Greek language: Difference between revisions
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{{short description|Indo-European language}} |
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{{Infobox Language |
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{{Hatnote|For the Greek language used during particular eras, see [[Proto-Greek language]], [[Mycenaean Greek]], [[Ancient Greek]], [[Koine Greek]], [[Medieval Greek]], and [[Modern Greek]].}} |
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|name = Greek |
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{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2022}} |
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|nativename = {{lang|el|Ελληνικά}} <br>''{{ISOtranslit|Εlliniká|el}}'' |
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{{Infobox language |
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|states = [[Greece]], [[Cyprus]], [[Albania]], [[Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia|FYROM]], [[Turkey]], [[Bulgaria]], [[Romania]], [[Italy]], [[Spain]], [[Armenia]], [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], [[Egypt]], [[Jordan]], [[United Kingdom]], [[Ukraine]], [[Russia]], [[South Africa]], [[Kazakhstan]], [[France]], and the rest of the [[Greek diaspora]]. |
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| name = Greek |
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|speakers = 15 million-25 million <ref name=Encarta>{{cite web |url=http://encarta.msn.com/media_701500404/Languages_Spoken_by_More_Than_10_Million_People.html |title=Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People |accessdate=2007-02-18 |publisher=Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006}}</ref> |
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| nativename = {{lang|el|Ελληνικά}}<br>{{transliteration|el|Elliniká}} |
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|rank = 52 |
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| pronunciation = {{IPA-el|eliniˈka|}} |
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|familycolor = Indo-European |
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| |
| ethnicity = [[Greeks]] |
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| states = {{plainlist| |
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|script = [[Greek alphabet]] |
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*[[Greece]] |
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|nation = {{GRE}}<br>{{CYP}}<br>{{EUR}}<br>recognised as major language in parts of:<br> {{ALB}}<br>{{ITA}}<br>{{TUR}} |
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*[[Cyprus]] |
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|iso1=el |iso2b=gre |iso2t=ell |
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*[[Albania]] ([[Gjirokastër County]] and [[Vlorë County]]) |
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|lc1=grc|ld1=Ancient Greek |
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*[[Italy]] ([[Calabria]], [[Salento]] and [[Messina]]) |
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|lc2=ell|ld2=Modern Greek |
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*and other regions of the [[Balkans]], [[Caucasus]], [[Black Sea]] coast, [[Asia Minor]] and [[Eastern Mediterranean]]}} |
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|map = |
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| nation = {{plainlist| |
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*[[Greece]] |
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*[[Cyprus]] |
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*[[European Union]] |
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*[[Akrotiri and Dhekelia]] |
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}} |
}} |
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| minority = {{plainlist| |
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*[[Albania]] |
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*[[Argentina]] |
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*[[Armenia]] |
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*[[Australia]]<ref>[http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/censushome.nsf/home/cowsredirect 2006 Census Table: Language Spoken at Home by Sex – Time Series Statistics (1996, 2001, 2006 Census Years)]</ref><ref>[http://www.zougla.gr/omogenia/article/afstralia-tilediaskepsi-milame-elinika-ton-martio Αυστραλία: Τηλεδιάσκεψη «Μιλάμε Ελληνικά τον Μάρτιο»]</ref> |
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*[[Hungary]] |
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*[[Italy]] ([[Apulia]] and [[Calabria]]) |
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*[[Romania]] |
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*[[Turkey]]{{sfn|Tsitselikis|2013|pp=287–288}}<ref name=Toktaş2006/><ref name=Bayır2013/><ref name=HRWLanguageRights/> |
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*[[Ukraine]] |
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*[[United States]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acs-22.pdf|title=Language Use in the United States: 2011|publisher=[[United States Census]]|access-date=17 October 2015}}</ref> |
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*[[Russia]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/gree1276 |title=gree1276 | publisher=Council of Europe |date= |accessdate=8 December 2008}}</ref><br /> }} |
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| speakers = 13.5 million |
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| date = 2012 |
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| ref = e18 |
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| refname = Greek<!--name as shown at Ethnologue reference--> |
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| familycolor = Indo-European |
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| fam2 = [[Graeco-Phrygian]] (?) |
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| fam3 = [[Hellenic languages|Hellenic]] |
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| ancestor = [[Proto-Greek]] |
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| dia1 = [[Ancient Greek dialects|Ancient dialects]] |
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| dia2 = [[Koine Greek|Koine]] |
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| dia3 = [[Medieval Greek|Medieval]] |
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| dia4 = [[Varieties of Modern Greek|Modern dialects]] |
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| stand1 = |
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| script = [[Greek alphabet]] |
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| iso1 = el |
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| iso2b = gre |
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| iso2t = ell |
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| lc1 = ell |
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| ld1 = [[Modern Greek]]<!-- main ISO 639-3 code, list first --> |
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| lc2 = grc |
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| ld2 = [[Ancient Greek]] |
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| lc3 = cpg |
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| ld3 = {{nowrap|[[Cappadocian Greek]]}} |
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| lc4 = gmy |
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| ld4 = [[Mycenaean Greek]] |
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| lc5 = pnt |
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| ld5 = [[Pontic Greek|Pontic]] |
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| lc6 = tsd |
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| ld6 = [[Tsakonian language|Tsakonian]] |
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| lc7 = yej |
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| ld7 = [[Yevanic]] |
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| glotto = gree1276 |
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| glottorefname = Greek<!--name as shown at Glottolog reference--> |
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| lingua = {{ublist|class=nowrap |56-AAA-a |56-AAA-aa {{small|to}} -am {{small|(varieties)}} }} |
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| mapscale = 1 |
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| map = Idioma Griego.PNG |
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| mapcaption = Areas where Modern Greek is spoken (Dark blue represents areas where it is the official language.){{NoteTag|The map does not indicate where the language is majority or minority.}} |
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| notice = IPA |
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}} |
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'''Greek''' ({{langx|el|label=[[Modern Greek]]|Ελληνικά|Elliniká}}, {{IPA-el|eliniˈka|}}; {{langx|grc|Ἑλληνική|Hellēnikḗ}}) is an [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] language, constituting an independent [[Hellenic languages|Hellenic branch]] within the Indo-European language family. It is native to [[Greece]], [[Cyprus]], [[Italy]] (in [[Calabria]] and [[Salento]]), southern [[Albania]], and other regions of the [[Balkans]], [[Caucasus]], the [[Black Sea]] coast, [[Asia Minor]], and the [[Eastern Mediterranean]]. It has the [[list of languages by first written accounts|longest documented history]] of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records.<ref name=":1">{{cite encyclopedia|title=Greek language|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]|publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.|access-date=29 April 2014|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/244595/Greek-language}}</ref> Its writing system is the [[Greek alphabet]], which has been used for approximately 2,800 years;<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Haviland|first1=William A.|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nfIWAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT437|title=Anthropology: The Human Challenge|last2=Prins|first2=Harald E. L.|last3=Walrath|first3=Dana|last4=McBride|first4=Bunny|date=2013|publisher=[[Cengage|Cengage Learning]]|isbn=978-1-285-67758-3|pages=394|language=en|chapter=Chapter 15: Language and Communication|quote=Most of the alphabets used today descended from the Phoenician one. The Greeks adopted it about 2,800 years ago, modifying the characters to suit sounds in their own language.|author-link2=Harald Prins|author-link4=Bunny McBride}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Comrie|first=Bernard|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lR9WDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT463|title=The World's Major Languages|date=1987|publisher=[[Routledge]]|isbn=978-1-317-29049-0|publication-date=2018|language=en|quote=... the Greek alphabet has served the Greek language well for some 2,800 years since its introduction into Greece in the tenth or ninth century BC.|author-link=Bernard Comrie}}</ref> previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as [[Linear B]] and the [[Cypriot syllabary]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=A history of the Greek language : from its origins to the present|author=Adrados, Francisco Rodríguez|date=2005|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-12835-4|location=Leiden|oclc=59712402}}</ref> The alphabet arose from the [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician script]] and was in turn the basis of the [[Latin script|Latin]], [[Cyrillic]], [[Coptic alphabet|Coptic]], [[Gothic alphabet|Gothic]], and many other writing systems. |
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The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of [[Homer]], [[ancient Greek literature]] includes many works of lasting importance in the [[European canon]]. Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The [[New Testament]] of the [[Bible|Christian Bible]] was also originally written in Greek.<ref>Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland The text of the New Testament: an introduction to the critical 1995 p. 52.</ref><ref>Archibald Macbride Hunter Introducing the New Testament 1972 p. 9.</ref> Together with the [[Latin language|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]]. |
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Greece |
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During [[Classical antiquity|antiquity]], Greek was by far the most widely spoken [[lingua franca]] in the [[History of the Mediterranean region|Mediterranean world]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Malkin |first1=Irad |title=A small Greek world : networks in the Ancient Mediterranean |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734818.001.0001 |isbn=9780199918553 |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734818.001.0001}}</ref> It eventually became the official language of the [[Byzantine Empire]] and developed into [[Medieval Greek]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=A study of the preservation of the classical tradition in the education, language, and literature of the Byzantine Empire|last=Manuel|first=Germaine Catherine|year=1989|location=HVD ALEPH}}</ref> In its [[Modern Greek|modern form]], Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 [[Languages of the European Union#Official EU languages|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]]. |
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'''Greek''' ({{lang|el|ελληνική γλώσσα}} {{IPA2|eliniˈci ˈɣlosa}} or simply {{lang|el|ελληνικά}} {{IPA2|eliniˈka}} — "Hellenic") has a documented history of 3,500 years, the longest of any single [[language]] in the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] [[language family]]. It is also one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages, with fragmentary records in [[Mycenaean language|Mycenaean]] dating back to the 15th or 14th century BC, matched only by the [[list of extinct languages|extinct]] [[Anatolian languages]] and [[Vedic Sanskrit]], and making it the earliest-attested language that still survives. Today, it is spoken by approximately 15–25 million people in [[Greece]], [[Cyprus]], [[Albania]], [[Bulgaria]], the [[Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia|Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)]], [[Italy]], [[Turkey]], [[Armenia]], [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], [[Ukraine]], [[Moldova]], [[Romania]], [[Russia]], [[Egypt]], [[Jordan]] and [[Greek diaspora|emigrant communities]] around the world, including [[Australia]], [[United States]], [[Germany]] and elsewhere. |
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Greek was written in the [[Greek alphabet]] (the first to introduce [[vowel]]s) since the 9th century BC in Greece (before that in [[Linear B]]), and the 4th century BC in Cyprus (before that in [[Cypriot syllabary]]). [[Greek literature]] has a continuous history of nearly three thousand years. |
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Greek [[Root (linguistics)|roots]] have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; [[List of Greek and Latin roots in English|Greek and Latin]] are the predominant sources of [[international scientific vocabulary]]. |
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== History == |
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{{History of the Greek language}} |
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{{main|History of the Greek language}} |
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''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]].'' |
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[[File:Homer British Museum.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Idealised portrayal of the author [[Homer]]]] |
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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 in the "Room of the Chariot Tablets", a [[Minoan chronology|LMII]]-context (c. 1500 BC) region of [[Knossos]], in [[Crete]], making Greek one of the very few living languages (together with the [[Chinese languages|Chinese]] and [[West Semitic languages]]) directly descended from a language [[Bronze Age writing|recorded in the Bronze Age]]. |
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The later [[Greek alphabet]] is unrelated to Linear B, and is derived from the [[Phoenician alphabet]] ([[abjad]]); with minor modifications, it is still used today. Greek is conventionally divided into the following periods: |
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* '''[[Mycenaean language|Mycenaean Greek]]''': the language of the [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenaean civilization]]. It is recorded in the [[Linear B]] script on tablets dating from the 15th or 14th century BC onwards. |
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* '''[[Ancient Greek|Classical Greek]]''' (also known as Ancient Greek): In its various dialects was the language of the [[Archaic period in Greece|Archaic]] and [[classical antiquity|Classical]] periods of Greek civilization. It was widely known throughout the Roman empire. Classical Greek fell into disuse in western Europe in the [[Middle Ages]], but remained officially in use in the [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] world, and was reintroduced to the rest of Europe with the [[Fall of Constantinople]] and Greek migration to [[Italy]]. |
