Greek language

Greek language
Pronunciation [eliniˈka]
Spoken in Greece,
Republic of Macedonia,
and in the Greek diaspora.
Native speakers 13.1 million  (2002 census)
Language family
  • Hellenic
    • Greek
Standard forms
Writing system Greek alphabet
Recognised minority language in

Official language in:

 European Union[1]

 United States[11]
Language codes
ISO 639-1 el
ISO 639-2 gre (B)
ell (T)
ISO 639-3 variously:
grc – Ancient Greek
ell – Modern Greek
pnt – Pontic Greek
gmy – Mycenaean Greek
gkm – Medieval Greek
cpg – Cappadocian Greek
yej – Yevanic
tsd – Tsakonian Greek

56-AAA-a (varieties:

56-AAA-aa to -am)

Greek (Ελληνικά IPA: [eliniˈka] or Ελληνική γλώσσα, IPA: [eliniˈci ˈɣlosa]) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history; other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were previously used. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script, and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Coptic, and many other writing systems.

The Greek language holds an important place in the histories of Europe, the more loosely defined "Western" world, and Christianity; the canon of ancient Greek literature includes works of monumental importance and influence for the future Western canon, such as the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey. Greek was also the language in which many of the foundational texts of Western philosophy, such as the Platonic dialogues and the works of Aristotle, were composed; The New Testament of the Christian Bible was written in Koiné Greek and the liturgy continues to be celebrated in the language in various Christian denominations (particularly the Eastern Orthodox and the Greek Rite of the Catholic Church). Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world (which was profoundly influenced by ancient Greek society), the study of the Greek texts and society of antiquity constitutes the discipline of Classics.

Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and beyond during Classical Antiquity, and would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire. In its modern form, it is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 23 official languages of the European Union. The language is spoken by at least 13 million people today [12] in Greece, Cyprus, and diaspora communities in numerous parts of the world.

Greek roots are often used to coin new words for other languages, especially in the sciences and medicine; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of the international scientific vocabulary. Over fifty thousand English words are derived from the Greek language.



Greek has been spoken in the Balkan Peninsula since around the late 3rd millennium BC.[13] The earliest written evidence is found in the Linear B clay tablets in the "Room of the Chariot Tablets", an LMIII A-context (c. 1400 BC) region of Knossos, in Crete, making Greek one of the world's oldest recorded living languages. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages.

The later Greek alphabet is derived from the Phoenician alphabet (abjad); with minor modifications, it is still used today.


Proto-Greek area according to linguist V. I. Georgiev.
History of the
Greek language

(see also: Greek alphabet)

Proto-Greek (c. 3000–1600 BC)
Mycenaean (c. 1600–1100 BC)
Ancient Greek (c. 800–330 BC)
Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, Attic-Ionic,
Doric, Locrian, Pamphylian,
Homeric Greek,
Macedonian (?)

Koine Greek (c. 330 BC–330)
Medieval Greek (330–1453)
Modern Greek (from 1453)
Calabrian, Cappadocian, Cheimarriotika, Cretan,
Cypriot, Demotic, Griko, Katharevousa,
Pontic, Tsakonian, Maniot, Yevanic
This box: view · talk · edit

*Dates (beginning with Ancient Greek) from Wallace, D. B. (1996). Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. p. 12. ISBN 0310218950. 

The Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods:

  • Proto-Greek: the last unrecorded but assumed ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. Proto-Greek speakers possibly entered the Greek peninsula in the early 2nd millennium BC. Since then, Greek has been spoken uninterruptedly in Greece.



Historical unity

Historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, there has been no time in its history since classical antiquity where its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition was interrupted to such an extent that one can easily speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language.[14] It is also often estimated 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 twelfth-century Middle English is to modern spoken English."[15] Ancient Greek texts, especially from Biblical Koine onwards, are thus relatively easy to understand for educated modern speakers. The perception of historical unity is also strengthened by the fact that Greek has not split up into a group of separate, regional daughter languages, as happened with Latin.

