts in science, especially
astronomy, mathematics and logic and Western philosophy, such as
the Platonic dialogues and the works of Aristotle, are composed; the New
Testament of the Christian Bible was written in Koiné Greek. Together with
the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, the study of the Greek texts
and society of antiquity constitutes the discipline of Classics.
During antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean
world, West Asia and many places beyond. It would eventually become the
official parlance of the Byzantine Empire and develop into Medieval Greek.[5] In
its modern form, Greek is the official language in two countries, Greece and
Cyprus, a recognized minority language in seven other countries, and is one of
the 24 official languages of the European Union. The language is spoken by at
least 13.4 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, and Turkey
and by the Greek diaspora.
Greek roots are often used to coin new words for other languages; Greek
and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary.
Idealised portrayal of Homer

Contents

 1History
o 1.1Periods
o 1.2Diglossia
o 1.3Historical unity
 2Geographic distribution
o 2.1Official status
 3Characteristics
o 3.1Phonology
o 3.2Morphology
 3.2.1Nouns and adjectives
 3.2.2Verbs
o 3.3Syntax
o 3.4Vocabulary
o 3.5Greek loanwords in other languages
 4Classification
 5Writing system
o 5.1Linear B
o 5.2Cypriot syllabary
o 5.3Greek alphabet
 5.3.1Diacritics
 5.3.2Punctuation
o 5.4Latin alphabet
o 5.5Hebrew alphabet
o 5.6Arabic alphabet
 6See also
 7Notes
 8References
o 8.1Citations
o 8.2Sources
 9Further reading
 10External links

History[edit]
Main article: History of Greek
Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd
millennium BC,[6] or possibly earlier.[7] The earliest written evidence is a Linear
B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC,
[8]
 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[edit]

Proto-Greek-speaking area according to linguist Vladimir I. Georgiev

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. [note 1]
 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. Ancient Greek fell
into disuse in western Europe in the Middle Ages,
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: The fusion of Ionian with Attic, the
dialect of Athens, 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 and after the
Hellenistic colonization of the known world, it was
spoken from Egypt to the fringes of India. After
 the Roman conquest of Greece, an
unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was
established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek
became a first or second language in the Roman
Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be
traced through Koine Greek, because
the Apostles used this form of the language to
spread Christianity. It is also known as Hellenistic
Greek, New Testament Greek, and
sometimes Biblical Greek because it was the
original language of the New Testament and
the Old Testament was translated into the same
language via the Septuagint.

Distribution of varieties of Greek in Anatolia, 1910. Demotic in yellow. Pontic in orange. Cappadocian

Greek in green, with green dots indicating individual Cappadocian Greek villages. [9]

 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 (Neo-Hellenic):[10] 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[edit]
Main article: Greek language question
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, the vernacular form of
Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa, meaning 'purified', a compromise
between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek, which was developed in the early 19th
century and was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed
Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece,
having incorporated features of Katharevousa and giving birth to Standard
Modern Greek, which is used today for all official purposes and in education.[11]
Historical unity[edit]

The distribution of major modern Greek dialect areas

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. [12] It is also
often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared
with some other languages. According to one estimation, "Homeric Greek is
probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken
English".[13]

Geographic distribution[edit]
Further information: Greeks and Greek diaspora

Geographic distribution of Greek language in the Russian Empire (1897 census)

Spread of Greek in the United States

Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally

in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority
in Albania near the Greek-Albanian border.[10] 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.[3] 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 as notable communities in the United
States, Australia, Canada, South
Africa, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Russia, Ukraine, and throughout the European
Union, especially in the United Kingdom and Germany.
Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found
throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, in what are today Southern Italy, Turkey,
Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, and Libya; in the area of the Black Sea,
in what are today
Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan;
and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and
around colonies such as Massalia, Monoikos, and Mainake.
Official status[edit]
Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken
by almost the entire population.[14] It is also the official language of Cyprus
(nominally alongside Turkish).[15] Because of the membership of Greece and
Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official
languages.[16] Furthermore, Greek is officially recognized as official
in Dropull and Himara (Albania), and as a minority language all over Albania,
[17]
 as well as in parts of Italy, Armenia, Romania, and Ukraine as a regional or
minority language in the framework of the European Charter for Regional or
Minority Languages.[18] Greeks are also a recognized ethnic minority in Hungary.
[19]

