Greek (ελληνικά, IPA: [eliniˈka] or ελληνική γλώσσα, IPA: [eliniˈci ˈɣlosa]), an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, 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 mod...
more
Greek (ελληνικά, IPA: [eliniˈka] or ελληνική γλώσσα, IPA: [eliniˈci ˈɣlosa]), an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, 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 15 million people (first language for ca. 12 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...
less
