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Greek is an Indo-European language with a documented history
of 3,500 years. Today, it is spoken by 15 million people in
Greece, Cyprus, the former Yugoslavia, particularly The Former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania and Turkey.
There are also many Greek emigrant communities around the
world, such a those in Melbourne, Australia which is the third-largest
Greek-populated city in the world, after Athens and Thessaloniki.
Greek has been written in the Greek alphabet, the first true
alphabet, since the 9th century B.C. and before that, in Linear
B and the Cypriot syllabaries.
Greek literature has a long and rich tradition.
History
This article does not cover the reconstructed history of Greek
prior to the use of writing. For more information, see main
article on Proto-Greek language.
Greek has been spoken in the Balkan Peninsula since the 2nd
millennium BC. The earliest evidence of this is found in the
Linear B tablets dating from 1500 BC. The later Greek alphabet
is unrelated to Linear B, and was derived from the proto-Sinaitic
writing system in parallel with Phoenician (abjad) between
c. 1450 BC and 1100 BC, with minor modifications, is still
used today. Greek is conventionally divided into the following
periods:
- Mycenean Greek: the language of the Mycenean civilisation.
It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating
from the 16th century BC onwards.
- Classical Greek: (also known as Ancient Greek):
In its various dialects was the language of the Archaic
and Classical periods of Greek civilisation. It was widely
known throughout the Roman empire. Classical Greek fell
into disuse in western Europe in the Middle Ages, but remained
known in the Byzantine world, and was reintroduced to the
rest of Europe with the Fall of Constantinople and Greek
migration to Italy.
- Hellenistic Greek: (also known as Koine Greek):
The fusion of various ancient Greek dialects with Attic
(the dialect of Athens) resulted in the creation of the
first common Greek dialect, which gradually turned into
one of the world's first international languages. Koine
Greek can be initially traced within the armies and conquered
territories of Alexander the Great, but after the Hellenistic
colonisation of the known world, it was spoken from Egypt
to the fringes of India. After the Roman conquest of Greece,
an unofficial diglossy of Greek and Latin was established
in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second
language in the Roman Empire. Through Koine Greek it is
also traced the origin of Christianity, as the Apostles
used it to preach in Greece and the Greek-speaking world.
It is also known as the Alexandrian dialect, Post-Classical
Greek or even New Testament Greek (after its most famous
work of literature).
- Medieval Greek: The continuation of Hellenistic
Greek during medieval Greek history as the official and
vernacular (if not the literary nor the ecclesiastic) language
of the Byzantine Empire, and continued to be used until,
and after the fall of that Empire in the 15th century. Also
known as Byzantine Greek.
- Modern Greek: Stemming independently from Koine
Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the late Byzantine
period (as early as 11th century).
Two main forms of the language have been in use since the
end of the medieval Greek period: Dhimotikí (??µ?t???),
the Demotic (vernacular) language, and Katharévousa
(?a?a?e???sa), an imitation of classical Greek, which was
used for literary, juridic, and scientific purposes during
the 19th and early 20th centuries. Demotic Greek is now the
official language of the modern Greek state, and the most
widely spoken by Greeks today.
It has been claimed that an "educated" speaker
of the modern language can understand an ancient text, but
this is surely as much a function of education as of the similarity
of the languages. Still, Koine /ci'ni/, the version of Greek
used to write the New Testament and the Septuagint, is relatively
easy to understand for modern speakers.
Greek words have been widely borrowed into the European languages:
astronomy, democracy, philosophy, thespian, etc. Moreover,
Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
a basis for coinages: anthropology, photography, isomer, biomechanics
etc. and form, with Latin words, the foundation of international
scientific and technical vocabulary. See English words of
Greek origin, and List of Greek words with English derivatives.
Classification
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language
family. The ancient languages which were probably most closely
related to it, Ancient Macedonian language (which may be regarded
as a dialect of Greek) and Phrygian, are not well enough documented
to permit detailed comparison. Among living languages, Armenian
seems to be the most closely related to it.
Geographic distribution
Modern Greek is spoken by about 15 million people mainly in
Greece and Cyprus. There are also autochthonus Greek-speaking
populations in Georgia,Ukraine, Egypt, Turkey, Albania, Former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Southern Italy. The language
is spoken also in many other countries where Greeks have settled,
including Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,
Canada, Denmark, France, Germany,Holland, Italy, Sweden, United
Kingdom, and the United States.
Official status
Greek is the official language of Greece where it is spoken
by about 99.5% of the population. It is also, alongside Turkish,
the official language of Cyprus. Due to the membership of
Greece and Cyprus, Greek is one of the 20 official languages
of the European Union.
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