Characteristics[edit]
See also: Ancient Greek grammar, Koine Greek grammar, and Modern Greek
grammar
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 at all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the
literate borrowed heavily from it.
Phonology[edit]
See also: Modern Greek phonology

MENU
0:00
Spoken Modern Greek

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 and a fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts.
The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman
period (see Koine Greek phonology 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 /i/ (iotacism).
 development of
the voiceless aspirated plosives /pʰ/ and /tʰ/ to the
voiceless fricatives /f/ and /θ/, respectively; the
similar development of /kʰ/ to /x/ 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 /b/, /d/,
and /ɡ/ to their voiced fricative
counterparts /β/ (later /v/), /ð/, and /ɣ/.
Morphology[edit]
In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive
derivational affixes, a limited but productive system of compounding [20] 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 tenses and the optative mood. Many
have been replaced by periphrastic (analytical) forms.
Nouns and adjectives[edit]
Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), 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 (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern
language).[note 2] Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for
a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun.
Verbs[edit]
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 inflectional forms for:

Ancient Greek Modern Greek

Person first, second and third also second person formal

Numbe
singular, dual and plural singular and plural
r

past and non-past (future is

tense present, past and future expressed by a periphrastic
construction)

imperfective and
imperfective, perfective (traditionally called aorist)
perfective/aorist (perfect is
aspect and perfect (sometimes also called perfective; see note
expressed by a periphrastic
about terminology)
construction)

indicative, subjunctive,[note
3]
 and imperative (other
mood indicative, subjunctive, imperative and optative modal functions are
expressed by periphrastic
constructions)

Voice active, middle, and passive active and medio-passive

Syntax[edit]
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
(instead of having a raft of new periphrastic constructions) 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[edit]
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,[21] some documented in Mycenaean texts; they include a large
number of Greek toponyms. The form and meaning of many words have
evolved. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly
from Latin, Venetian, 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 and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings
are derived from South Slavic (Macedonian/Bulgarian) and Eastern Romance
languages (Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian).
Greek loanwords in other languages[edit]
Further information: English words of Greek origin
Further information: Greek and Latin roots in English
Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including
English: mathematics, physics, astronomy, democracy, philosophy, athletics, th
eatre, rhetoric, baptism, evangelist, etc. Moreover, Greek words and word
elements continue to be productive as a basis for
coinages: anthropology, photography, telephony, isomer, biomechanics, cinem
atography, etc. and form, with Latin words, the foundation of international
scientific and technical vocabulary like all words ending with –logy ("discourse").
There are many English words of Greek origin.[22][23]

Classification[edit]
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The
ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian,[24] which
many scholars suggest may have been a dialect of Greek itself, but it is so
poorly attested that it is difficult to conclude anything about it. [25] 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.[26] 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. [27] 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. [28]
Writing system[edit]

Greek alphabet

Αα Alpha Νν Nu
Ββ Beta Ξξ Xi
Γγ Gamma Οο Omicron
Δδ Delta Ππ Pi
Εε Epsilon Ρρ Rho
Ζζ Zeta Σσς Sigma
Ηη Eta Ττ Tau
Θθ Theta Υυ Upsilon
Ιι Iota Φφ Phi
Κκ Kappa Χχ Chi
Λλ Lambda Ψψ Psi
Μμ Mu Ωω Omega

History

Archaic local variants







 Diacritics
 Ligatures
Numerals
 ϛ (6)
 ϟ (90)
 ϡ (900)

Use in other languages

 Bactrian
 Coptic
 Albanian

Related topics

Use as scientific symbols

  Book

  Category
   Commons

 v
 t
 e
See also: Greek Braille
Linear B[edit]
Main article: Linear B
Linear B, attested as early as the late 15th century BC, was the first script used
to write Greek.[29] It is basically a syllabary, which was finally deciphered
by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A,
has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language).
[29]
 The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek, is the earliest known
form of Greek.[29]
Cypriot syllabary[edit]
Main article: Cypriot syllabary