Loanwords to other languages

Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English: mathematics, physics, astronomy, democracy, philosophy, thespian, 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. and form, with Latin words, the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary, e.g. all words ending with –logy ("discourse"). An estimated 12% of the English vocabulary has Greek origin, while numerous Greek words have English derivatives.[16]

Geographic distribution

Greek is spoken by about 13.1 million people,[12] mainly in Greece and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. There are traditional Greek-speaking settlements in the neighbouring countries of Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey, as well as in several countries in the Black Sea area such as Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Republic of Macedonia, and around the Mediterranean Sea, Southern Italy, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon and ancient coastal towns along the Levant. The language is also spoken by Greek emigrant communities in many countries in Western Europe, especially the United Kingdom and Germany, in Canada and the United States, Australia, as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and others.[citation needed]

Official status

Greek is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population.[17] It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish[18]). Because of the membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 23 official languages.[1] Furthermore, Greek is officially recognized as a minority language in parts of Italy and Albania,[2] as well as in Armenia, Romania and Ukraine as a regional or minority language in the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.[9] Greeks are also a recognized ethnic minority in Hungary.





  • replacement of the pitch accent with a stress accent
  • development of the voiced stop consonants /b/, /d/, /ɡ/ to their voiced fricative counterparts /β/ (later /v/), /ð/, /ɣ/



Nouns and adjectives









Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient languages which were probably most closely related to it, ancient Macedonian (which some linguistic scholars suggest is a dialect of Greek itself) and Phrygian, are not well enough documented to permit detailed comparison. Some Indo-Europeanists claim that Greek seems to be most closely related to Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian) and the Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan) among the living Indo-European languages.[22][23][24]

Writing system

Greek alphabet alpha-omega.svg
Greek alphabet
Αα Alpha Νν Nu
Ββ Beta Ξξ Xi
Γγ Gamma Οο Omicron
Δδ Delta Ππ Pi
Εε Epsilon Ρρ Rho
Ζζ Zeta Σσς Sigma
Ηη Eta Ττ Tau
Θθ Theta Υυ Upsilon
Ιι Iota Φφ Phi
Κκ Kappa Χχ Chi
Λλ Lambda Ψψ Psi
Μμ Mu Ωω Omega
Archaic local variants
Digamma · Heta · San · Koppa · Sampi  · Tsan
Ligatures (ϛ, ȣ, ϗ) · Diacritics
Numerals: Greek letter Stigma.svg (6) · Greek Koppa lamedh-shaped.svg (90) · Sampi.svg (900)
In other languages
Bactrian  · Coptic  · Albanian
Scientific symbols

Wikipedia book Book  · Category Category · Commons-logo.svg Commons
view · talk · edit

Linear B

Linear B was the first script used to write Mycenaean Greek. Attested as early as the late 15th century BC, it is the earliest known form of Greek (its precursor, Linear A, has not been deciphered to this day). It is basically a syllabary, that was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s.

Cypriot syllabary


Greek alphabet

Ancient epichoric variants of the Greek alphabet from Euboea, Ionia, Athens and Corinth comparing to modern Greek.

Greek has been written in the Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the phonemic Phoenician alphabet, albeit with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. 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 variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC.


lower case
τ υ φ χ ψ ω




Latin alphabet

Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin alphabet in the past, especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics (and called Fragolevantinika or Fragochiotika),[citation needed] and more recently is often written in the Latin alphabet in online communications (called Greeklish).[25]

See also


  1. ^ a b "The EU at a glance - Languages in the EU". Europa. European Union. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  2. ^ a b "Greek". Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Retrieved 2008-12-08. [dead link]
  4. ^ a b Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006
  5. ^ Hellenic Republic: Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Italy: The Greek Community
  6. ^ Hellenic Republic: Ministry of Foreign Affairs: France: The Greek Community
  7. ^ Norwegian Institute of International Affairs: Centre for Russian Studies: 2002 census
  8. ^ Greeks around the Globe (they are quoting the statistics of the General Secretariat for Greeks Abroad as on October 12, 2004)
  9. ^ a b c d "List of declarations made with respect to treaty No. 148". Council of Europe. Retrieved 2008-12-08. 
  10. ^ However according to the Human Rights Watch the Greek population in Turkey is estimated at 2,500 in 2006. "From “Denying Human Rights and Ethnic Identity” series of Human Rights Watch" Human Rights Watch, 2 July 2006.
  11. ^ "C04003. Total ancestry reported". United States Census Bureau. 2008. Retrieved 2009-11-01. 
  12. ^ a b "Greek language". SIL International. 2009. 
  13. ^ "The Greek Language;"
  16. ^ "Greek language". Columbia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2008-12-08. 



External links

General background

Language learning



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