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* '''[[Hellenistic Greek]]''' (also known as [[Koine Greek]]): The fusion of various ancient Greek dialects with [[Attic Greek|Attic]] (the dialect of Athens) resulted in the creation of the first '''common''' Greek dialect, which became a [[lingua franca]] across the [[Mediterranean]] region. 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 [[Ancient Rome|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 is also traced the origin of [[Christianity]], as the [[Twelve Apostles|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). |
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* '''[[Medieval Greek]]''': The continuation of Hellenistic Greek during medieval [[Greek history]] as the official and vernacular 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'''. |
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* '''[[Modern Greek]]''': Stemming independently from Koine Greek, '''Modern Greek''' usages can be traced in the late Byzantine period (as early as 11th century). |
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==History== |
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Two main forms of the language have been in use since the end of the medieval Greek period: [[Modern Greek|Dhimotikí]] ({{lang|el|Δημοτική}}), the Demotic (vernacular) language, and [[Katharevousa|Katharévusa]] ({{lang|el|Καθαρεύουσα}}, meaning "purified"), an imitation of classical Greek, which was used for literary, juridic, administrative and scientific purposes during the 19th and early 20th centuries. This [[diglossia]] problem was brought to an end in 1976 (act - {{lang|el|νόμος}} - 306/1976), when Dhimotikí was declared the official language of Greece. |
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{{Main|History of Greek}} |
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Greek has been spoken in the [[Balkans|Balkan peninsula]] since around the 3rd millennium BC,<ref name=BVG>{{harvnb|Renfrew|2003|p=35}}; {{harvnb|Georgiev|1981|p=192}}.</ref> or possibly earlier.<ref>{{harvnb|Gray|Atkinson|2003|pp=437–438}}; {{harvnb|Atkinson|Gray|2006|p=102}}.</ref> The earliest written evidence is a [[Linear B]] [[clay tablet]] found in [[Messenia]] that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC,<ref>{{Cite web|date=1 April 2011|title=Ancient Tablet Found: Oldest Readable Writing in Europe|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/110330-oldest-writing-europe-tablet-greece-science-mycenae-greek|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210725055018/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/110330-oldest-writing-europe-tablet-greece-science-mycenae-greek|url-status=dead|archive-date=25 July 2021|access-date=2022-01-20|website=Culture|language=en}}</ref> making Greek the world's [[List of languages by first written accounts|oldest recorded]] [[Modern language|living language]].<ref>{{cite book | last=Tulloch | first=A. | title=Understanding English Homonyms: Their Origins and Usage | publisher=Hong Kong University Press | year=2017 | isbn=978-988-8390-64-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h7YjEAAAQBAJ | access-date=2023-11-30|page=153|quote=Greek is the world's oldest recorded living language.}}</ref> Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct [[Anatolian languages]]. |
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===Periods=== |
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In the meantime, both forms of Greek had naturally converged and '''Standard Modern Greek''' ({{lang|el|Κοινή Νεοελληνική}} — Common Modern Greek), the form of Greek used for all official purposes and in education in Greece today, emerged. |
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[[File:Proto Greek Area reconstruction.png|thumb|[[Proto-Greek language|Proto-Greek]]-speaking area according to linguist [[Vladimir I. Georgiev]]]] |
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The Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods: |
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* '''[[Proto-Greek language|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 [[Geography of Greece|Greek peninsula]] sometime in the [[Neolithic]] era or the [[Bronze Age]].{{NoteTag|A comprehensive overview in J.T. Hooker's ''Mycenaean Greece'';<ref>{{harvnb|Hooker|1976|loc=Chapter 2: "Before the Mycenaean Age", pp. 11–33 and passim}}</ref> 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"<ref>{{harvnb|Renfrew|1973|pp=263–276, especially p. 267}}</ref> in ''Bronze Age Migrations'' by R.A. Crossland and A. Birchall, eds. (1973).}} |
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* '''[[Mycenaean Greek]]''': the language of the [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenaean civilization]]. It is recorded in the [[Linear B]] script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards. |
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* '''[[Ancient Greek]]''': in its various [[Ancient Greek dialects|dialects]], the language of the [[Archaic Greece|Archaic]] and [[Classical Greece|Classical]] periods of the [[Ancient Greece|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 Empire|Byzantine]] world and was reintroduced to the rest of Europe with the [[Fall of Constantinople]] and [[Greeks|Greek]] migration to western Europe. |
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* '''[[Koine Greek]]''' (also known as '''Hellenistic Greek'''): The fusion of [[Ionian Greek|Ionian]] with [[Attic Greek|Attic]], the dialect of [[Classical Athens|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]]; after the Hellenistic colonization of the known world, it was spoken from [[Egypt]] to the fringes of India. Due to the widespread use of the Greek language during this period, a set of rules had to be established for the proper dissemination of the language. It is at this point that the term Hellenism (Ἑλληνισμός) first appears. Hellenism was used by the grammarians and Strabo to denote "correct Greek".<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/192048201 |title=Hellenisms: culture, identity, and ethnicity from antiquity to modernity |date=2008 |publisher=Ashgate |isbn=978-0-7546-6525-0 |editor-last=Zacharia |editor-first=Katerina |location=Aldershot, England ; Burlington, VT |page=1 |oclc=192048201}}</ref> After the [[Roman Republic|Roman]] conquest of Greece, an unofficial [[Multilingualism|bilingualism]] of Greek and [[Latin]] was established in the city of [[Rome]] and Koine Greek became the first or second language in the [[Roman Empire]]. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek because the [[Twelve Apostles|Apostles]] used this form of the language to spread Christianity. Because it was the original language of the [[New Testament]], and the [[Old Testament]] was translated into it as the [[Septuagint]], that variety of Koine Greek may be referred to as '''New Testament Greek''' or sometimes '''Biblical Greek'''. |
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[[File: Anatolian Greek dialects.png|thumb|Distribution of varieties of Greek in [[Anatolia]], 1910. [[Modern Greek#Demotic|Demotic]] in yellow. [[Pontic Greek|Pontic]] in orange. [[Cappadocian Greek]] in green, with green dots indicating individual Cappadocian Greek villages.<ref>{{harvnb|Dawkins|Halliday|1916}}.</ref>]] |
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* '''[[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. |
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* '''[[Modern Greek]]''' (also known as '''Neo-Hellenic'''):<ref name="Ethnologue">{{Cite web|url=https://www.ethnologue.com/language/ell|title=Greek|website=Ethnologue|language=en|access-date=12 April 2020}}</ref> 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 [[Varieties of Modern Greek|dialects]] of it. |
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===Diglossia=== |
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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, Koinē, the version of Greek used to write the [[New Testament]] and the [[Septuagint]], is relatively easy to understand for modern speakers. |
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{{Main|Greek language question}} |
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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: [[Demotic Greek|Dimotiki]], the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and [[Katharevousa]], meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and [[Ancient Greek]] developed in the early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to [[Standard Modern Greek]], used today for all official purposes and in [[education in Greece|education]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=The modern Greek language : a descriptive analysis of standard modern Greek|last=Peter|first=Mackridge|date=1985|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-815770-0|location=Oxford [Oxfordshire]|oclc=11134463}}</ref> |
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===Historical unity=== |
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Greek words have been widely borrowed into the European languages: ''astronomy'', ''democracy'', ''philosophy'', ''thespian'', etc. Moreover, Greek words and [[morpheme|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]]''. |
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[[File:Modern Greek dialects en.svg|thumb|left|upright=1.1|The distribution of major modern Greek dialect areas]] |
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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.<ref>{{harvnb|Browning|1983|pp=vii–viii}}.</ref> It is also often{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}} 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 Greek|Demotic]] than 12-century [[Middle English]] is to [[Modern English|modern spoken English]]".<ref>{{harvnb|Alexiou|1982|p=161}}.</ref> |
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==Geographic distribution== |
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== Characteristics == |
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{{Further|Greeks|Greek diaspora}} |
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[[File:Greek language in the Russian Empire (1897).svg|thumb|Geographic distribution of Greek language in the Russian Empire (1897 census)]] |
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Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable [[Greeks in Albania|Greek-speaking minority in Albania]] near the Greek-Albanian border.<ref name=" Ethnologue" /> A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the [[Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)|Greco-Turkish War]] and the resulting [[Population exchange between Greece and Turkey|population exchange in 1923]] a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in [[Greeks in Turkey|Turkey]], though very few remain today.<ref name=":1" /> A small Greek-speaking community is also found in [[Greeks in Bulgaria|Bulgaria]] near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable [[Greek diaspora]] which has notable communities in the [[Greek Americans|United States]], [[Greek Australians|Australia]], [[Greek Canadians|Canada]], [[Greek South Africans|South Africa]], [[Greek Chilean|Chile]], [[Greek Brazilians|Brazil]], [[Greek Argentines|Argentina]], [[Greeks in Russia and the Soviet Union|Russia]], [[Greeks in Ukraine|Ukraine]], the [[Greeks in the United Kingdom|United Kingdom]], and throughout the [[European Union]], especially in [[Greeks in Germany|Germany]]. |
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Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout the [[Eastern Mediterranean]], in what are today [[Southern Italy]], [[Turkey]], [[Cyprus]], [[Syria]], [[Lebanon]], [[Israel]], [[State of Palestine|Palestine]], [[Egypt]], and [[Libya]]; in the area of the [[Black Sea]], in what are today Turkey, [[Bulgaria]], [[Romania]], [[Ukraine]], [[Russia]], [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], [[Armenia]], and [[Azerbaijan]]; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western [[Mediterranean Sea|Mediterranean]] in and around [[Greek colonisation|colonies]] such as [[Massalia]], [[Monoikos]], and [[Mainake (Greek settlement)|Mainake]]. It was also used as the official language of government and religion in the [[Nubia#Christian Nubia|Christian Nubian kingdoms]], for most of their history.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Burstein |first=Stanley |date=2 November 2020 |title=When Greek was an African Language |url=https://chs.harvard.edu/curated-article/snowden-lectures-stanley-burstein-when-greek-was-an-african-language/ |quote=The revelation of the place of Greek cultural elements in the lives of these kingdoms has been gradual and is still ongoing, but already it is clear that Greek was the official language of government and religion for most of their history.{{nbsp}}... Greek remained the official language of Nubian Christianity right to the end of its long and remarkable history.{{nbsp}}... But these three factors do suggest how Greek and Christianity could have become so intimately intertwined and so entrenched in Nubian life and culture by the seventh century AD that Greek could resist both Coptic and Arabic and survive for almost another millennium before both disappeared with the conversion of Nubia to Islam in the sixteenth century AD. |institution=[[Center for Hellenic Studies]] |author-link=Stanley M. Burstein}}</ref> |
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{{Indo-European topics}} |
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===Official status=== |
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Like most Indo-European languages, Greek is highly inflected. Greek grammar has come down through the ages fairly intact, though with some simplifications. For example, Modern Greek features two [[Grammatical number|number]]s: singular and plural. The dual number of Ancient times was abandoned at a very early stage. The instrumental case of Mycenaean Greek disappeared in the Archaic period, and the dative-locative of Ancient Greek disappeared in the late Hellenistic. Four [[Grammatical case|cases]], nominative, accusative, genitive and vocative, remain. The three ancient [[Grammatical gender|gender]] noun categories (masculine, feminine and neuter) never fell out of use, while adjectives agree in gender, number, and case with their respective nouns, as do their [[Grammatical article|articles]]. Greek verbs are inflected for: |
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Greek, in its modern form, is the [[official language]] of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/greece/|title=Greece|work=The World Factbook|publisher=Central Intelligence Agency|access-date=23 January 2010}}</ref> It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside [[Turkish language|Turkish]]) and the [[British Overseas Territory]] of [[Akrotiri and Dhekelia]] (alongside [[English language|English]]).<ref name=GreekCyprus>{{cite web|title=The Constitution of Cyprus, App. D., Part 1, Art. 3 |url-status=dead |url=http://www.cyprus.gov.cy/portal/portal.nsf/0/302578ad62e1ea3ac2256fd5003b61d4?OpenDocument&ExpandSection=3&Click=|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120407035710/http://www.cyprus.gov.cy/portal/portal.nsf/0/302578ad62e1ea3ac2256fd5003b61d4?OpenDocument&ExpandSection=3&Click=|archive-date=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].</ref> Because of the membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's [[languages of the European Union#Official EU languages|24 official languages]].<ref name="European Union">{{cite web|title=The EU at a Glance – Languages in the EU|url=http://europa.eu/abc/european_countries/languages/index_en.htm|work=Europa|publisher=European Union|access-date=30 July 2010|archive-date=21 June 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130621213949/http://europa.eu/about-eu/facts-figures/administration/index_en.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> Greek is recognized as a [[minority language]] in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of [[Gjirokastër District|Gjirokastër]] and [[Sarandë District|Sarandë]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bytyçi |first=Enver |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vy5lEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA20 |title=In the Shadows of Albania-China Relations (1960–1978) |date=2022 |publisher=[[Cambridge Scholars Publishing]] |isbn=978-1-5275-7909-5 |page=20 |language=en |quote=Albania's official language is Albanian, but in municipalities where minorities reside, the languages of these minorities are also used, including Greek in several municipalities in Gjirokastra and Saranda, and Macedonian in a municipality in the East of the country.}}</ref> It is also an official minority language in the regions of [[Apulia]] and [[Calabria]] in Italy. In the framework of the [[European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages]], Greek is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, [[Hungary]], Romania, and Ukraine.<ref name="CouncilofEurope">{{cite web|url=http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/ListeDeclarations.asp?NT=148&CM=8&DF=23/01/05&CL=ENG&VL=1|title=List of Declarations Made with Respect to Treaty No. 148|publisher=Council of Europe|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200410102457/https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/search-on-treaties/-/conventions/treaty/148/declarations|archive-date=10 April 2020|access-date=8 December 2008}}</ref> It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 [[Treaty of Lausanne]].{{sfn|Tsitselikis|2013|pp=287–288}}<ref name=Toktaş2006>{{Cite journal |last= Toktaş |first= Şule |date=2006 |title=EU enlargement conditions and minority protection : a reflection on Turkey's non-Muslim minorities |url=https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/42732 |journal=East European Quarterly |language=en |volume=40|issue=4 |pages=489–519 |issn=0012-8449|quote-page=514|quote=This implies that Turkey grants educational right in minority languages only to the recognized minorities covered by the Lausanne who are the Armenians, Greeks and the Jews.}}</ref><ref name=Bayır2013>{{Cite book |last=Bayır |first=Derya |title=Minorities and nationalism in Turkish law |date=2013 |publisher=[[Ashgate Publishing]] |isbn=978-1-4094-7254-4 |series=Cultural Diversity and Law |location=Farnham|url=https://www.academia.edu/37557239| pages=89–90 |quote=Oran farther points out that the rights set out for the four categories are stated to be the 'fundamental law' of the land, so that no legislation or official action shall conflict or interfere with these stipulations or prevail over them (article 37). [...] According to the Turkish state, only Greek, Armenian and Jewish non-Muslims were granted minority protection by the Lausanne Treaty. [...] Except for non-Muslim populations – that is, Greeks, Jews and Armenians – none of the other minority groups' language rights have been ''de jure'' protected by the legal system in Turkey. |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231014083317/https://www.academia.edu/37557239/DERYA_BAYIR_MINORITIES_AND_NATIONALISM_IN_TURKISH_LAW |archive-date= Oct 14, 2023 }}</ref><ref name=HRWLanguageRights>{{cite book |title = Questions and Answers: Freedom of Expression and Language Rights in Turkey |publisher = Human Rights Watch |date = April 19, 2002 |location = New York |url =https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/04/19/qa-freedom-expression-and-language-rights-turkey |quote=The Turkish government accepts the language rights of the Jewish, Greek and Armenian minorities as being guaranteed by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231020130644/https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/04/19/qa-freedom-expression-and-language-rights-turkey |archive-date= Oct 20, 2023 }}</ref> |
