Greek language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the Greek language used during particular eras, see Proto-Greek, Mycenaean G
reek, Ancient Greek, Koine Greek, Medieval Greek and Modern Greek.
Greek (Hellenic)
????????
Pronunciation [elini'ka]
Native to
Greece
Region Eastern Mediterranean
Native speakers
13 million (2012)[1]
Language family
Indo-European
Hellenic
Greek (Hellenic)
Dialects
Ancient dialects
Modern dialects
Writing system
Greek alphabet
Greek Braille
Official status
Official language in
Greece
Cyprus
European Union
Recognised minority
language in
Albania[2][3]
Armenia[4]
Hungary[5]
Italy[6]
Romania[4]
Turkey[7]
Ukraine[4]
United States[8]
Language codes
ISO 639-1
el
ISO 639-3
Variously:
Ancient Greek
grc
cpg Cappadocian Greek
ell Modern Greek
gmy Mycenaean Greek
pnt Pontic
tsd Tsakonian
yej Yevanic
Glottolog
gree1276[9]
Linguasphere
56-AAA-a
56-AAA-aa to -am (varieties)
Idioma Griego.PNG
The Greek-speaking world:
regions where Greek is the official language
regions where Greek is the language of a significant minority
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, yo
u may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.
Greek or Hellenic[10][11] (Modern Greek: e??????? [elini'ka], ellinik, "Greek", e
??????? ???ssa [elini'ci '?losa] ( listen), ellinik glssa, "Greek language") is an
independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece,
western and northeastern Asia Minor, southern Italy, Albania and Cyprus. It has

the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of

written records.[12] Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majo
rity of its history; other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary,
were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in t
urn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other wr
iting 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 of monume
ntal importance and influence for 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 in; th
e New Testament of the Holy Bible was written in Koin Greek. Together with the La
tin texts and traditions of the Roman world, the study of the Greek texts and so
ciety of antiquity constitutes the discipline of Classics.
During antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean w
orld and beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzanti
ne Empire and develop into Medieval Greek. In its modern form, the Greek languag
e is the official language in two countries, Greece and Cyprus, a recognised min
ority 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 million people tod
ay in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora.
Greek roots are often used to coin new words for other languages; Greek and Lati
n are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary.
Idealised portrayal of Homer.
Contents [hide]
1
History
1.1
Periods
1.2
Diglossia
1.3
Historical unity
2
Geographic distribution
2.1
Official status
3
Characteristics
3.1
Phonology
3.2
Morphology
3.2.1 Nouns and adjectives
3.2.2 Verbs
3.3
Syntax
3.4
Vocabulary
3.5
Greek loanwords in other languages
4
Classification
5
Writing system
5.1
Linear B
5.2
Cypriot syllabary
5.3
Greek alphabet
5.3.1 Diacritics
5.3.2 Punctuation
5.4
Latin alphabet
6
See also
7
References
7.1
Sources
8
Further reading
9
External links
9.1
General background
9.2
Language learning

9.3
Dictionaries
9.4
Literature
History[edit]
Main article: History of Greek
Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC
,[13] or possibly earlier.[14] The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay
tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC,[15] making Gree
k 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 An
atolian 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 th
e Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age.[16]
Mycenaean Greek: the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in t
he Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards.
Ancient Greek: in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classica
l periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the
Roman Empire. Ancient Greek fell into disuse in western Europe in the Middle Age
s, 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 weste
rn Europe.
Koine Greek: The fusion of Ionian with Attic, the dialect of Athens, began the p
rocess that resulted in the creation of the first common Greek dialect, which be
came a lingua franca across the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East. Koine Greek
can be initially traced within the armies and conquered territories of Alexande
r the Great and after the Hellenistic colonisation of the known world, it was sp
oken 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 a
nd 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 us
ed this form of the language to spread Christianity. It is also known as Helleni
stic Greek, New Testament Greek, and sometimes Biblical Greek because it was the
original language of the New Testament and the Old Testament was translated int
o 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 Cap
padocian Greek villages.[17]
Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek: the continuation of Koine Greek i
n Byzantine Greece, 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 imit
ating classical Attic. Much of the written Greek that was used as the official l
anguage of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on t
he tradition of written Koine.
Modern Greek (Neo-Hellenic):[11] Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usag
es can be traced in the Byzantine period, as early as the 11th century. It is th
e language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, the
re 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 coexiste
nce 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 va
rieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki, the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, a
nd Katharevousa, meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient G
reek, which was developed in the early 19th century and was used for literary an
d official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was decla
red the official language of Greece, having incorporated features of Katharevous
a and giving birth to Standard Modern Greek, which is used today for all officia
l purposes and in education.
Historical unity[edit]
The distribution of major modern Greek dialect areas.
The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the G
reek language is often emphasised. Although Greek has undergone morphological an
d 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 s
peakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of th
eir own rather than a foreign language.[18] It is also often stated that the his
torical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages.
According to one estimation, "Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 1
2-century Middle English is to modern spoken English."[19]
Geographic distribution[edit]
Further information: Greeks and Greek diaspora
Greek language road sign, A27 Motorway, Greece
Spread of Greek in the United States.
Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus
, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. There are traditional Greek-sp
eaking settlements and regions in the neighbouring countries of Albania, Bulgari
a, and Turkey, as well as in several countries in the Black Sea area, such as Uk
raine, Russia, Romania, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, and around the Mediter
ranean Sea, Southern Italy, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya and ancient coa
stal towns along the Levant. The language is also spoken by Greek emigrant commu
nities in many countries in Western Europe, especially the United Kingdom and Ge
rmany, Canada, the United States, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, South Afr
ica and others.
Official status[edit]
Greek is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entir
e population.[20] It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongsid
e Turkish).[21] Because of the membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European U
nion, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages.[22] Furthermore,
Greek is officially recognised as a minority language in parts of Italy and off
icial in Dropull and Himara (Albania) and as a minority language all over Albani
a,[2] as well as in Lebanon, Syria, Armenia, Romania, and Ukraine as a regional
or minority language in the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Mi
nority Languages.[4] Greeks are also a recognised ethnic minority in Hungary.
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 conse
rvative 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 periodisations, relatively arbitrary, especially because at a
ll periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed h
eavily from it.

