Greek language

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

Greek

ελληνικά

Pronunciation [eliniˈka]

 Greece
Region
 Cyprus
 Anatolia
 Balkans
 Black Sea coast
 Eastern Mediterranean
 Southern Italy

Ethnicity Greeks

Native speakers 13.5 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

ISO 639-1
el

ISO 639-2
gre  (B)  
ell (T)

ISO 639-3 Variously:

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

Glottolog
gree1276

Linguasphere  56-AAA-a
 56-AAA-aa to -am (variet
ies)

Areas where Modern Greek is spoken (in dark blue those areas where
it is the official language).
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 (Modern Greek: Ελληνικά, romanized: Elliniká; Ancient
Greek: Ἑλληνική, romanized: Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family
of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, Albania, 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 3,400 years of written records.[2] Its writing system is the Greek alphabet,
which has been used for over 2,600 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems
such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary.[3] 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.[4] Beginning
with the epics of Homer, ancient Greek literatureincludes many works of lasting importance
in the European canon. 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.[5][6] Together with the Latin 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, 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.[7] 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, Albania, Turkey, and the many
other countries of the Greek diaspora.
Greek roots 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.
Idealised portrayal of the author 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,[8] or
possibly earlier.[9] The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messeniathat
dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC,[10] making Greek the world's oldest recordedliving
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 peninsulasometime 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 Classicalperiods 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 Testamentand 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. [11]

 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):[12] 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.[13]
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.[14] 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".[15]

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

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

Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along

with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albanianear the Greek-Albanian border.[12] 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 Warand the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large
population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey, though very few remain today.[2]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,
the United Kingdom, and throughout the European Union, especially in 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. It was also used as a liturgical language in Christian
Nubian kingdom of Makuriawhich was in modern day Sudan.[16]
Official status[edit]
Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the
entire population.[17] It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish).
[18]
 Because of the membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of
the organization's 24 official languages.[19] Furthermore, Greek is officially recognized as
official in Dropull and Himara (Albania), and as a minority language all over Albania.[20] It is
also recognized as 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, Greek is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority
language in Armenia, Hungary, Romania, and Ukraine.[21]

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]
Main articles: Modern Greek phonology, Koine Greek phonology, and Ancient 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[22] 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)

mood indicative, subjunctive, imperative and optative indicative, subjunctive,[note 3] and

 imperative (other 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 (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[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,[23] 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. Example
words
include: mathematics, physics, astronomy, democracy, philosophy, athletics, theatre, rhetori
c, baptism, evangelist, etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be
productive as a basis for
coinages: anthropology, photography, telephony, isomer, biomechanics, cinematography, 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.[24][25]
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,[26] which most scholars suggest may
have been a dialect of Greek itself,[27][28][29] 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.[30] 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.[31] 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.[32]

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

  Category

 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.[33] It is basically a syllabary, which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventrisand John
Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A, has not been deciphered and most likely
encodes a non-Greek language).[33] The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek, is
the earliest known form of Greek.[33]
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.[34]
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').[35]
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.[36] 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.[37]
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.[38]
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.[39]

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. ^ Jump up to:  a b "Greek language".  Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Retrieved  29 April  2014.
3. ^ 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.
4. ^ A history of ancient Greek by Maria Chritē, Maria Arapopoulou, Centre for the Greek Language
(Thessalonikē, Greece) pg 436 ISBN 0-521-83307-8
5. ^ Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland The text of the New Testament: an introduction to the critical 1995
p52
6. ^ Archibald Macbride Hunter Introducing the New Testament 1972 p9
7. ^ 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.
8. ^ Renfrew 2003, p. 35; Georgiev 1981, p. 192.
9. ^ Gray & Atkinson 2003, pp. 437–438; Atkinson & Gray 2006, p. 102.
10. ^ "Ancient Tablet Found: Oldest Readable Writing in Europe". National Geographic Society. 30
March 2011. Retrieved  22 November  2013.
11. ^ Dawkins & Halliday 1916.
12. ^ Jump up to:     "Greek".  Ethnologue. Retrieved  12 April  2020.
a b