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==Characteristics== |
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* [[Grammatical mood|mood]] — in Ancient, indicative, subjunctive, imperative, and optative; in Modern, only the imperative is inflectional; modal functions are expressed synthetically |
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{{See also|Ancient Greek grammar|Koine Greek grammar|Modern Greek grammar}} |
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* [[Grammatical number|number]] — singular, plural (archaic Greek also had a dual) |
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* [[Grammatical voice|voice]] — in Ancient, active, middle, and passive; in Modern, active and medio-passive |
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* [[Grammatical tense|tense]] — in Ancient, present, past, future; in Modern, past and non-past |
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* [[Grammatical person|person]] — first, second, third |
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* [[Grammatical aspect|aspect]] — in Ancient, aoristic (aorist), perfective (perfect), and imperfective (present); in Modern, perfective and imperfective |
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The [[phonology]], [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]], [[syntax]], and [[vocabulary]] of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to the modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. |
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Ancient had several infinitives; in Modern, the [[infinitive]] of verbs has been replaced by a [[periphrastic]] subjunctive.<ref name = "Britannica">Britannica, "Greek language".</ref> Ancient had a complex participial system; Modern has a simpler one. |
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===Phonology=== |
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A great [[syntax|syntactical]] reformation took place during Hellenistic times, with the result that late Koine is already much like Modern Greek. However, since Greek syntactical relations are expressed by means of case endings, Greek [[word order]] has always been relatively free. In [[Attic Greek]] the availability of the definite article and the infinitive and [[participle|participial]] [[clause]]s permits the construction of very long, complex yet clear sentences. This technique of Attic prose (known as periodic style) is unmatched in other languages. Since Hellenistic times Greek has tended to be more periphrastic, but much of the syntactical and expressive power of the language has been preserved. |
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{{Main article|Modern Greek phonology|Koine Greek phonology|Ancient Greek phonology}} |
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[[File:Seferisrede.ogg|thumb|Spoken [[Modern Greek]]]] |
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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 [[Phonemic contrast|contrasts]]. The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see [[Koine Greek phonology]] for details): |
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* replacement of the [[pitch accent]] with a [[stress (linguistics)|stress accent]]. |
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* simplification of the system of [[vowel]]s and [[diphthong]]s: loss of vowel length distinction, monophthongisation of most diphthongs and several steps in a [[chain shift]] of vowels towards {{IPA|/i/}} ([[iotacism]]). |
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* development of the [[voicelessness|voiceless]] [[aspirated consonant|aspirated]] [[stop consonant|plosives]] {{IPA|/pʰ/}} and {{IPA|/tʰ/}} to the voiceless [[fricative consonant|fricatives]] {{IPA|/f/}} and {{IPA|/θ/}}, respectively; the similar development of {{IPA|/kʰ/}} to {{IPA|/x/}} may have taken place later (the phonological changes are not reflected in the orthography, and both earlier and later phonemes are written with [[Phi (letter)|φ]], [[Theta|θ]], and [[Chi (letter)|χ]]). |
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* development of the [[voice (phonetics)|voiced]] plosives {{IPA|/b/}}, {{IPA|/d/}}, and {{IPA|/ɡ/}} to their voiced fricative counterparts {{IPA|/β/}} (later {{IPA|/v/}}), {{IPA|/ð/}}, and {{IPA|/ɣ/}}. |
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===Morphology=== |
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Greek is a language distinguished by an extraordinarily rich [[vocabulary]]. In respect to the [[root (linguistics)|roots]] of words, ancient Greek vocabulary was essentially of Indo-European origin, but with a significant number of borrowings from the idioms of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks. Words of non-Indo-European origin can be traced into Greek from as early as Mycenaean times; they include a large number of Greek [[toponym]]s. The vast majority of Modern Greek vocabulary is directly inherited from ancient Greek, although in certain cases words have changed meanings. [[loanword|Words of foreign origin]] have entered the language mainly from [[Latin language|Latin]], [[Italian language|Italian]] and [[Ottoman Turkish language|Ottoman Turkish]]. During older periods of the Greek language, loan words into Greek acquired Greek inflections, leaving thus only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from [[French language|French]] and [[English language|English]], are typically not inflected. |
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In all its stages, the [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] of Greek shows an extensive set of [[Productive (linguistics)|productive]] [[derivational affix]]es, a limited but productive system of [[Compound (linguistics)|compounding]]<ref>{{harvnb|Ralli|2001|pp=164–203}}.</ref> and a rich [[inflection]]al system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in the [[Nominal (linguistics)|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 case|genitive]]). The verbal system has lost the [[infinitive]], the [[Synthetic (linguistics)|synthetically]]-formed future, and [[perfect tense]]s and the [[optative mood]]. Many have been replaced by [[periphrastic]] ([[Analytic language|analytical]]) forms. |
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====Nouns and adjectives==== |
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Yet the most distinctive characteristic of the Greek language is its powerful [[compound (linguistics)|compound]]-constructing ability. The speaker is able to combine basic or derived terms in order to construct new, yet perfectly understandable compounds that express in one word what other languages would express in an entire clause, or even an entire sentence. This linguistic mobility is largely absent from Latin and its offspring languages. In the [[Homeric Greek|Homeric language]], [[Thetis]] — the mother of [[Achilles]], is described as "{{lang|grc|δυσαριστοτόκεια}}", ''dysaristotokeia'', meaning "she, who to her own bad fortune, gave birth to the best", in pure [[Modern Greek]] — "{{lang|el|πικρολεβεντομάνα}}", ''pikroleventomana''. Some languages are able to express such a complex meaning naturally in one word, others have different mechanisms (but see [[polysynthetic languages]] for extreme examples). Compound constructional capability, as is found in Greek, is frequently imitated by modern languages such as [[French language|French]] and [[English language|English]] in order to produce monolectic compounds; this is often done by actually using Greek roots (e.g. biology < biologie < bios + logos, [[Micromégas]] < mikros + megas ) or by applying imported Greek rules to foreign words (e.g. Anglo-Saxons < Angles + Saxons). For that reason Greek-derived words predominate in the language of sciences, particularly of the natural sciences, e.g. [[physics]], [[chemistry]], [[biology]], [[geography]], [[medicine]] etc. It has been speculated by scholars that due to this specific flexibility, Greek and German have been the languages of [[philosophy]], and that [[Plato]]'s ideas had pre-existed in Greek, in the same way that [[Meister Eckhart]]'s thoughts had in German.<ref name = "Friedell">E. Friedell, ''Kulturgeschichte Griechenlands''.</ref> |
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Pronouns show distinctions in [[grammatical person|person]] (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), [[grammatical number|number]] (singular, [[Dual (grammatical number)|dual]], and plural in the ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and [[grammatical gender|gender]] (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and [[Declension (linguistics)|decline]] for [[grammatical case|case]] (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language).{{NoteTag|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.}} Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both [[Attributive adjective|attributive]] and [[Predicative adjective|predicative]] adjectives [[Agreement (linguistics)|agree]] with the noun. |
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====Verbs==== |
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== Evolution from Ancient to Modern Greek == |
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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 language|synthetic]] inflectional forms for: |
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Due to the long [[history of the Greek language]], it is hard to point out specific linguistic differences between distant periods, such as "ancient", and "modern", Greek. For example the pronunciation of Beta, Gamma and Delta is commonly regarded as an important phonetic difference between Ancient and Modern periods; however evidence suggests a [[fricative]] pronunciation of Gamma as early as the 4th century BC in Boeotian, Elean, [[Pamphylian Greek|Pamphylian]], and possibly even vulgar Attic, and modern pronunciation may be derived from this (this point is debated among scholars). The only way to analyse the evolution of Greek until modern times, is to view the language as a whole. This is done by examining all its four periods, whose chronological boundaries are symbolic. |
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{| class="wikitable" |
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The development from Ancient Greek to Modern Greek has affected [[phonology]], [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]], and [[vocabulary]]. |
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! |
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! Ancient Greek |
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! Modern Greek |
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|- |
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! Person |
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| first, second and third || also [[T–V distinction|second person formal]] |
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|- |
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! Number |
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| singular, [[dual (grammatical number)|dual]] and plural || singular and plural |
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|- |
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! [[Grammatical tense|tense]] |
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| [[Present tense|present]], [[past tense|past]] and [[future tense|future]] |
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| past and non-past (future is expressed by a [[Periphrasis|periphrastic construction]]) |
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|- |
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! [[Grammatical aspect|aspect]] |
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| [[Imperfective aspect|imperfective]], [[perfective aspect|perfective]] (traditionally called ''[[aorist]]'') and [[perfect (grammar)|perfect]] (sometimes also called ''perfective''; see [[Perfective aspect#Perfective vs. perfect|note about terminology]]) |
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| imperfective and perfective/aorist (perfect is expressed by a periphrastic construction) |
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|- |
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! [[Grammatical mood|mood]] |
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| [[realis mood|indicative]], [[subjunctive mood|subjunctive]], [[imperative mood|imperative]] and [[optative mood|optative]] |
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| indicative, subjunctive,{{NoteTag|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#The verb|Modern Greek grammar]] for explanation.}} and imperative (other modal functions are expressed by periphrastic constructions) |
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|- |
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! Voice |
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| [[active voice|active]], [[Mediopassive voice|medio-passive]], and [[passive voice|passive]] |
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| [[Active voice|active]] and [[mediopassive voice|medio-passive]] |
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|} |
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===Syntax=== |
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The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see [[Koine Greek#Phonology|Koine Greek Phonology]] for details), and included: |
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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 Greek grammar|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. |
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* replacement of the pitch accent with a stress accent |
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* simplification of the system of [[vowel]]s and [[diphthong]]s (loss of vowel length distinction, monophthongization of most diphthongs, and some significant steps of [[iotacism]]) |
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* development of the [[voiceless]] [[aspirated]] [[stop consonant]]s [[phi (letter)|phi]] and [[theta (letter)|theta]] to voiceless [[fricative]]s (the similar development of [[chi (letter)|chi]] may have taken place later) |
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* possibly development of the [[voiced]] stop consonants — [[delta (letter)|delta]], [[beta (letter)|beta]] and [[gamma (letter)|gamma]] — to voiced fricatives (the date is discussed among scholars) |
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===Vocabulary=== |
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The morphological changes affected both [[noun]]s and [[verb]]s. Some of the changes to the verbs are parallel to those that affected the [[Romance languages]] as they developed from [[Vulgar Latin]] — for instance the loss of certain historic [[tense]] forms and their replacement by new constructions — but the changes to the nouns have been less far-reaching. Greek has never experienced the wholesale loss of word-endings and noun cases that has for instance made [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], [[French language|French]] and [[Italian language|Italian]] separate languages from Latin. |