Greek inscription in Cypriot syllabic script

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. [30]
Greek alphabet[edit]
Main articles: Greek alphabet and Greek orthography

Ancient epichoric variants of the Greek alphabet from Euboea, Ionia, Athens, and Corinth comparing

to modern Greek

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:

upper case

Α Β Γ Δ Ε Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο Π Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω
 lower case

σ
α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ τ υ φ χ ψ ω
ς

Diacritics[edit]
Main article: Greek diacritics
In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical
signs: three different accent marks (acute, 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 (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[edit]
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 (άνω τελεία). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent
letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι (ó,ti, "whatever")
from ότι (óti, "that").[31]
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.
[32]
 Boustrophedon, or bi-directional text, was also used in Ancient Greek.
Latin alphabet[edit]
Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script, especially in areas
under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics. The
term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is
used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism
(because Frankos / Φράγκος 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). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning "Catholic
Chiot") alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the
island of Chios. Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek
language is written in a Latin script in online communications. [33]
The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities
of Southern Italy.
Hebrew alphabet[edit]
The Yevanic dialect was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan
Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet.[34]
Arabic alphabet[edit]
Some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic
alphabet. The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina. This usage
is sometimes called aljamiado as when Romance languages are written in the
Arabic alphabet.[35]

See also[edit]
 Greece portal

 Language portal

 Modern Greek
o Varieties of Modern Greek
 Medieval Greek
 Ancient Greek
o Ancient Greek dialects
 Hellenic languages
 List of Greek and Latin roots in English
 List of medical roots, suffixes and prefixes

Notes[edit]
1. ^ A comprehensive overview in J.T. Hooker's Mycenaean
Greece (Hooker 1976, Chapter 2: "Before the Mycenaean
Age", pp. 11–33 and passim); for a different hypothesis
excluding massive migrations and favoring an
autochthonous scenario, see Colin Renfrew's "Problems in
the General Correlation of Archaeological and Linguistic
Strata in Prehistoric Greece: The Model of Autochthonous
Origin" (Renfrew 1973, pp. 263–276, especially p. 267)
in Bronze Age Migrations by R.A. Crossland and A. Birchall,
eds. (1973).
2. ^ The four cases that are found in all stages of Greek are
the nominative, genitive, accusative, and vocative. The
dative/locative of Ancient Greek disappeared in the late
Hellenistic period, and the instrumental case of Mycenaean
Greek disappeared in the Archaic period.
3. ^ There is no particular morphological form that can be
identified as 'subjunctive' in the modern language, but the
term is sometimes encountered in descriptions even if the
most complete modern grammar (Holton et al. 1997) does
not use it and calls certain traditionally-'subjunctive' forms
'dependent'. Most Greek linguists advocate abandoning the
traditional terminology (Anna Roussou and Tasos
 Tsangalidis 2009, in Meletes gia tin Elliniki Glossa,
Thessaloniki, Anastasia Giannakidou 2009 "Temporal
semantics and polarity: The dependency of the subjunctive
revisited", Lingua); see Modern Greek grammar for
explanation.

References[edit]
Citations[edit]
1. ^ Greek at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Ancient Greek at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Cappadocian Greek at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Mycenaean Greek at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Pontic at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Tsakonian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
(Additional references under 'Language codes' in the
information box)
2. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath,
Martin, eds. (2017). "Greek".  Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany:
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
3. ^ Jump up to:a b "Greek language". Encyclopædia
Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 29
April 2014.
4. ^ 1922-, Adrados, Francisco Rodríguez (2005).  A history of
the Greek language  : from its origins to the present. Leiden:
Brill.  ISBN  978-90-04-12835-4. OCLC  59712402.
5. ^ Manuel, Germaine Catherine (1989).  A study of the
preservation of the classical tradition in the education,
language, and literature of the Byzantine Empire. HVD
ALEPH.
6. ^ Renfrew 2003, p. 35; Georgiev 1981, p. 192.
7. ^ Gray & Atkinson 2003, pp. 437–438; Atkinson & Gray
2006, p. 102.
8. ^ "Ancient Tablet Found: Oldest Readable Writing in
Europe".  National Geographic Society. 30 March 2011.
Retrieved  22 November  2013.
9. ^ Dawkins & Halliday 1916.
10. ^ Jump up to:    "Greek". Ethnologue. Retrieved  12 April 2020.
a b

11. ^ Peter, Mackridge (1985).  The modern Greek language : a

descriptive analysis of standard modern Greek. Oxford
[Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-
815770-0. OCLC  11134463.
12. ^ Browning 1983.
13. ^ Alexiou 1982, p. 161.
14. ^ "Greece".  The World Factbook. Central Intelligence
Agency. Retrieved  23 January 2010.
15. ^ "The Constitution of Cyprus, App. D., Part 1, Art. 3".
Archived from the original  on 7 April 2012. 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 [27].
16. ^ "The EU at a Glance – Languages in the
EU". Europa.  European Union. Retrieved 30 July  2010.
17. ^ "Greek". Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights. Archived from  the original on 18 November 2008.
Retrieved  8 December  2008.
18. ^ "List of Declarations Made with Respect to Treaty No.
148". Council of Europe. Archived from the original on 10
April 2020. Retrieved 8 December 2008.
19. ^ "Self-Government in Hungary". Project on Ethnic
Relations. 27 September 2006. Archived from  the
original  on 27 September 2006. Retrieved 12 April  2020.
20. ^ Ralli 2001, pp. 164–203.
21. ^ Beekes 2009.
22. ^ Scheler 1977.
23. ^ "Πόσο "ελληνικές" είναι οι ξένες γλώσσες". NewsIt. 18
November 2019.
24. ^ Hamp 2013, pp. 8–10, 13.
25. ^ Babiniotis 1992, pp. 29–40; Dosuna 2012, pp. 65–78.
26. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath,
Martin, eds. (2017). "Graeco-Phrygian".  Glottolog 3.0. Jena,
Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human
History.
27. ^ Renfrew 1990; Gamkrelidze & Ivanov 1990, pp. 110–
116; Renfrew 2003, pp. 17–48; Gray & Atkinson 2003,
pp. 435–439.
28. ^ Holm 2008, pp. 628–636.
29. ^ Jump up to:      T., Hooker, J. (1980).  Linear B : an
a b c

introduction. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. ISBN 978-0-

906515-69-3.  OCLC 7326206.
30. ^ "Cypriot syllabary". Britannica Academic. Retrieved 1
August2017.
31. ^ Nicolas, Nick (2005).  "Greek Unicode Issues:
Punctuation". Archived from  the original on 6 August 2012.
Retrieved  7 October2014.
32. ^ Hugoe, Matthews Peter (March 2014). The concise
Oxford dictionary of linguistics. Oxford University Press.
(Third ed.). [Oxford].  ISBN  978-0-19-967512-
8.  OCLC 881847972.
33. ^ Androutsopoulos 2009, pp. 221–249.
34. ^ "Yevanic alphabet, pronunciation and
language". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 18 April  2020.
35. ^ Kotzageorgis, Phokion (2010). Gruber, Christiane J.;
Colby, Frederick Stephen (eds.).  The Prophet's Ascension:
Cross-cultural Encounters with the Islamic Mi'rāj Tales.
Indiana University Press. p.  297. ISBN 978-0-253-35361-
0.  The element that makes this text a  unicum  is that it is
written in Greek script. In the Ottoman Empire, the primary
criterion for the selection of an alphabet in which to write
was religion. Thus, people who did not speak—or even
know—the official language of their religion used to write
their religious texts in the languages that they knew, though
in the alphabet where the sacred texts of that religion were
written. Thus, the Grecophone Catholics of Chios wrote
using the Latin alphabet, but in the Greek language
(frangochiotika); the Turcophone Orthodox Christians of
Cappadocia wrote their Turkish texts using the Greek
alphabet (karamanlidika); and the Grecophone Muslims of
 the Greek peninsula wrote in Greek language using the
Arabic alphabet (tourkogianniotika,  tourkokretika). Our case
is much stranger, since it is a quite early example for that
kind of literature and because it is largely concerned with
religious themes."; p. 306. The audience for the
Greek Mi'rājnāma was most certainly Greek-speaking
Muslims, in particular the so-
called Tourkogianniotes  (literally, the Turks of Jannina).
Although few examples have been discovered as yet, it
seems that these people developed a religious literature
mainly composed in verse form. This literary form
constituted the mainstream of Greek  Aljamiado literature
from the middle of the seventeenth century until
the population exchange between Greece and Turkey  in
1923. Tourkogianniotes were probably of Christian origin
and were Islamized sometime during the seventeenth
century. They did not speak any language other than Greek.
Thus, even their frequency in attending mosque services did
not provide them with the necessary knowledge about their
faith. Given their low level of literacy, one important way that
they could learn about their faith was to listen to religiously
edifying texts such as the Greek Mi'rājnāma.