13. ^ 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.
14. ^ Browning 1983.
15. ^ Alexiou 1982, p. 161.
16. ^ Welsby 2002, p. 239.
17. ^ "Greece".  The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved  23 January2010.
18. ^ "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].
19. ^ "The EU at a Glance – Languages in the EU".  Europa. European Union. Retrieved  30 July  2010.
20. ^ "Greek". Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Archived from  the original  on 18
November 2008. Retrieved  8 December  2008.
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the original on 10 April 2020. Retrieved  8 December  2008.
22. ^ Ralli 2001, pp. 164–203.
23. ^ Beekes 2009.
24. ^ Scheler 1977.
25. ^ "Πόσο "ελληνικές" είναι οι ξένες γλώσσες".  NewsIt. 18 November 2019.
26. ^ Hamp 2013, pp. 8–10, 13.
27. ^ Crespo, Emilio (2018). "The Softening of Obstruent Consonants in the Macedonian Dialect". In
Giannakis, Georgios K.; Crespo, Emilio; Filos, Panagiotis (eds.).  Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects:
From Central Greece to the Black Sea. Walter de Gruyter. p.  329.  ISBN  978-3-11-053081-0.
 28. ^ Hatzopoulos, Miltiades B. (2018).  "Recent Research in the Ancient Macedonian Dialect:
Consolidation and New Perspectives". In Giannakis, Georgios K.; Crespo, Emilio; Filos, Panagiotis
(eds.).  Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea. Walter de
Gruyter. p.  299.  ISBN  978-3-11-053081-0.
29. ^ Babiniotis 1992, pp. 29–40; Dosuna 2012, pp. 65–78.
30. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017).  "Graeco-
Phrygian".  Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
31. ^ Renfrew 1990; Gamkrelidze & Ivanov 1990, pp. 110–116; Renfrew 2003, pp. 17–48; Gray &
Atkinson 2003, pp. 435–439.
32. ^ Holm 2008, pp. 628–636.
33. ^ Jump up to:       T., Hooker, J. (1980).  Linear B  : an introduction. Bristol: Bristol Classical
a b c

Press.  ISBN  978-0-906515-69-3.  OCLC  7326206.

34. ^ "Cypriot syllabary".  Britannica Academic. Retrieved  1 August  2017.
35. ^ Nicolas, Nick (2005).  "Greek Unicode Issues: Punctuation". Archived from  the original  on 6
August 2012. Retrieved  7 October  2014.
36. ^ 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.
37. ^ Androutsopoulos 2009, pp. 221–249.
38. ^ "Yevanic alphabet, pronunciation and language".  www.omniglot.com. Retrieved  18 April2020.
39. ^ 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.

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 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.  ISBN  9789027277473.
 Beekes, Robert Stephen Paul (2009).  Etymological Dictionary of Greek. Leiden and Boston:
Brill.  ISBN  978-90-04-17418-4.
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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
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 Gray, Russel D.; Atkinson, Quentin D. (2003).  "Language-tree Divergence Times Support the Anatolian
Theory of Indo-European Origin".  Nature.  426  (6965): 435–
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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.  Τέχνη Γραμματική  [Art of Grammar] (in Greek).
 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.  ISBN  9781884964985.
 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
edition of Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia

Pontic Greek
edition of Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia

Wikibooks has more on

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For a list of words relating

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Wikimedia Commons has

media related to Greek
language.

Wikivoyage has a
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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, The Greek Language Portal, a portal for
Greek language and linguistic education.
 The Perseus Project has many useful pages for the study of classical languages
and literatures, including dictionaries.
 Ancient Greek Tutorials, Berkeley Language Center of the University of California,
Berkeley
Language learning

Wikiquote has quotations

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 Hellenistic Greek Lessons Greek-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 (page in Greek)
 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 forms of Greek (Ancient,
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 scanned images from S. C. Woodhouse's English–Greek dictionary, 1910
Literature

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