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Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of [[Pre-Greek substrate|borrowings]] from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks,<ref>{{harvnb|Beekes|2009}}.</ref> some documented in [[Linear B|Mycenaean texts]]; they include a large number of Greek [[toponym]]s. The form and meaning of many words have changed. [[Loanword]]s (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, [[Venetian language#History|Venetian]], and [[Turkish language|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 [[Albanian language|Albanian]], [[South Slavic languages|South Slavic]] ([[Macedonian language|Macedonian]]/[[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]]) and [[Eastern Romance languages]] ([[Aromanian language|Aromanian]] and [[Megleno-Romanian language|Megleno-Romanian]]). |
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==Loanwords in other languages== |
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== Classification == |
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{{further|English words of Greek origin|List of Greek and Latin roots in English}} |
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Greek is an independent branch of the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] [[language family]]. The ancient languages which were probably most closely related to it, [[Ancient Macedonian language|ancient Macedonian]] (which most likely was a [[dialect]] of Greek) and [[Phrygian language|Phrygian]], are not well enough documented to permit detailed comparison. Among living languages Greek seems to be most closely related to [[Armenian language|Armenian]] (see also [[Graeco-Armenian]]) and the [[Indo-Iranian languages]].<ref>[[BBC]]: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/european_languages/languages/greek.shtml Languages across Europe: Greek]</ref> |
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Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: ''mathematics'', ''[[physics]]'', ''[[astronomy]]'', ''democracy'', ''philosophy'', ''[[:wikt:athletics|athletics]], theatre, [[rhetoric]]'', ''[[baptism]]'', ''[[:wikt:evangelist|evangelist]]'', etc. Moreover, Greek words and [[morpheme|word elements]] continue to be productive as a basis for coinages: ''[[anthropology]]'', ''photography'', ''[[telephony]]'', ''[[isomer]]'', ''[[biomechanics]]'', ''[[cinematography]]'', etc. Together with [[Scientific Latin|Latin words]], they form the [[International scientific vocabulary|foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary]]; for example, all words ending in ''-logy'' ('discourse'). There are many [[English words of Greek origin]].<ref>{{harvnb|Scheler|1977}}.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.newsit.gr/ellada/poso-ellinikes-einai-oi-ksenes-glosses/2918001/|title=Πόσο "ελληνικές" είναι οι ξένες γλώσσες|date=18 November 2019|website=NewsIt}}</ref> |
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==Classification== |
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Greek is an independent branch of the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be [[Ancient Macedonian language|ancient Macedonian]], which, by most accounts, was a distinct [[Ancient Greek dialects|dialect of Greek]] itself.<ref name="Olander-van Beek-2022">{{harvnb|Olander|2022|pp=12, 14}}; {{harvnb|van Beek|2022|pp=190–191, 193}}</ref><ref name= Crespo2018>{{cite book | last = Crespo | first = Emilio | chapter = The Softening of Obstruent Consonants in the Macedonian Dialect | title = Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea | editor1-last = Giannakis | editor1-first = Georgios K. | editor2-last = Crespo | editor2-first = Emilio | editor3-last = Filos | editor3-first = Panagiotis | date = 2018 | publisher = Walter de Gruyter | page = 329 | isbn = 978-3-11-053081-0 }}</ref><ref name= Hatzopoulos2018>{{cite book | last = Hatzopoulos | first = Miltiades B. | chapter = Recent Research in the Ancient Macedonian Dialect: Consolidation and New Perspectives | title = Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea | editor1-last = Giannakis | editor1-first = Georgios K. | editor2-last = Crespo | editor2-first = Emilio | editor3-last = Filos | editor3-first = Panagiotis | date = 2018 | publisher=Walter de Gruyter | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=XXFLDwAAQBAJ&q=ancient+macedonian+speech&pg=PT301 | page=299 | isbn = 978-3-11-053081-0 }}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Babiniotis|1992|pp=29–40}}; {{harvnb|Dosuna|2012|pp=65–78}}</ref> Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards [[Phrygian language|Phrygian]] as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical [[isogloss]]es, with some being exclusive between them.<ref name="Olander-van Beek-2022" /><ref>{{harvnb|Woodhouse|2009|p=171}}: "This question is of course only just separable from the question of which languages within Indo-European are most closely related to Phrygian, which has also been hotly debated. A turning point in this debate was Kortlandt's (1988) demonstration on the basis of shared sound changes that Thraco-Armenian had separated from Phrygian and other originally Balkan languages at an early stage. The consensus has now returned to regarding Greek as the closest relative."</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Obrador-Cursach|2020|pp=238–239}}: "To the best of our current knowledge, Phrygian was closely related to Greek. This affirmation is consistent with the vision offered by Neumann (1988: 23), Brixhe (2006) and Ligorio and Lubotsky (2018: 1816) and with many observations given by ancient authors. Both languages share 34 of the 36 features considered in this paper, some of them of great significance:{{nbsp}}... The available data suggest that Phrygian and Greek coexisted broadly from pre-historic to historic times, and both belong to a common linguistic area (Brixhe 2006: 39–44)."</ref> Scholars have proposed a [[Graeco-Phrygian]] subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated.<ref name="Olander-van Beek-2022" /><ref>{{harvnb|Obrador-Cursach|2020|p=243}}: "With the current state of our knowledge, we can affirm that Phrygian is closely related to Greek. This is not a surprising conclusion: ancient sources and modern scholars agree that Phrygians did not live far from Greece in pre-historic times. Moreover, the last half century of scientific study of Phrygian has approached both languages and developed the hypothesis of a Proto-Greco-Phrygian language, to the detriment to other theories like Phrygio-Armenian or Thraco-Phrygian."</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Ligorio|Lubotsky|2018|pp=1816–1817}}: "Phrygian is most closely related to Greek. The two languages share a few unique innovations,{{nbsp}}... It is therefore very likely that both languages emerged from a single language, which was spoken in the Balkans at the end of the third millennium BCE."</ref><ref>{{Glottolog|grae1234|Graeco-Phrygian}}</ref> |
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Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to [[Armenian language|Armenian]] (see [[Graeco-Armenian]]) or the [[Indo-Iranian languages]] (see [[Graeco-Aryan]]), but little definitive evidence has been found.<ref>{{harvnb|van Beek|2022|pp=193–197}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Renfrew|1990}}; {{harvnb|Gamkrelidze|Ivanov|1990|pp=110–116}}; {{harvnb|Renfrew|2003|pp=17–48}}; {{harvnb|Gray|Atkinson|2003|pp=435–439}}</ref> In addition, [[Albanian language|Albanian]] has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other [[extinct language]]s of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed [[Paleo-Balkan languages|Palaeo-Balkan]], and Greek has a central position in it.<ref>{{harvnb|Olsen|Thorsø|2022|pp=209–217}}; {{harvnb|Hyllested|Joseph|2022|pp=225–226, 228–229, 231–241}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Holm|2008|pp=634–635}}</ref> |
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==Writing system== |
==Writing system== |
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{{Greek Alphabet}} |
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{{Table_Greekletters}} |
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{{ |
{{See also|Greek Braille}} |
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Greek has been written in the Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century 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 variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late [[Ionic dialect|Ionic]] variant, introduced for writing classical [[Attic dialect|Attic]] in 403 BC. |
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===Linear B=== |
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The modern Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with a capital ([[majuscule]]) and lowercase ([[minuscule]]) form. The letter [[Sigma]] has an additional special final form (ς): |
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{{Main|Linear B}} |
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[[Linear B]], attested as early as the late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek.<ref name=":0"/> 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).<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Linear B : an introduction|last=Hooker|first= J. T. |date=1980|publisher=Bristol Classical Press|isbn=978-0-906515-69-3|location=Bristol|oclc=7326206}}</ref> The language of the Linear B texts, [[Mycenaean Greek language|Mycenaean Greek]], is the earliest known form of Greek.<ref name=":0" /> |
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{|class="wikitable" style="border-collapse:collapse;" |
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===Cypriot syllabary=== |
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|bgcolor="#EFEFEF" align="center" colspan="33" | '''[[Capital letters|Majuscule form]]''' |
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{{Main|Cypriot syllabary}} |
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[[File: Cypriot syllabic inscription 600-500BC.jpg|thumb|Greek inscription in Cypriot syllabic script]] |
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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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Cypriot-syllabary/28419|title=Cypriot syllabary|work=Britannica Academic|access-date=1 August 2017}}</ref> |
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===Greek alphabet=== |
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{{Main|Greek alphabet|Greek orthography}} |
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[[File:Greek alphabet variants.png|thumb|Ancient epichoric variants of the Greek alphabet from [[Euboea]], [[Ionia]], Athens, and [[Ancient Corinth|Corinth]] comparing to modern Greek]] |
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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 Greek|Ionic]] variant, introduced for writing classical [[Attic Greek|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]]. |
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The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ([[capital letter|majuscule]]) and lowercase ([[lower case|minuscule]]) form. The letter [[sigma]] has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: |
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{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" |
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|- |
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! colspan="33" | [[upper case]] |
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|- |
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|[[Alpha|Α]]||[[Beta|Β]]||[[Gamma|Γ]]||[[Delta (letter)|Δ]]||[[Epsilon|Ε]]||[[Zeta|Ζ]]||[[Eta|Η]]||[[Theta|Θ]]||[[Iota|Ι]]||[[Kappa|Κ]]||[[Lambda|Λ]]||[[Mu (letter)|Μ]]||[[Nu (letter)|Ν]]||[[Xi (letter)|Ξ]]||[[Omicron|Ο]]||[[Pi (letter)|Π]]||[[Rho|Ρ]]||[[Sigma|Σ]]||[[Tau|Τ]]||[[Upsilon|Υ]]||[[Phi|Φ]]||[[Chi (letter)|Χ]]||[[Psi (letter)|Ψ]]||[[Omega|Ω]] |
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|- |
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! colspan="33" | [[lower case]] |
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|width=3% align="center"|[[Alpha (letter)|Α]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Vita (letter)|Β]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Gamma|Γ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Delta (letter)|Δ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Epsilon|Ε]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Zeta (letter)|Ζ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Eta (letter)|Η]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Theta|Θ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Iota|Ι]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Kappa (letter)|Κ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Lambda|Λ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Mu (letter)|Μ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Nu (letter)|Ν]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Xi|Ξ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Omicron|Ο]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Pi (letter)|Π]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Rho (letter)|Ρ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Sigma (letter)|Σ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Taf|Τ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Ypsilon|Υ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Phi (letter)|Φ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Chi (letter)|Χ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Psi (letter)|Ψ]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Omega|Ω]] |
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|- |
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|align="center" colspan="33" | '''[[Minuscule|Minuscule form]]''' |
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|- |
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|α||β||γ||δ||ε||ζ||η||θ||ι||κ||λ||μ||ν||ξ||ο||π||ρ||σ<br />ς||τ||υ||φ||χ||ψ||ω |
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|} |
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====Diacritics==== |
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In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet also features a number of diacritical signs: three different accent marks ([[acute accent|acute]], [[grave accent|grave]] and [[circumflex]]), originally denoting different shapes of [[pitch accent]] on the stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ([[spiritus asper]] and [[spiritus lenis]]), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the [[diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis]], used to mark 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]] had seen a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of the acute during the late 20th century, and it had only been retained in [[typography]]. |
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{{main|Greek diacritics}} |
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In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of [[diacritic|diacritical signs]]: three different accent marks ([[acute accent|acute]], [[grave accent|grave]], and [[circumflex]]), originally denoting different shapes of [[pitch accent]] on the stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ([[rough breathing|rough]] and [[smooth breathing]]), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the [[trema (diacritic)|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 [[penmanship|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]]. |
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After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified [[Greek diacritics|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]]. |
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====Punctuation==== |
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All variant forms of Greek letters are listed below: |
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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 ''[[Interpunct#Ano teleia|ano teleia]]'' ({{lang|grc|άνω τελεία}}). In Greek the [[comma]] also functions as a [[silent letter]] in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing {{lang|el|{{linktext|ό,τι}}}} (''ó,ti'', 'whatever') from {{lang|el|ότι}} (''óti'', 'that').<ref>{{cite web |last=Nicolas |first=Nick |title=Greek Unicode Issues: Punctuation |year=2005 |url=http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/unicode/punctuation.html |access-date=7 October 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120806003722/http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/unicode/punctuation.html |archive-date=6 August 2012 }}</ref> |
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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.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The concise Oxford dictionary of linguistics|last=Hugoe|first=Matthews Peter|date=March 2014|others=Oxford University Press.|isbn=978-0-19-967512-8|edition=Third|location=Oxford|oclc=881847972 |publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref> [[Boustrophedon]], or bi-directional text, was also used in Ancient Greek. |
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[[Image:Greek alphabet extended.png|732px]] |
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===Latin alphabet=== |
