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Greek (, IPA — "Hellenic") is an Indo-European Language with a documented history of 3,500 years. Today, it is spoken by 15 million people in Greece , Cyprus , Bulgaria , Albania , and Turkey . There are also many Greek emigrant communities around the world, such as those in Melbourne , Australia which has the third largest urban Greek population in the world, after Athens and Thessaloniki . Greek has been written in the Greek Alphabet (the first to introduce Vowels ), since the 9th Century BC in Greece (before that in Linear B ), and the 4th Century BC in Cyprus (before that in Cypriot syllabary). Greek Literature has a continuous history of some 3000 years. HISTORY See Also: History of the Greek language ''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 dating from 1500 BC . 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:
Two main forms of the language have been in use since the end of the medieval Greek period: Dhimotikí (Δημοτική), the Demotic (vernacular) language, and Katharévousa (Καθαρεύουσα), an imitation of classical Greek, which was used for literary, juridic, and scientific purposes during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Demotic Greek is now the official language of the modern Greek state, and the most widely spoken by Greeks today. 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, Koinē , 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 words, the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary. See '' English Words Of Greek Origin '', and '' List Of Greek Words With English Derivatives ''. CLASSIFICATION 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 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 to it. GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION Modern Greek is spoken by about 15 million people mainly in Greece and Cyprus . There are also Greek-speaking populations in Georgia , Ukraine , Egypt , Turkey , Albania , Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia and Southern Italy . The language is spoken also in many other countries where Greeks have settled, including Armenia , Australia , Austria , Belgium , Bulgaria , Brazil , Canada , Denmark , France , Germany , Netherlands , Sweden , United Kingdom , and the United States . OFFICIAL STATUS 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 . PHONOLOGY This section generally describes the post-Classic phonology of the Greek language. See Ancient Greek Phonology , History Of The Greek Language and Iotacism for historical issues. All phonetic transcriptions in this section use the International Phonetic Alphabet Vowel sounds Greek has 5 vowel sounds, all phonemic: Close vowels, when found in unstressed final syllables, tend to be voiceless, particularly if they are between voiceless consonants 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 {Link without Title} 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. Standard Modern Greek does not have double consonants within words, although some dialects (notably Cypriot) do. Sandhi rules Greek has certain Sandhi rules, some represented in the orthography, some not. /n/ before bilabials and Velars becomes {Link without Title} 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 {Link without Title} 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 See Also: Greek 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 . GRAMMAR See Also: Greek grammar 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 Participle s (except the past participle); the adoption of the Gerund ; the reduction in the number of noun Declension s, and the number of distinct forms in each declension; the adoption of the Modal Particle ''θα'' (a corruption of '''' > ''θέλω να'' > ''θε' να'' > ''θα'') 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 Archaism s are still widely used, especially in writing and in more formal speech, as well as in a few everyday expressions like the dative εντάξει ('OK', literally 'in order') or the third person imperative ζήτω! ('long live!'). WRITING SYSTEM See Also: Greek alphabet 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 Attic '' Koine '' dialect during the Hellenistic era. The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with a capital and lowercase (small) form: Α α , Β β , Γ γ , Δ δ , Ε ε , Ζ ζ , Η η , Θ θ , Ι ι , Κ κ , Λ λ , Μ μ , Ν ν , Ξ ξ , Ο ο , Π π , Ρ ρ , Σ σ ς (word-final Form) , Τ τ , Υ υ , Φ φ , Χ χ , Ψ ψ , Ω ω . 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. EXAMPLES Some common words and phrases
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