This article does not cover the reconstructed history of Greek prior to the use of writing. For more information, see main article on Proto-Greek language.
Greek has been spoken in the Balkan Peninsula since the 2nd millennium BC. The earliest evidence of this is found in the Linear B tablets in the "Room of the Chariot Tablets", a LMII-context (c. 1500 BC) region of Knossos in Crete. The later Greek alphabet is unrelated to Linear B, and is believed to be derived from the Phoenician alphabet (abjad); with minor modifications, it is still used today. Greek is conventionally divided into the following periods: * Mycenaean Greek: the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 16th century BC onwards. * Classical Greek (also known as Ancient Greek): In its various dialects was the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of Greek civilization. It was widely known throughout the Roman empire. Classical Greek fell into disuse in western Europe in the Middle Ages, but remained known in the Byzantine world, and was reintroduced to the rest of Europe with the Fall of Constantinople and Greek migration to Italy. * Hellenistic Greek (also known as Koine Greek): The fusion of various ancient Greek dialects with Attic (the dialect of Athens) resulted in the creation of the first common Greek dialect, which gradually turned into one of the world's first international languages. Koine Greek can be initially traced within the armies and conquered territories of Alexander the Great, but after the Hellenistic colonisation of the known world, it was spoken from Egypt to the fringes of India. After the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial diglossy of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. Through Koine Greek is also traced the origin of Christianity, as the Apostles used it to preach in Greece and the Greek-speaking world. It is also known as the Alexandrian dialect, Post-Classical Greek or even New Testament Greek (after its most famous work of literature). * Medieval Greek: The continuation of Hellenistic Greek during medieval Greek history as the official and vernacular (if not the literary nor the ecclesiastic) language of the Byzantine Empire, and continued to be used until, and after the fall of that Empire in the 15th century. Also known as Byzantine Greek. * Modern Greek: Stemming independently from Koine Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the late Byzantine period (as early as 11th century).
Two main forms of the language have been in use since the end of the medieval Greek period: Dhimotikí ("ημοτική), the Demotic (vernacular) language, and Katharévusa (Καθαρεύουσα), 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 (νόμος) 306/1976), when Dhimotikí was declared the official language of Greece.
In the meantime, both forms of Greek had naturally converged and Standard Modern Greek (Κοινή Νεοελληνική " Common Modern Greek), the form of Greek used for all official purposes and in education in Greece today, emerged.
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, Koin", the version of Greek used to write the New Testament and the Septuagint, is relatively easy to understand for modern speakers.
Greek words have been widely borrowed into the European languages: astronomy, democracy, philosophy, thespian, etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as a basis for coinages: anthropology, photography, isomer, biomechanics etc. and form, with Latin words, the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary. See English words of Greek origin, and List of Greek words with English derivatives.
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-Europeanlanguage family. The ancient languages which were probably most closely related to it, ancient Macedonian (which may have been a dialect of Greek) and Phrygian, are not well enough documented to permit detailed comparison. Among living languages, Armenian seems to be the most closely related language.
Greek is the official language of Greece where it is spoken by about 99.5% of the population. It is also, alongside Turkish, the official language of Cyprus. Due to the membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the 20 official languages of the European Union.
Close vowels, when found in unstressed final syllables, tend to be voiceless, particularly if they are between voiceless consonants [e.g.: φάσης ' (' ) = "of phase" (genitive case)].
Consonants
Greek has a repertoire of 29 consonant sounds. The number of phonemes depends on the analysis, but may be as few as 15, assuming for example that the sound [b] is represented in the underlying form as /mp/, which is also its standard orthographic representation. (cf. Newton)
Greek , and are not aspirated as they are in English. They tend to be voiced to , and in the Cretan dialect. The letter <ρ> is generally pronounced , but tends to be pronounced in intervocalic position.
Despite the retention of double consonants in historic orthography, modern Greek does not have geminated consonants within words, with the notable exception of Cypriot.
Sandhi rules
Greek has certain sandhi rules, some represented in the orthography, some not.
/n/ before bilabials and velars becomes [m] and respectively, and is written <μ> (συμπάθεια, "sympathy") and <γ> (συγκρητισμός, "syncretism"). Before the labiodental fricatives <φ> and <β>, it is also written <μ>, but pronounced (συμφωνία, "symphony").
The combination <μπ> is pronounced after vowels (but often reduced to ) and everywhere else . In some words, especially in Northern dialects, this can also be pronounced .
After vowels, the combinations <γγ> and <γκ> are pronounced (or before the front vowels and ), but are often reduced to (or ) in everyday speech. <γκ> is always pronounced (or ) at the beginning of a word, while <γγ> never occurs in this position.
The combination <ντ> is pronounced after vowels (but often reduced to ) and everywhere else . In some words, especially in Northern dialects, this can also be pronounced .
The sounds and , before the front vowels and , are palatalized, becoming and . In some dialects, notably those of Crete and the Mani, they become and .
The word (estí, IPA ), which means "is" in Ancient Greek (q.v. Modern Greek είναι), gains a "euphonic" n. in Modern Greek, the negative adverb δεν and the accusative articles τον and την lose the final , depending on the beginning letter of the next word (if it's a consonant, is usually dropped). In the phrase δεν πειράζει, which means "it doesn't matter", instead of being dropped, n is assimilated into the second word and, following the example above, np is pronounced [mp] in Northern Greece and in Southern Greece, thus being pronounced or .
Some of these rules are optional, and reflect the formality of speech. While everyday spoken Greek sounds artificial if the sandhi rules are not used, a formal or official speech may sound equally awkward if sandhi rules are used.
Orthography
The Greek vowel letters with their pronunciation are: <α> , <ε> , <η> , <ι> , <ο> , <υ> , <ω> . There are also vowel digraphs which are phonetically monophthongal: <αι> , <ει> , <οι> , <ου> , <υι> . The three digraphs <αυ>, <ευ> and <ηυ> are pronounced , and except when followed by unvoiced consonants, in which case they are pronounced , and .
Modern Greek has also four diphthongs: <αη> (or <άη>) , <αϊ> (or <άι>) , <οη> (or <όη>) and <οϊ> (or <όι>) (diphthongs can better be transcribed using the IPA non-syllabic diacritic under instead of the approximant ).
The Greek letters <β> and <δ> are pronounced and respectively. The letter <γ> is generally pronounced , but before the mid or close front vowels, it is pronounced (or in some dialects, notably those of Crete and the Mani).
The letters <θ>, <φ> and <χ> are pronounced , and . The letter <χ>, before mid or close front vowels, is pronounced (or in some dialects, notably those of Crete and the Mani). The letter <ξ> stands for and <ψ> stands for . The digraphs <γγ> and <γκ> are generally pronounced in everyday speech, but are pronounced before the front vowels and . When these digraphs are preceded by a vowel, they are pronounced in formal speech ( before the front vowels and . The digraph <γγ> may be pronounced in some words ( before the front vowels and .
Modern Greek is still largely a synthetic language. It is one of the few Indo-European languages that has retained a synthetic passive. Noticeable changes in grammar (compared to classical Greek) include the loss of the dative, the optative mood, the infinitive, the dual number, and the participles (except the past participle); the adoption of the gerund; the reduction in the number of noun declensions, and the number of distinct forms in each declension; the adoption of the modal particle' (a contraction of ' > ' > ' > ) to denote future and conditional tenses; the introduction of auxiliary verb forms for certain tenses; the extension to the future tense of the aspectual distinction between present/imperfect and aorist; the loss of the third person imperative, and the simplification of the system of grammatical prefixes, such as augmentation and reduplication. Some of these features are shared with other languages spoken in the Balkan peninsula (see Balkan linguistic union).
Due to the influence of katharevousa, however, demotic is not commonly used in its purest form, and archaisms are still widely used, especially in writing and in more formal speech, as well as in a few everyday expressions like the dative ('OK', literally 'in order') or the third person imperative ! ('long live!').
Modern Greek is written in the late Ionic variant of the Greek alphabet. It is regarded as the first alphabet in the narrow sense, giving full representation to vowels on a par with consonants, unlike its predecessor, the Phoenician alphabet (also called an "abjad"). Its oldest discovered inscriptions date to the 8th or 9th Century BC. It assumed its final form in Athens in 403 BC, and displaced other regional variants due to its use for the AtticKoine dialect during the Hellenistic era.
In addition to the letters of the alphabet, Greek has a number of diacritical signs, most of which were eliminated from official use in Greece in 1982 as no longer corresponding to the modern pronunciation of the language. See Monotonic orthography for the simplified modern set, and Polytonic orthography for the traditional set.
*Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Grammar, Harvard University Press, 1956 (revised edition), ISBN 0674362500. The standard grammar of classical Greek. Focuses primarily on the Attic dialect, with comparatively weak treatment of the other dialects and the Homeric Kunstsprache. *W. Sidney Allen, Vox Graeca - a guide to the pronunciation of classical Greek. Cambridge University Press, 1968-74. ISBN 052120626X *Geoffrey Horrocks, Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speakers (Longman Linguistics Library). Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1997. ISBN 0582307090. From Mycenean to modern. *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. *Robert Browning, Medieval and Modern Greek, Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition 1983, ISBN 0521299780. An excellent and concise historical account of the development of modern Greek from the ancient language. *Brian Newton, The Generative Interpretation of Dialect: A Study of Modern Greek Phonology, Cambridge University Press, 1972, ISBN 0521084970. *Crosby and Schaeffer, An Introduction to Greek, Allyn and Bacon, Inc. 1928. A school grammar of ancient Greek *David Holton et al., Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar of the Modern Language, Routledge, 1997, ISBN 041510002X. A reference grammar of modern Greek. *Dionysius of Thrace, "Art of Grammar", "Τέχνη γραμματική", c.100 BC
*Modern Greek, Encyclopedia of the World's Major Languages, Brian Joseph *Ancient Greek, Encyclopedia of the World's Major Languages, Brian Joseph *Greek Language, Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. *The Perseus Project has many useful pages for the study of classical languages and literatures, including dictionaries. *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.