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== Geographic distribution == |
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Greek has occasionally been written in the [[Latin script]], especially in areas under [[Stato da Màr|Venetian rule]] or by [[Roman Catholicism in Greece|Greek Catholics]]. The term {{lang|grc-Latn|Frankolevantinika}} / {{lang|grc|Φραγκολεβαντίνικα}} applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because {{lang|grc-Latn|Frankos}} / {{lang|grc|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]]). {{lang|grc-Latn|Frankochiotika}} / {{lang|grc|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.<ref>{{harvnb|Androutsopoulos|2009|pp=221–249}}.</ref> |
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{{main|Greeks|Greek diaspora}} |
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Modern Greek is spoken by about 15-25 million people, mainly in [[Greece]], the [[USA]] and [[Cyprus]]. There are also Greek-speaking populations in [[Australia]], [[Armenia]], [[Germany]], the [[United Kingdom]], [[Canada]], the [[Russian Federation]], the [[Ukraine]], [[Albania]] and other countries. |
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The Latin script is nowadays used by the [[Griko dialect|Greek-speaking]] communities of [[Southern Italy]]. |
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== Official status == |
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Greek is the [[official language]] of [[Greece]] where it is spoken by about 99.5% of the population. It is also, alongside [[Turkish language|Turkish]], the official language of [[Cyprus]]. Because of the membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the [[languages of the European Union#official languages of the European Union|23 official languages]] of the [[European Union]]. Greek is officially recognised as a minority language in parts of [[Turkey]], [[Italy]] and [[Albania]]. |
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===Hebrew alphabet=== |
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==References== |
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The [[Yevanic]] dialect was written by [[Romaniote Jews|Romaniote]] and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the [[Hebrew Alphabet]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.omniglot.com/writing/yevanic.htm|title=Yevanic alphabet, pronunciation and language|website=[[Omniglot]]|access-date=18 April 2020}}</ref> |
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{{reflist}} |
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* Herbert Weir Smyth, ''Greek Grammar'', Harvard University Press, 1956 (revised edition), ISBN 0-674-36250-0. The standard grammar of classical Greek. Focuses primarily on the [[Attic Greek|Attic]] dialect, with comparatively weak treatment of the other dialects and the Homeric ''{{lang|de|Kunstsprache}}''. |
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* W. Sidney Allen, ''Vox Graeca - a guide to the pronunciation of classical Greek''. Cambridge University Press, 1968-74. ISBN 0-521-20626-X |
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* Geoffrey Horrocks, ''Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speakers'' (Longman Linguistics Library). Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1997. ISBN 0-582-30709-0. From Mycenean to modern. |
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* [[Andrew Sihler]], "A New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin", Oxford University Press, 1996. An historical grammar of ancient Greek from its Indo-European origins. Some eccentricities and no bibliography but a useful handbook to the earliest stages of Greek's development. |
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* Robert Browning, ''Medieval and Modern Greek'', Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition 1983, ISBN 0-521-29978-0. An excellent and concise historical account of the development of modern Greek from the ancient language. |
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* Brian Newton, ''The Generative Interpretation of Dialect: A Study of Modern Greek Phonology'', Cambridge University Press, 1972, ISBN 0-521-08497-0. |
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* Crosby and Schaeffer, ''An Introduction to Greek'', Allyn and Bacon, Inc. 1928. A school grammar of ancient Greek |
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* David Holton ''et al.'', ''Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar of the Modern Language'', Routledge, 1997, ISBN 0-415-10002-X. A reference grammar of ''modern'' Greek. |
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* Dionysius of Thrace, [http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/graeca/Chronologia/S_ante02/DionysiosThrax/dio_tech.html "Art of Grammar"], "{{lang|grc|Τέχνη γραμματική}}", c.100 BC |
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== |
===Arabic alphabet=== |
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In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as [[Greek Aljamiado]], some [[Greek Muslim]]s [[Cretan Muslim|from Crete]] wrote their [[Cretan Greek]] in the [[Arabic alphabet]]. The same happened among Epirote Muslims in [[Ioannina]]. This also happened among Arabic-speaking [[Byzantine rite]] Christians in the [[Levant]] ([[Lebanon]], Palestine, and [[Syria]]).<ref name="HMML1">HMML Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (27 July, 2024). ''This month, "Greek Aljamiado" (i.e., Greek written in Arabic script) became one of the more than 90 languages identified in HMML's online Reading Room ([https://www.vhmml.org/ vhmml.org]). Greek Aljamiado was a common phenomenon among Byzantine-rite Christians in Arabic-speaking communities, but has been little studied. So far, 84 examples of Greek Aljamiado have been identified in HMML's collections of Christian manuscripts digitized in Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria. Cataloging by HMML staff and associates makes these manuscripts easier to find, and supports scholars in their research of the extent and purposes of Greek Aljamiado usage. Pictured: Greek Aljamiado is written on the left page of this manuscript, in the collection of the Ordre Basilien Alepin in Jūniyah, Lebanon. View in Reading Room (OBA 00256): [https://www.vhmml.org/readingRoom/view/120512 www.vhmml.org/readingRoom/view/120512]'' [Image attached] [Story update]. Facebook. [https://www.facebook.com/story.php/?story_fbid=891590206344824&id=100064815573799&_rdr]</ref> This usage is sometimes called [[aljamiado]], as when [[Romance language]]s are written in the Arabic alphabet.<ref name="Kotzageorgis">{{cite book |
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* [[Ancient Greek]] |
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|last=Kotzageorgis |
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* [[Ancient Greek dialects]] |
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|first= Phokion |
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* [[English pronunciation of Greek letters]] |
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|editor1-last=Gruber |editor1-first=Christiane J. |editor2-last=Colby |editor2-first=Frederick Stephen |title=The Prophet's Ascension: Cross-cultural Encounters with the Islamic Mi'rāj Tales |date=2010 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-35361-0 |pages=297 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sjLHirJmvPUC&q=Reworking+the+Ascension+in+Ottoman+Lands:+An+Eighteenth-Century+Mi%27r%C4%81jn%C4%81ma+in+Greek+from+Epirus&pg=PA297 |language=en |quote=The element that makes this text a ''[[wiktionary:unicum|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 ''[[Tourkogianniot]]es'' (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''.}}</ref> |
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* [[Greek substrate language]] |
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* [[Greeklish]] |
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* [[Greek to me|That's Greek to me (expression)]] |
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* [[List of Greek words with English derivatives]] |
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* [[Varieties of Modern Greek]] |
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==Example text== |
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== External links == |
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[[File:Universal Declaration of Human Rights - grc - pi - Art1.ogg|thumb|Greek pronunciation]] |
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=== General background === |
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Article 1 of the ''[[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]]'' in Greek: |
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{{InterWiki|code=el}} |
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:{{lang|el|Όλοι οι άνθρωποι γεννιούνται ελεύθεροι και ίσοι στην αξιοπρέπεια και τα δικαιώματα. Είναι προικισμένοι με λογική και συνείδηση, και οφείλουν να συμπεριφέρονται μεταξύ τους με πνεύμα αδελφοσύνης.}}<ref>{{cite web|title=Universal Declaration of Human Rights|website=ohchr.org|url=https://www.ohchr.org/en/udhr/pages/Language.aspx?LangID=grk}}</ref> |
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[[Romanization of Greek|Transcription]] of the example text into [[Latin alphabet]]: |
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{{Wikibookspar||Modern Greek}} |
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:{{transliteration|el|Óloi oi ánthropoi gennioúntai eléftheroi kai ísoi stin axioprépeia kai ta dikaiómata. Eínai proikisménoi me logikí kai syneídisi, kai ofeíloun na symperiférontai metaxý tous me pnévma adelfosýnis.}} |
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* [http://www.bartleby.com/65/gr/Greeklan.html Greek Language], Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. |
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* [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ The Perseus Project] has many useful pages for the study of classical languages and literatures, including dictionaries. |
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* [http://greek-language.com 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. |
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* [http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/index.html The Greek Language Portal], a portal for Greek language and linguistic education. |
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* [http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~bjoseph/articles/gancient.htm Ancient Greek], encyclopedia of the World's Major Languages, by Brian Joseph. |
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* [http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~bjoseph/articles/gmodern.htm Modern Greek], encyclopedia of the World's Major Languages, by Brian Joseph. |
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*[http://biblescripture.net/Greek.html The Greek Alphabet] |
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Article 1 of the ''Universal Declaration of Human Rights'' in English: |
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=== Language learning === |
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:"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights|title=Universal Declaration of Human Rights|newspaper=United Nations}}</ref> |
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==== General ==== |
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* [http://greek.kihlman.eu Greek dictionary, tutorial and hangman program with texteditor], this shareware program is aimed at learning New Testament Greek. |
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* {{el icon}} [http://www.komvos.edu.gr/ komvos.edu.gr], a website for the support of people that are being taught the Greek language. |
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== |
==See also== |
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{{Portal|Greece|Language}} |
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* [http://www.vroma.org/%7Eabarker/thrascontents.html A supplement to the Thrasymachus (Ancient Greek)], part of the VRoma Project. |
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* [[List of medical roots, suffixes and prefixes]] |
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* [http://www.textkit.com/ Learn Ancient Greek] at Textkit. Free downloadable Ancient Greek grammars and readers. |
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* [http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-language.asp Free lessons in ancient Greek], including an introduction the special features of Greek. |
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* [http://www.greek-language.com/ The Greek Language and Linguistics Gateway], provided as a free service to facilitate the study of Ancient Greek and to promote the application of methodologies from the field of Linguistics to the study of Classical and Hellenistic Greek. |
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* [http://www.ntgreek.net New Testament Greek], three graduated courses in New Testament Greek. |
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* [http://greek-language.com/greek.manuscripts.gateway/ Ancient Greek Manuscripts], images of Ancient Greek manuscripts and information about those manuscripts. |
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* [http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/index.html The Greek Language Portal] |
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* [http://www.txclassics.org/greek.htm Greek, Too] --supporting the study of Ancient Greek, especially in schools. |
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* [[Joint Association of Classical Teachers]], ''Reading Greek'', Cambridge University Press, 1978. ISBN 0-521-21977-9 (Grammar, Vocabulary, Exercises), ISBN 0-521-21976-0 (Text), ISBN 0-521-47863-4 (Independent Study Guide (1995)),ISBN 0-521-23913-3 (''Speaking Greek'' (1981)) |
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==Notes== |
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==== Modern Greek ==== |
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{{NoteFoot}} |
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* [http://didymos.kypros.org/LearnGreek/ Learn Greek Online], free modern Greek course with realaudio files. |
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* [http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/Greek.aspx FSI Greek Basic Course], an audio Greek language course. |
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* [http://www.xanthi.ilsp.gr/filog/ Learn Greek], official site of the Greek Institute of language and speech processing. |
|||
* {{gr icon}} [http://pi-schools.sch.gr/dimotiko/ Online pdf versions of the books used in Greek Elementary School]. |
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* {{gr icon}} [http://pi-schools.sch.gr/gymnasio/ Online pdf versions of the books used in Greek High School]. |
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==Footnotes== |
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=== Dictionaries === |
|||
{{Reflist}} |
|||
{{Wiktionarylang|code=el}} |
|||
* [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Greek/ Greek Dictionary], from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Dictionary]. |
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* [http://greek-language.com/lexical.aids/ Ancient Greek Dictionaries], descriptions of both online dictionaries (with appropriate links) and Greek. |
|||
* [http://www.translatum.gr Translatum - The Greek Translation Vortal], an extended list of searchable and downloadable Greek dictionaries. |
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* [http://www.kypros.org/cgi-bin/lexicon Modern Greek – English, English – Modern Greek dictionary] (basic dictionary) |
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* [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform Ancient Greek Dictionary], the complete Liddell-Scott dictionary, including search within English definitions. |
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* [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Greek-english/ Greek – English Dictionary], from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Online Dictionary] - the Rosetta Edition. |
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* [http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/Woodhouse/ Woodhouse English-Greek dictionary], scanned images from S.C. Woodhouse's 1910 dictionary. |
|||
* [http://greek-language.com/lexical.aids/ Greek Lexical Aids], descriptions of both online lexica (with appropriate links) and Greek Lexica in Print. |
|||
* [http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/index.html The Greek Language Portal], dictionaries of all forms of Greek (Ancient, Hellenistic, Medieval, Modern). |
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* [http://www.dicts.info/dictlist1.php?l=Greek Collection of Greek bilingual dictionaries] |
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== |
==References== |
||
{{refbegin|40em}} |
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* [http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/NewLiteratur/Literature.htm Page about modern Greek Literature] |