Phonology[edit]
Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek sho
ws a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restr
icted codas. It has only oral vowels and a fairly stable set of consonantal cont
rasts. The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman p
eriod (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 dist
inction, monophthongisation of most diphthongs and several steps in a chain shif
t of vowels towards /i/ (iotacism).
development of the voiceless aspirated plosives /p?/ and /t?/ to the voiceless f
ricatives /f/ and /?/, respectively; the similar development of /k?/ to /x/ may
have taken place later (the phonological changes are not reflected in the orthog
raphy, and both earlier and later phonemes are written with f, ?, and ?).
development of the voiced plosives /b/, /d/, and /g/ to their voiced fricative c
ounterparts // (later /v/), //, and /?/.
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[23] and a r
ich 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 larg
ely 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 ca
ses in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language).[24] Nouns, a
rticles and adjectives show all the distinctions except for person. Both attribu
tive 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 expressi
on. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for:
Ancient Greek Modern Greek
Person first, second and third also second person formal
Number singular, dual and plural
singular and plural
tense present, past and future
past and non-past (future is expressed b
y a periphrastic construction)
aspect imperfective, perfective (traditionally called aorist) and perfect (some
times also called perfective; see note about terminology)
imperfective and
perfective/aorist (perfect is expressed by a periphrastic construction)
mood
indicative, subjunctive, imperative and optative
indicative, subj
unctive,[25] 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 the
ir subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative fo
r subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many preposi
tions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely
prepositional, relative clauses follow the noun they modify and relative pronou

ns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counte
rparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syn
tax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language. Ancient Greek ma
de great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the inf
initive, and the modern variety lacks the infinitive entirely (instead 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]
Greek is a language distinguished by an extensive vocabulary. Most of the vocabu
lary of Ancient Greek was inherited, but it includes a number of borrowings from
the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Pr
oto-Greeks.[26] Words of non-Indo-European origin can be traced into Greek from
as early as Mycenaean times; they include a large number of Greek toponyms. The
vast majority of Modern Greek vocabulary is directly inherited from Ancient Gree
k, but in some cases, words have changed meanings. Loanwords (words of foreign o
rigin) have entered the language mainly from Latin, Venetian and Turkish. During
the older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, th
us leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on
), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected.
Greek loanwords in other languages[edit]
For more details on this topic, see Greek and Latin roots in English.
Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English: m
athematics, physics, astronomy, democracy, philosophy, athletics, theatre, rheto
ric, 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. and form, with Latin words, the found
ation of international scientific and technical vocabulary like all words ending
with logy ("discourse"). There are many English words of Greek origin.[27]
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,[28] which many s
cholars suggest may have been a dialect of Greek itself, but it is so poorly att
ested that it is difficult to conclude anything about it.[29] Independently of t
he Macedonian question, some scholars have grouped Greek into Graeco-Phrygian, a
s 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 be
en found for grouping the living branches of the family.[31] In addition, Albani
an has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian by some lingu
ists. If proven and recognised, the three languages would form a new Balkan subbranch with other dead European languages.[32]
Writing system[edit]
Greek alphabet alpha-omega.svg
Greek alphabet
?a
Alpha ??
Nu
?
Beta
??
Xi
G?
Gamma ??
Omicron
?d
Delta ?p
Pi
?e
Epsilon ??
Rho
??
Zeta
Ss?
Sigma
??
Eta
?t
Tau
T?
Theta ??
Upsilon
??
Iota
Ff
Phi

??
Kappa ??
Chi
??
Lambda ??
Psi
?
Mu
O?
Omega
History
Archaic local variants
Digamma Heta San Koppa Sampi Tsan
Diacritics Ligatures
Numerals
? (6) ? (90) ? (900)
Use in other languages
Bactrian Coptic Albanian
Related topics
Use as scientific symbols
Wikipedia book Book Category Category
Commons page 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 us
ed to write Greek. 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 to this day). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Gre
ek, is the earliest known form of Greek.
Cypriot syllabary[edit]
Main article: Cypriot syllabary
Another similar system used to write the Greek language was the Cypriot syllabar
y (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary), w
hich is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic convent
ions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus
from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical pe
riod, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet.
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 i
n use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classi
cal 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 medie
val scribes to permit a faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the u
se of ink and quill.
The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase (majuscule) an
d lowercase (minuscule) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form
(?) used in the final position: