| Also Known As: Graecae,Neo-hellenic,Ellinika,Romaic,Grec,Greco,Greek
Description:
Greek (ελληνικά, IPA: [e̞liniˈka] or ελληνική γλώσσα, IPA: [e̞liniˈkʲi ˈɣlo̞sa]), an Indo-European language native to the southern Balkan peninsula, is the language of the Greeks. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical Ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of the Christian Bible. In its modern form, it is the official language of Greece and Cyprus, and spoken by approximately 20 million people (first language for ca. 15 million), including minority and emigrant communities in numerous parts of the world. Its written form uses the Greek alphabet.
Greek has been spoken in the Balkan Peninsula since around the late 3rd millennium BC. 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 attestation is matched only by Vedic Sanskrit and the extinct Anatolian..... full article at Wikipedia |