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* {{cite book |last=Alexiou|first=Margaret|year=1982|chapter=Diglossia in Greece|pages=156–192|editor-last=Haas|editor-first=William|title=Standard Languages: Spoken and Written|location=Manchester|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-389-20291-2|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=sza8AAAAIAAJ }} |
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* [http://www.thesavros.gr/ The Treasure of the Greek Language], a large collection of e-books from all stages of Greek language. |
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* {{cite book |last=Androutsopoulos|first=Jannis |chapter='Greeklish': Transliteration Practice and Discourse in a Setting of Computer-Mediated Digraphia|pages=221–249|editor1-last=Georgakopoulou|editor1-first=Alexandra|editor2-last=Silk|editor2-first=Michael|title=Standard Languages and Language Standards: Greek, Past and Present|year=2009|location=Aldershot|publisher = Ashgate Publishing Limited |chapter-url = http://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/MEDIA139/Αναγνώσματα/Androutsopoulos,Greeklish(2009).pdf }}{{dead link|date=October 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} |
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* [http://www.kenef.phil.uoi.gr/enwiki/static/digital.htm Research lab of modern Greek philosophy], a large e-library of modern Greek texts/books. |
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* {{cite book |last1=Atkinson|first1=Quentin D. |last2=Gray|first2=Russel D. |editor1-last=Forster |editor1-first=Peter|editor2-last=Renfrew |editor2-first=Colin |chapter=Chapter 8: How Old is the Indo-European Language Family? Illumination or More Moths to the Flame? |title = Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages |pages=91–109 |year=2006 |location=Cambridge, England |publisher=McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research |isbn=978-1-902937-33-5 |chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=VlRiAAAAMAAJ }} |
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* {{el icon}} [http://www.snhell.gr/en/index.html Center for Neo-Hellenic Studies], a non-profit organization set in order to promote Modern Greek Literature and Culture. |
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* {{cite book |last=Babiniotis|first=George|chapter=The Question of Mediae in Ancient Macedonian Greek Reconsidered|pages=29–40|editor1-first=Bela|editor1-last=Brogyanyi|editor2-first=Reiner|editor2-last=Lipp|year=1992|title=Historical Philology: Greek, Latin and Romance|location=Amsterdam and Philadelphia|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company|isbn=9789027277473|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-eNBAAAAQBAJ}} |
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* {{cite book|last=Beekes|first=Robert Stephen Paul|title=Etymological Dictionary of Greek|year=2009|location=Leiden and Boston|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-17418-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wffLMgEACAAJ}} |
|||
* {{cite book|last=Browning|first=Robert|title=Medieval and Modern Greek|year=1983|orig-year=1969|location=Cambridge, UK|publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-23488-7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b55B1J7I99AC}} |
|||
* {{cite book|last1=Dawkins|first1=Richard McGillivray|last2=Halliday|first2=William Reginald|title=Modern Greek in Asia Minor: A Study of Dialect of Silly, Cappadocia and Pharasa with Grammar, Texts, Translations and Glossary|year=1916|location=Cambridge, England |publisher=Cambridge University Press|url=https://archive.org/details/moderngreekinas00hallgoog }} |
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* {{cite book|last=Dosuna|first=Julián Víctor Méndez|chapter=Ancient Macedonian as a Greek Dialect: A Critical Survey on Recent Work|pages=65–78|editor1-last=Giannakis|editor1-first=Georgios K. |title=Ancient Macedonia: Language, History and Culture|year=2012|location=Thessaloniki|publisher=Centre for the Greek Language |language= el |chapter-url= https://www.academia.edu/2342614 }} |
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* {{cite journal|last1=Gamkrelidze |first1=Tamaz V. |last2=Ivanov |first2=Vyacheslav |title=The Early History of Indo-European Languages |journal=Scientific American |volume=262 |issue=3 |date=March 1990 |pages=110–116 |url=http://rbedrosian.com/Classic/sciam1.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140106143844/http://rbedrosian.com/Classic/sciam1.htm |archive-date=6 January 2014 |doi=10.1038/scientificamerican0390-110 |bibcode=1990SciAm.262c.110G |url-access=subscription |issn=0036-8733}} |
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* {{cite book|last=Georgiev|first=Vladimir Ivanov|title=Introduction to the History of the Indo-European Languages|year=1981|location=Sofia|publisher=Bulgarian Academy of Sciences|isbn=9789535172611|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xmZiAAAAMAAJ}} |
|||
* {{cite journal|last1=Gray|first1=Russel D.|last2=Atkinson|first2=Quentin D.|title=Language-tree Divergence Times Support the Anatolian Theory of Indo-European Origin|journal=Nature|volume=426|year=2003|pages=435–439|doi=10.1038/nature02029|issue=6965|pmid=14647380|bibcode=2003Natur.426..435G|s2cid=42340|url=https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d6aef57c-ce30-40fb-8786-f64c4a70afd1}} |
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* {{cite book|last=Holm|first=Hans J.|chapter=The Distribution of Data in Word Lists and its Impact on the Subgrouping of Languages|pages=628–636|editor1-last=Preisach|editor1-first=Christine|editor2-last=Burkhardt|editor2-first=Hans|editor3-last=Schmidt-Thieme|editor3-first=Lars|editor4-last=Decker|editor4-first=Reinhold|title=Data Analysis, Machine Learning, and Applications. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft für Klassifikation e.V., Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, March 7–9, 2007|year=2008|location=Berlin-Heidelberg|publisher=Springer-Verlag|isbn=978-3-540-78246-9|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QEmMvrOkQ-YC}} |
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* {{cite book|last=Hooker|first=J.T.|title=Mycenaean Greece|year=1976|location=London|publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s0YbAAAAYAAJ|isbn=9780710083791}} |
|||
* {{cite book|last=Jeffries|first=Ian|title=Eastern Europe at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century: A Guide to the Economies in Transition|year=2002|location=London and New York|publisher=Routledge (Taylor & Francis)|isbn=978-0-415-23671-3|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kqCnCOgGc5AC}} |
|||
* {{cite book |last1=Ligorio |first1=Orsat |last2=Lubotsky |first2=Alexander |editor-last1=Klein |editor-first1=Jared |editor-last2=Joseph |editor-first2=Brian |editor-last3=Fritz |editor-first3=Matthias |editor-last4=Wenthe |editor-first4=Mark |date=2018 |chapter=Phrygian |title=Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics |volume=3 |pages=1816–1831 |chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110542431-022/html |publisher=[[De Gruyter#Imprints and partnerships|De Gruyter Mouton]] |doi=10.1515/9783110542431-022 |hdl=1887/63481 |isbn=978-3-11-054243-1|s2cid=242082908 }} |
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* {{cite journal |last=Obrador-Cursach |first=Bartomeu |date=9 April 2020 |title=On the place of Phrygian among the Indo-European languages |journal=[[Journal of Language Relationship]] |volume=17 |issue=3–4 |pages=233–245 |doi=10.31826/jlr-2019-173-407 |doi-access=free |s2cid=215769896}} |
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* {{cite book |editor-last=Olander |editor-first=Thomas |year=2022 |title=The Indo-European Language Family: A Phylogenetic Perspective |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/indoeuropean-language-family/4B44B5ACF0D3BBA89B9408050F112A52 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |doi=10.1017/9781108758666 |isbn=978-1-108-49979-8|s2cid=161016819 }} |
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** {{harvc |last=van Beek |first=Lucien |year=2022 |c=Chapter 11: Greek |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/D7ECB74210D90E01F00D41B9930BC70A/9781108499798c11_173-201.pdf/greek.pdf |in=Olander}} |
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** {{harvc |last1=Olsen |first1=Birgit Anette |last2=Thorsø |first2=Rasmus |year=2022 |c=Chapter 12: Armenian |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/BE08E658A526CBC9A058F25812443F99/9781108499798c12_202-222.pdf/armenian.pdf |in=Olander}} |
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** {{harvc |last1=Hyllested |first1=Adam |last2=Joseph |first2=Brian D. |year=2022 |c=Chapter 13: Albanian |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/235881199CF63D7E9D60E32DA7362DD9/9781108499798c13_223-245.pdf/albanian.pdf |in=Olander}} |
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* {{cite book|last=Ralli|first=Angeliki|title=Μορφολογία [Morphology]|year=2001|location=Athens|publisher=Ekdoseis Pataki|language=el}} |
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* {{cite book|last=Renfrew|first=Colin|chapter=Problems in the General Correlation of Archaeological and Linguistic Strata in Prehistoric Greece: The Model of Autochthonous Origin|pages=263–276|editor-last1=Crossland|editor-first1=R. A.|editor-last2=Birchall|editor-first2=Ann|title=Bronze Age Migrations in the Aegean; Archaeological and Linguistic Problems in Greek Prehistory: Proceedings of the first International Colloquium on Aegean Prehistory, Sheffield|location=London|publisher=Gerald Duckworth and Company Limited|year=1973|isbn=978-0-7156-0580-6|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MUkbAAAAYAAJ}} |
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* {{cite book|last=Renfrew|first=Colin|chapter=Time Depth, Convergence Theory, and Innovation in Proto-Indo-European: 'Old Europe' as a PIE Linguistic Area|pages=17–48|editor-last1=Bammesberger|editor-first1=Alfred|editor-last2=Vennemann|editor-first2=Theo|title=Languages in Prehistoric Europe|year=2003|location=Heidelberg|publisher=Universitätsverlag Winter GmBH|isbn=978-3-8253-1449-1|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_VxiAAAAMAAJ}} |
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* {{cite book|last=Renfrew|first=Colin|title=Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins|year=1990|orig-year=1987|location=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-38675-3|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R645AAAAIAAJ}} |
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* {{cite book|last=Scheler|first=Manfred|year=1977|title=Der englische Wortschatz [English Vocabulary]|location=Berlin|publisher=E. Schmidt|language=de|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GchZAAAAMAAJ|isbn=978-3-503-01250-3}} |
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* {{cite book|last=Tsitselikis|first=Konstantinos|chapter=A Surviving Treaty: The Lausanne Minority Protection in Greece and Turkey|pages=287–315|title=The Interrelation between the Right to Identity of Minorities and their Socio-economic Participation|editor1-last=Henrard|editor1-first=Kristin|location=Leiden and Boston|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|year=2013|isbn=9789004244740|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gUYzAQAAQBAJ}} |
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* {{cite journal |last=Woodhouse |first=Robert |date=2009 |title=An overview of research on Phrygian from the nineteenth century to the present day |url=https://www.ejournals.eu/Studia-Linguistica/2009/2009/art/5400/ |journal=Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis |volume=126 |issue=1 |pages=167–188 |doi=10.2478/v10148-010-0013-x |issn=2083-4624 |doi-access=free}} |
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{{refend}} |
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== |
==Further reading== |
||
{{refbegin|40em}} |
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* [http://www.greekfontsociety.org/ Greek Font Society], a non-profit organization with the aim of contributing to the research of Greek typography (incl. [http://www.greekfontsociety.org/pages/en_typefaces1.html freeware fonts]). |
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* {{cite book |last=Allen|first=W. Sidney|title=Vox Graeca – A Guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Greek|location=Cambridge, England |publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1968|isbn=978-0-521-20626-6 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=5i89AAAAIAAJ }} |
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* [http://www.ecclesia.gr/greek/help.htm#english Athena], [[public domain]] [[Polytonic orthography|polytonic]] Greek [[typeface|font]]. |
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* {{cite book |last1=Crosby|first1=Henry Lamar|last2=Schaeffer|first2=John Nevin|year=1928|title=An Introduction to Greek|location=Boston, MA; New York, NY |publisher=Allyn and Bacon, Inc. |url = https://archive.org/details/introductiontogr00cros |url-access=registration|author1-link=Henry Lamar Crosby|author2-link=John Nevin Schaeffer}} |
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* [http://www.sil.org/~gaultney/gentium/ Gentium — a typeface for the nations], a freely available font including polytonic Greek support. |
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* {{cite book |author = Dionysius of Thrace |title = Bibliotheca Augustana |author-link = Dionysius of Thrace |script-title = el:Τέχνη Γραμματική |trans-title = Art of Grammar |url = http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/graeca/Chronologia/S_ante02/DionysiosThrax/dio_tech.html |language = el}} |
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* [http://www.lorem-ipsum.info/_greek Generator for Greek typographical filler text]. |
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* {{cite book|last1=Holton|first1=David|last2=Mackridge|first2=Peter|last3=Philippaki-Warburton|first3=Irene|title=Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar of the Modern Language|year=1997|location=London and New York |publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-10002-1 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=K7Nhs6tfk-wC }} |
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* [http://www.enoriaka.gr/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=748&Itemid=2 72 polytonic fonts] |
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* {{cite book |last=Horrocks|first=Geoffrey|title=Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speakers|year=1997|location=London and New York|publisher=Longman Linguistics Library (Addison Wesley Longman Limited) |isbn=978-0-582-30709-4 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=QlpiAAAAMAAJ }} |
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* [http://www.thessalonica.org.ru/en/fonts.html Old Standard & Tempora LGC polytonic fonts] |
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* {{cite book |last=Krill|first=Richard M. |title=Greek and Latin in English Today|year=1990|location=Wauconda, IL|publisher=Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers|isbn=978-0-86516-241-9|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=V9Jhl4aMrFMC }} |
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* [http://www.ilsp.gr/fontsen.htm Greek font info @ The Institute for Language and Speech Processing] |
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* {{cite book |last=Mallory|first=James P. |chapter=Greek Language|pages=240–246|editor1-last=Mallory|editor1-first=James P. |editor-last2=Adams|editor2-first=Douglas Q. |title=Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture|year=1997|location=Chicago, IL|publisher=Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers |isbn=9781884964985 |chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=tzU3RIV2BWIC }} |
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* {{cite book|last=Newton|first=Brian|title=The Generative Interpretation of Dialect: A Study of Modern Greek Phonology |year=1972|location=Cambridge, England |publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-08497-0 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=pi44AAAAIAAJ }} |
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* {{cite book |last=Sihler|first=Andrew L. |author-link=Andrew L. Sihler |title=New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin|year=1995|location=New York, NY |publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-508345-3|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PLNfAAAAMAAJ}} |
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* {{cite book |last1=Smyth|first1=Herbert Weir|last2=Messing|first2=Gordon|title=Greek Grammar|year=1956|orig-year=1920|location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-36250-5 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=M3EyjIa6IPgC }} |
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{{refend}} |
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== |
==External links== |
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{{InterWiki|code=el|Standard Greek}} |
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* [http://books.phigita.net/ Books in Greek], an extended list of searchable bibliographic information. |
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{{InterWiki|code=pnt|Pontic Greek}} |
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{{Wikibooks}} |
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{{Wiktionary category}} |
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{{Incubator|grc|lang=Ancient Greek}} |
