The Greek Language
Koine Greek is part of the legacy left by Alexander the
Great's imperial conquests which united Asia Minor, the
north of África, and the vast territories of the
Persian empire. Though his death saw the end of the empire
he had forged, there remained a common Greek language,
Koine, that continued to be spoken in the lands he
conquered. This became the common language of the
Mediterranean basin and the ancestor of Modern Greek.
The Greek language, as we know it today, had its origin
during the classical era, though it has undergone a
considerable number of changes. In our day, in its modern
form, demotikí or 'popular' Greek is the official
language of Greece and Cyprus. It is also a recognized
minority language in Italy, Turkey, and Albania.
The Greek language is also considered part of the
Indo-European family of languages. The earliest form of
Greek is said to have existed since around the 14th century
BCE in the Cretan inscriptions called Linear B. Mycenaean
Greek of this period is distinguished from later Classical
or Ancient Greek of the 8th century BCE and after, when
texts came to be written in the Greek alphabet.
Various theories about the origins of the Greek language
exist. One suggests that it originated with a migration of
proto-Greek speakers into Greece, which is dated to any
period between 3200 BC to 1900 BC. Another theory holds
that Greek evolved in Greece itself out of an early
language of Indo-European origin.
The Greek language including Attic and Modern Greek, is
written in a non-Latin script. Greek is one of the richest
surviving languages in the world today, with a vocabulary
more than 600,000 words. Some scholars have stressed the
similarity of Modern Greek to millennia old Greek
languages. The extent of Modern Greek's commonality with
ancient Greek is the subject of debate. It is claimed that
a "reasonably well educated" speaker of the modern tongue
can read the ancient dialects, but it is not made very
clear how much of that education consists of exposure to
vocabulary and grammar obsolete in normal communication.
Greek from the Hellenistic and Byzantine eras is nearer to
Modern Greek. From 1934 to 1976 there was an attempt to
impose a purified language, an attempt to correct centuries
of natural linguistic changes) as the only acceptable form
of Greek in Greece.
After 1976, Dimoti'ci, "speech of the people" was finally
accepted by the Greek government as both the de facto and
de jure forms of the language. A large number of words and
expressions have remained unchanged through the centuries,
and have found their way into a number of other languages,
among them Latin, Italian, German, French and English. Some
examples of these include mostly terminology names, such as
astronomy, philosophy, democracy and anthropology.
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Jacob Lumbroso is a world traveler and an enthusiast for
foreign languages and cultures. He writes articles on
history and languages for
http://www.ultimatelanguagestore.com and is currently
working on a book for learning Spanish.