Sources[edit]
 Alexiou, Margaret (1982). "Diglossia in Greece". In Haas,
William (ed.).  Standard Languages: Spoken and Written.
Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp.  156–
192. ISBN 978-0-389-20291-2.
 Androutsopoulos, Jannis (2009). "'Greeklish': Transliteration
Practice and Discourse in a Setting of Computer-Mediated
Digraphia"  (PDF). In Georgakopoulou, Alexandra; Silk, Michael
(eds.).  Standard Languages and Language Standards: Greek,
Past and Present. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
pp. 221–249.[permanent dead link]
 Atkinson, Quentin D.; Gray, Russel D. (2006). "Chapter 8: How
Old is the Indo-European Language Family? Illumination or More
Moths to the Flame?". In Forster, Peter; Renfrew, Colin
(eds.).  Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages.
Cambridge, England:  McDonald Institute for Archaeological
Research. pp.  91–109.  ISBN  978-1-902937-33-5.
 Babiniotis, George (1992). "The Question of Mediae in Ancient
Macedonian Greek Reconsidered". In Brogyanyi, Bela; Lipp,
Reiner (eds.).  Historical Philology: Greek, Latin and Romance.
Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing
Company. pp.  29–40.
 Beekes, Robert Stephen Paul (2009). Etymological Dictionary of
Greek. Leiden and Boston: Brill.  ISBN  978-90-04-17418-4.
 Browning, Robert (1983) [1969]. Medieval and Modern Greek.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-
23488-7.
 Dawkins, Richard McGillivray; Halliday, William Reginald
(1916). Modern Greek in Asia Minor: A Study of Dialect of Silly,
Cappadocia and Pharasa with Grammar, Texts, Translations
and Glossary. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press.
 Dosuna, Julián Víctor Méndez (2012). "Ancient Macedonian as
a Greek Dialect: A Critical Survey on Recent Work". In
Giannakis, Georgios K. (ed.). Ancient Macedonia: Language,
History and Culture (in Greek). Thessaloniki: Centre for the
Greek Language. pp. 65–78.
  Gamkrelidze, Tamaz V.; Ivanov, Vyacheslav (March 1990). "The
Early History of Indo-European Languages". Scientific
American.  262  (3): 110–
116. Bibcode:1990SciAm.262c.110G. doi:10.1038/scientificame
rican0390-110. Archived from  the original on 6 January 2014.
 Georgiev, Vladimir Ivanov (1981).  Introduction to the History of
the Indo-European Languages. Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of
Sciences.
 Gray, Russel D.; Atkinson, Quentin D. (2003). "Language-tree
Divergence Times Support the Anatolian Theory of Indo-
European Origin". Nature. 426 (6965): 435–
439. Bibcode:2003Natur.426..435G. doi:10.1038/nature02029. 
PMID  14647380.
 Hamp, Eric P. (August 2013).  "The Expansion of the Indo-
European Languages: An Indo-Europeanist's Evolving
View"  (PDF).  Sino-Platonic Papers.  239.
 Holm, Hans J. (2008). "The Distribution of Data in Word Lists
and its Impact on the Subgrouping of Languages". In Preisach,
Christine; Burkhardt, Hans; Schmidt-Thieme, Lars; Decker,
Reinhold (eds.).  Data Analysis, Machine Learning, and
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Gesellschaft für Klassifikation e.V., Albert-Ludwigs-Universität
Freiburg, March 7–9, 2007. Berlin-Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
pp. 628–636. ISBN 978-3-540-78246-9.
 Hooker, J.T. (1976). Mycenaean Greece. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul.  ISBN  9780710083791.
 Jeffries, Ian (2002).  Eastern Europe at the Turn of the Twenty-
First Century: A Guide to the Economies in Transition. London
and New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis).  ISBN  978-0-415-
23671-3.
 Ralli, Angeliki (2001).  Μορφολογία [Morphology]  (in Greek).
Athens: Ekdoseis Pataki.
 Renfrew, Colin (1973).  "Problems in the General Correlation of
Archaeological and Linguistic Strata in Prehistoric Greece: The
Model of Autochthonous Origin". In Crossland, R. A.; Birchall,
Ann (eds.). Bronze Age Migrations in the Aegean;
Archaeological and Linguistic Problems in Greek Prehistory:
Proceedings of the first International Colloquium on Aegean
Prehistory, Sheffield. London: Gerald Duckworth and Company
Limited. pp. 263–276. ISBN 978-0-7156-0580-6.
 Renfrew, Colin (2003).  "Time Depth, Convergence Theory, and
Innovation in Proto-Indo-European: 'Old Europe' as a PIE
Linguistic Area". In Bammesberger, Alfred; Vennemann, Theo
(eds.).  Languages in Prehistoric Europe. Heidelberg:
Universitätsverlag Winter GmBH. pp.  17–48.  ISBN  978-3-8253-
1449-1.
 Renfrew, Colin (1990) [1987]. Archaeology and Language: The
Puzzle of Indo-European Origins. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.  ISBN  978-0-521-38675-3.
 Scheler, Manfred (1977). Der englische Wortschatz [English
Vocabulary]  (in German). Berlin: E. Schmidt. ISBN 978-3-503-
01250-3.
 Tsitselikis, Konstantinos (2013). "A Surviving Treaty: The
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Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. pp. 287–315.