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{{Commons category}} |
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{{Wikivoyage|Greek phrasebook|Greek|a phrasebook}} |
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; General background |
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=== Spell checkers === |
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* [https://web.archive.org/web/20051013090119/http://www.bartleby.com/65/gr/Greeklan.html Greek Language], Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. |
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* [http://greeklinguistics.com 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. |
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* Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, [http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/index.html The Greek Language Portal], a portal for Greek language and linguistic education. |
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* [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ The Perseus Project] has many useful pages for the study of classical languages and literatures, including dictionaries. |
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* [http://ucbclassics.dreamhosters.com/ancgreek/ancient_greek_start.html Ancient Greek Tutorials], Berkeley Language Center of the University of California, Berkeley |
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; Language learning |
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* [http://www.phigita.net/spell-check/ Greek spell checker] |
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{{Wikiquote |code = el }} |
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* [https://web.archive.org/web/20171222162856/https://greeklinguistics.com/grammar/ Hellenistic Greek Lessons] Greek-Language.com provides a free online grammar of Hellenistic Greek. |
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* [http://www.komvos.edu.gr/ komvos.edu.gr], a website for the support of people who are being taught the Greek language. |
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* [http://www.ntgreek.net/ New Testament Greek] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090206230904/http://www.ntgreek.net/ |date=6 February 2009 }} Three graduated courses designed to help students learn to read the Greek New Testament |
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* [http://www.pi-schools.gr/lessons/hellenic/ Books on Greek language that are taught at schools in Greece] {{in lang|el}} |
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* [[:wikt:Appendix:Greek Swadesh list|Greek Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words]] (from Wiktionary's [[:wikt:Appendix:Swadesh lists|Swadesh list appendix]]) |
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* [https://www.livelingua.com/fsi-greek-course.php USA Foreign Service Institute Modern Greek basic course] |
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* {{cite web | url = https://isidore.co/LatinInflector/greek/ | title = Greek Inflector | first=Alan | last=Aversa }} Identifies the grammatical functions of all the words in sentences entered, using Perseus. |
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; Dictionaries |
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{{Official EU languages}} |
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* [https://web.archive.org/web/20190711164623/https://www.greeklinguistics.com/Dictionaries.html Greek Lexical Aids], descriptions of both online lexicons (with appropriate links) and Greek Lexicons in Print. |
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* [http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/index.html The Greek Language Portal], dictionaries of all forms of Greek (Ancient, Hellenistic, Medieval, Modern) |
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* scanned images from [https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/Woodhouse/ S. C. Woodhouse's English–Greek dictionary], 1910 |
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; Literature |
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[[Category:Greek language|*]] |
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* [http://www.snhell.gr/en/index.html Center for Neo-Hellenic Studies], a non-profit organization that promotes modern Greek literature and culture |
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[[Category:Greek letters]] |
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* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070219040636/http://www.kenef.phil.uoi.gr/enwiki/static/digital.htm Research lab of modern Greek philosophy], a large e-library of modern Greek texts/books |
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[[Category:Varieties of Greek|*]] |
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{{Clear}} |
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{{Greek language | 1 | 2 }} |
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{{Languages of Greece}} |
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{{Languages of Cyprus}} |
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{{Languages of Albania}} |
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{{Languages of Turkey}} |
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{{Languages of Italy}} |
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{{Greece topics}} |
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{{Greek language periods}} |
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{{Authority control}} |
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Greek Language}} |
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[[Category:Graeco-Phrygian]] |
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[[Category:Greek language| ]] |
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[[Category:Fusional languages]] |
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[[Category:Greek alphabet]] |
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[[Category:Languages of Albania]] |
[[Category:Languages of Albania]] |
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[[Category:Languages of Apulia]] |
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[[Category:Languages of Armenia]] |
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[[Category:Languages of Calabria]] |
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[[Category:Languages of Cyprus]] |
[[Category:Languages of Cyprus]] |
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[[Category:Languages of Georgia (country)]] |
[[Category:Languages of Georgia (country)]] |
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[[Category:Languages of Greece]] |
[[Category:Languages of Greece]] |
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[[Category:Languages of Hungary]] |
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[[Category:Languages of Romania]] |
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[[Category:Languages of Sicily]] |
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[[Category:Languages of Turkey]] |
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[[Category:Languages of Ukraine]] |
[[Category:Languages of Ukraine]] |
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[[Category: |
[[Category:Subject–verb–object languages]] |
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[[Category:Languages of Italy]] |
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[[Category:Fusional languages]] |
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[[Category:Ancient languages]] |
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[[af:Grieks (taal)]] |
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[[als:Griechische Sprache]] |
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[[ar:لغة يونانية]] |
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[[arc:ܠܫܢܐ ܝܘܢܝܐ]] |
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[[ast:Griegu]] |
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[[az:Yunan dili]] |
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[[zh-min-nan:Hi-lia̍p-gú]] |
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[[ba:Грек теле]] |
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[[be-x-old:Грэцкая мова]] |
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[[br:Gresianeg]] |
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[[bg:Гръцки език]] |
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Latest revision as of 23:39, 9 December 2024
Greek | |
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Ελληνικά Elliniká | |
Pronunciation | [eliniˈka] |
Native to |
|
Ethnicity | Greeks |
Native speakers | 13.5 million (2012)[1] |
Indo-European
| |
Early form | |
Dialects | |
Greek alphabet | |
Official status | |
Official language in | |
Recognised minority language in | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | el |
ISO 639-2 | gre (B) ell (T) |
ISO 639-3 | Variously:ell – Modern Greekgrc – Ancient Greekcpg – Cappadocian Greekgmy – Mycenaean Greekpnt – Pontictsd – Tsakonianyej – Yevanic |
Glottolog | gree1276 |
Linguasphere |
|
Areas where Modern Greek is spoken (Dark blue represents areas where it is the official language.)[note 1] | |
Greek (Modern Greek: Ελληνικά, romanized: Elliniká, [eliniˈka]; Ancient Greek: Ἑλληνική, romanized: Hellēnikḗ) is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece, Cyprus, Italy (in Calabria and Salento), southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, Caucasus, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records.[10] Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years;[11][12] previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary.[13] The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems.
The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer, ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon. 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.[14][15] 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.[16] It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek.[17] 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.
History
[edit]Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC,[18] or possibly earlier.[19] The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC,[20] making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language.[21] Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages.
Periods
[edit]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 2]
- 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 (also known as Hellenistic 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; after the Hellenistic colonization of the known world, it was spoken from Egypt to the fringes of India. Due to the widespread use of the Greek language during this period, a set of rules had to be established for the proper dissemination of the language. It is at this point that the term Hellenism (Ἑλληνισμός) first appears. Hellenism was used by the grammarians and Strabo to denote "correct Greek".[24] After the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became the 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. Because it was the original language of the New Testament, and the Old Testament was translated into it as the Septuagint, that variety of Koine Greek may be referred to as New Testament Greek or sometimes Biblical Greek.
- Medieval Greek (also known as Byzantine Greek): the continuation of Koine Greek up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Medieval Greek is a cover phrase for a whole continuum of different speech and writing styles, ranging from vernacular continuations of spoken Koine that were already approaching Modern Greek in many respects, to highly learned forms imitating classical Attic. Much of the written Greek that was used as the official language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine.
- Modern Greek (also known as Neo-Hellenic):[26] 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]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 developed in the early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek, used today for all official purposes and in education.[27]
Historical unity
[edit]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.[28] It is also often[citation needed] 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".[29]
Geographic distribution
[edit]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.[26] A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. 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.[10] A small Greek-speaking community is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States, 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, Palestine, 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 the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms, for most of their history.[30]
Official status
[edit]Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population.[31] It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English).[32] Because of the membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages.[33] Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë.[34] It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Greek is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary, Romania, and Ukraine.[35] It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.[4][5][6][7]
Characteristics
[edit]The phonology, morphology, syntax, and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to the modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it.
Phonology
[edit]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[36] 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 3] 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 | |
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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 by a periphrastic construction) |
aspect | imperfective, perfective (traditionally called aorist) and perfect (sometimes 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, subjunctive,[note 4] and imperative (other modal functions are expressed by periphrastic constructions) |
Voice | active, medio-passive, 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,[37] some documented in Mycenaean texts; they include a large number of Greek toponyms. The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian, 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 Albanian, South Slavic (Macedonian/Bulgarian) and Eastern Romance languages (Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian).
Loanwords in other languages
[edit]Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics, physics, astronomy, democracy, philosophy, athletics, theatre, rhetoric, 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.[38][39]
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, which, by most accounts, was a distinct dialect of Greek itself.[40][41][42][43] Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses, with some being exclusive between them.[40][44][45] Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated.[40][46][47][48]
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.[49][50] In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan, and Greek has a central position in it.[51][52]
Writing system
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Linear B
[edit]Linear B, attested as early as the late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek.[53] 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).[53] The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek, is the earliest known form of Greek.[53]
Cypriot syllabary
[edit]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.[54]
Greek alphabet
[edit]Greek has been written in the Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet, with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit a faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill.
The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase (majuscule) and lowercase (minuscule) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word:
upper case | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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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 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
α | β | γ | δ | ε | ζ | η | θ | ι | κ | λ | μ | ν | ξ | ο | π | ρ | σ ς |
τ | υ | φ | χ | ψ | ω |
Diacritics
[edit]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').[55]
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.[56] 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.[57]
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.[58]
Arabic alphabet
[edit]In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado, some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet. The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina. This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant (Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria).[59] This usage is sometimes called aljamiado, as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet.[60]
Example text
[edit]Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek:
- Όλοι οι άνθρωποι γεννιούνται ελεύθεροι και ίσοι στην αξιοπρέπεια και τα δικαιώματα. Είναι προικισμένοι με λογική και συνείδηση, και οφείλουν να συμπεριφέρονται μεταξύ τους με πνεύμα αδελφοσύνης.[61]
Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet:
- Óloi oi ánthropoi gennioúntai eléftheroi kai ísoi stin axioprépeia kai ta dikaiómata. Eínai proikisménoi me logikí kai syneídisi, kai ofeíloun na symperiférontai metaxý tous me pnévma adelfosýnis.
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English:
- "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."[62]
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ The map does not indicate where the language is majority or minority.
- ^ A comprehensive overview in J.T. Hooker's Mycenaean Greece;[22] 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"[23] in Bronze Age Migrations by R.A. Crossland and A. Birchall, eds. (1973).
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
Footnotes
[edit]- ^ Greek at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Ancient Greek at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Cappadocian Greek at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Mycenaean Greek at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Pontic at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Tsakonian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
(Additional references under 'Language codes' in the information box) - ^ 2006 Census Table: Language Spoken at Home by Sex – Time Series Statistics (1996, 2001, 2006 Census Years)
- ^ Αυστραλία: Τηλεδιάσκεψη «Μιλάμε Ελληνικά τον Μάρτιο»
- ^ a b Tsitselikis 2013, pp. 287–288.
- ^ a b Toktaş, Şule (2006). "EU enlargement conditions and minority protection : a reflection on Turkey's non-Muslim minorities". East European Quarterly. 40 (4): 489–519. ISSN 0012-8449. p. 514:
This implies that Turkey grants educational right in minority languages only to the recognized minorities covered by the Lausanne who are the Armenians, Greeks and the Jews.
- ^ a b Bayır, Derya (2013). Minorities and nationalism in Turkish law. Cultural Diversity and Law. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 89–90. ISBN 978-1-4094-7254-4. Archived from the original on 14 October 2023.
Oran farther points out that the rights set out for the four categories are stated to be the 'fundamental law' of the land, so that no legislation or official action shall conflict or interfere with these stipulations or prevail over them (article 37). [...] According to the Turkish state, only Greek, Armenian and Jewish non-Muslims were granted minority protection by the Lausanne Treaty. [...] Except for non-Muslim populations – that is, Greeks, Jews and Armenians – none of the other minority groups' language rights have been de jure protected by the legal system in Turkey.
- ^ a b Questions and Answers: Freedom of Expression and Language Rights in Turkey. New York: Human Rights Watch. 19 April 2002. Archived from the original on 20 October 2023.
The Turkish government accepts the language rights of the Jewish, Greek and Armenian minorities as being guaranteed by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.
- ^ "Language Use in the United States: 2011" (PDF). United States Census. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
- ^ "gree1276". Council of Europe. Retrieved 8 December 2008.
- ^ a b "Greek language". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 29 April 2014.
- ^ Haviland, William A.; Prins, Harald E. L.; Walrath, Dana; McBride, Bunny (2013). "Chapter 15: Language and Communication". Anthropology: The Human Challenge. Cengage Learning. p. 394. ISBN 978-1-285-67758-3.
Most of the alphabets used today descended from the Phoenician one. The Greeks adopted it about 2,800 years ago, modifying the characters to suit sounds in their own language.
- ^ Comrie, Bernard (1987). The World's Major Languages. Routledge (published 2018). ISBN 978-1-317-29049-0.
... the Greek alphabet has served the Greek language well for some 2,800 years since its introduction into Greece in the tenth or ninth century BC.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland The text of the New Testament: an introduction to the critical 1995 p. 52.
- ^ Archibald Macbride Hunter Introducing the New Testament 1972 p. 9.
- ^ Malkin, Irad (2011). A small Greek world : networks in the Ancient Mediterranean. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734818.001.0001. ISBN 9780199918553.
- ^ 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.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Renfrew 2003, p. 35; Georgiev 1981, p. 192.
- ^ Gray & Atkinson 2003, pp. 437–438; Atkinson & Gray 2006, p. 102.
- ^ "Ancient Tablet Found: Oldest Readable Writing in Europe". Culture. 1 April 2011. Archived from the original on 25 July 2021. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
- ^ Tulloch, A. (2017). Understanding English Homonyms: Their Origins and Usage. Hong Kong University Press. p. 153. ISBN 978-988-8390-64-9. Retrieved 30 November 2023.
Greek is the world's oldest recorded living language.
- ^ Hooker 1976, Chapter 2: "Before the Mycenaean Age", pp. 11–33 and passim
- ^ Renfrew 1973, pp. 263–276, especially p. 267
- ^ Zacharia, Katerina, ed. (2008). Hellenisms: culture, identity, and ethnicity from antiquity to modernity. Aldershot, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-7546-6525-0. OCLC 192048201.
- ^ Dawkins & Halliday 1916.
- ^ a b "Greek". Ethnologue. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Browning 1983, pp. vii–viii.
- ^ Alexiou 1982, p. 161.
- ^ Burstein, Stanley (2 November 2020). "When Greek was an African Language". Center for Hellenic Studies.
The revelation of the place of Greek cultural elements in the lives of these kingdoms has been gradual and is still ongoing, but already it is clear that Greek was the official language of government and religion for most of their history. ... Greek remained the official language of Nubian Christianity right to the end of its long and remarkable history. ... But these three factors do suggest how Greek and Christianity could have become so intimately intertwined and so entrenched in Nubian life and culture by the seventh century AD that Greek could resist both Coptic and Arabic and survive for almost another millennium before both disappeared with the conversion of Nubia to Islam in the sixteenth century AD.
- ^ "Greece". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
- ^ "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].
- ^ "The EU at a Glance – Languages in the EU". Europa. European Union. Archived from the original on 21 June 2013. Retrieved 30 July 2010.
- ^ Bytyçi, Enver (2022). In the Shadows of Albania-China Relations (1960–1978). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 20. ISBN 978-1-5275-7909-5.
Albania's official language is Albanian, but in municipalities where minorities reside, the languages of these minorities are also used, including Greek in several municipalities in Gjirokastra and Saranda, and Macedonian in a municipality in the East of the country.
- ^ "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.
- ^ Ralli 2001, pp. 164–203.
- ^ Beekes 2009.
- ^ Scheler 1977.
- ^ "Πόσο "ελληνικές" είναι οι ξένες γλώσσες". NewsIt. 18 November 2019.
- ^ a b c Olander 2022, pp. 12, 14; van Beek 2022, pp. 190–191, 193
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Babiniotis 1992, pp. 29–40; Dosuna 2012, pp. 65–78
- ^ Woodhouse 2009, p. 171: "This question is of course only just separable from the question of which languages within Indo-European are most closely related to Phrygian, which has also been hotly debated. A turning point in this debate was Kortlandt's (1988) demonstration on the basis of shared sound changes that Thraco-Armenian had separated from Phrygian and other originally Balkan languages at an early stage. The consensus has now returned to regarding Greek as the closest relative."
- ^ Obrador-Cursach 2020, pp. 238–239: "To the best of our current knowledge, Phrygian was closely related to Greek. This affirmation is consistent with the vision offered by Neumann (1988: 23), Brixhe (2006) and Ligorio and Lubotsky (2018: 1816) and with many observations given by ancient authors. Both languages share 34 of the 36 features considered in this paper, some of them of great significance: ... The available data suggest that Phrygian and Greek coexisted broadly from pre-historic to historic times, and both belong to a common linguistic area (Brixhe 2006: 39–44)."
- ^ Obrador-Cursach 2020, p. 243: "With the current state of our knowledge, we can affirm that Phrygian is closely related to Greek. This is not a surprising conclusion: ancient sources and modern scholars agree that Phrygians did not live far from Greece in pre-historic times. Moreover, the last half century of scientific study of Phrygian has approached both languages and developed the hypothesis of a Proto-Greco-Phrygian language, to the detriment to other theories like Phrygio-Armenian or Thraco-Phrygian."
- ^ Ligorio & Lubotsky 2018, pp. 1816–1817: "Phrygian is most closely related to Greek. The two languages share a few unique innovations, ... It is therefore very likely that both languages emerged from a single language, which was spoken in the Balkans at the end of the third millennium BCE."
- ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Graeco-Phrygian". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- ^ van Beek 2022, pp. 193–197
- ^ Renfrew 1990; Gamkrelidze & Ivanov 1990, pp. 110–116; Renfrew 2003, pp. 17–48; Gray & Atkinson 2003, pp. 435–439
- ^ Olsen & Thorsø 2022, pp. 209–217; Hyllested & Joseph 2022, pp. 225–226, 228–229, 231–241
- ^ Holm 2008, pp. 634–635
- ^ a b c Hooker, J. T. (1980). Linear B : an introduction. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. ISBN 978-0-906515-69-3. OCLC 7326206.
- ^ "Cypriot syllabary". Britannica Academic. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
- ^ Nicolas, Nick (2005). "Greek Unicode Issues: Punctuation". Archived from the original on 6 August 2012. Retrieved 7 October 2014.
- ^ Hugoe, Matthews Peter (March 2014). The concise Oxford dictionary of linguistics. Oxford University Press. (Third ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-967512-8. OCLC 881847972.
- ^ Androutsopoulos 2009, pp. 221–249.
- ^ "Yevanic alphabet, pronunciation and language". Omniglot. Retrieved 18 April 2020.
- ^ HMML Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (27 July, 2024). This month, "Greek Aljamiado" (i.e., Greek written in Arabic script) became one of the more than 90 languages identified in HMML's online Reading Room (vhmml.org). Greek Aljamiado was a common phenomenon among Byzantine-rite Christians in Arabic-speaking communities, but has been little studied. So far, 84 examples of Greek Aljamiado have been identified in HMML's collections of Christian manuscripts digitized in Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria. Cataloging by HMML staff and associates makes these manuscripts easier to find, and supports scholars in their research of the extent and purposes of Greek Aljamiado usage. Pictured: Greek Aljamiado is written on the left page of this manuscript, in the collection of the Ordre Basilien Alepin in Jūniyah, Lebanon. View in Reading Room (OBA 00256): www.vhmml.org/readingRoom/view/120512 [Image attached] [Story update]. Facebook. [1]
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". ohchr.org.
- ^ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". United Nations.
References
[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. ISBN 9789027277473.
- 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/scientificamerican0390-110. ISSN 0036-8733. 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. ISBN 9789535172611.
- 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. S2CID 42340.
- 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 Applications. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the 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.
- Ligorio, Orsat; Lubotsky, Alexander (2018). "Phrygian". In Klein, Jared; Joseph, Brian; Fritz, Matthias; Wenthe, Mark (eds.). Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics. Vol. 3. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 1816–1831. doi:10.1515/9783110542431-022. hdl:1887/63481. ISBN 978-3-11-054243-1. S2CID 242082908.
- Obrador-Cursach, Bartomeu (9 April 2020). "On the place of Phrygian among the Indo-European languages". Journal of Language Relationship. 17 (3–4): 233–245. doi:10.31826/jlr-2019-173-407. S2CID 215769896.
- Olander, Thomas, ed. (2022). The Indo-European Language Family: A Phylogenetic Perspective. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108758666. ISBN 978-1-108-49979-8. S2CID 161016819.
- van Beek, Lucien. "Chapter 11: Greek". In Olander (2022).
- Olsen, Birgit Anette; Thorsø, Rasmus. "Chapter 12: Armenian". In Olander (2022).
- Hyllested, Adam; Joseph, Brian D. "Chapter 13: Albanian". In Olander (2022).
- 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 Lausanne Minority Protection in Greece and Turkey". In Henrard, Kristin (ed.). The Interrelation between the Right to Identity of Minorities and their Socio-economic Participation. Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. pp. 287–315. ISBN 9789004244740.
- Woodhouse, Robert (2009). "An overview of research on Phrygian from the nineteenth century to the present day". Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis. 126 (1): 167–188. doi:10.2478/v10148-010-0013-x. ISSN 2083-4624.
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. Bibliotheca Augustana 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]- 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
- 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 Archived 6 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine 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 (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". 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, Hellenistic, Medieval, Modern)
- scanned images from S. C. Woodhouse's English–Greek dictionary, 1910
- Literature
- Center for Neo-Hellenic Studies, a non-profit organization that promotes modern Greek literature and culture
- Research lab of modern Greek philosophy, a large e-library of modern Greek texts/books
- Graeco-Phrygian
- Greek language
- Fusional languages
- Greek alphabet
- Languages of Albania
- Languages of Apulia
- Languages of Armenia
- Languages of Calabria
- Languages of Cyprus
- Languages of Georgia (country)
- Languages of Greece
- Languages of Hungary
- Languages of Romania
- Languages of Sicily
- Languages of Turkey
- Languages of Ukraine
- Subject–verb–object languages