Further reading[edit]
  Allen, W. Sidney (1968).  Vox Graeca – A Guide to the
Pronunciation of Classical Greek. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-20626-6.
 Crosby, Henry Lamar;  Schaeffer, John Nevin (1928).  An
Introduction to Greek. Boston, MA; New York, NY: Allyn and
Bacon, Inc.
 Dionysius of Thrace  (c. 100 BC).  Τέχνη Γραμματική [Art of
Grammar] (in Greek). Check date values in: |date= (help)
 Holton, David; Mackridge, Peter; Philippaki-Warburton, Irene
(1997). Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar of the Modern
Language. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-
10002-1.
 Horrocks, Geoffrey (1997). Greek: A History of the Language
and Its Speakers. London and New York: Longman Linguistics
Library (Addison Wesley Longman Limited). ISBN 978-0-582-
30709-4.
 Krill, Richard M. (1990). Greek and Latin in English Today.
Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers.  ISBN  978-0-
86516-241-9.
 Mallory, James P. (1997).  "Greek Language". In Mallory, James
P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (eds.). Encyclopedia of Indo-European
Culture. Chicago, IL: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. pp. 240–246.
 Newton, Brian (1972). The Generative Interpretation of Dialect:
A Study of Modern Greek Phonology. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-08497-0.
 Sihler, Andrew L.  (1995). New Comparative Grammar of Greek
and Latin. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.  ISBN  978-0-
19-508345-3.
 Smyth, Herbert Weir; Messing, Gordon (1956) [1920]. Greek
Grammar. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-
0-674-36250-5.

External links[edit]
Standard Greek
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 Greek Language, Columbia Electronic

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 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, The Greek
Language Portal, a portal for Greek language and
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 The Perseus Project has many useful pages for the
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 Ancient Greek Tutorials, Berkeley Language
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Language learning
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 Hellenistic Greek Lessons Greek-Language.com

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 New Testament Greek Three graduated courses
designed to help students learn to read the Greek
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 Books on Greek language that are taught at
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 Greek Swadesh list of basic vocabulary
words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh list appendix)
 USA Foreign Service Institute Modern Greek basic
course
 Aversa, Alan. "Greek Inflector". University of
Arizona. Identifies the grammatical functions of all
the words in sentences entered, using Perseus.
Dictionaries
  Greek Lexical Aids, descriptions of both online
lexicons (with appropriate links) and Greek
Lexicons in Print.
 The Greek Language Portal, dictionaries of all
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