About the language

Documented history of 3,500 years, the longest of any single language within the Indo-European family. It is also one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages, with fragmentary records in Mycenaean dating back to the 15th or14 century BC, matched only by the Anatolian languages and Vedic Sankrit.

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 nearly three thousand years.
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" Greek alphabet is unrelated to Linear B, and is derived from the Phoenician alphabet(abjat); with minor modifications, it is still used today. Greek is conventionally divided into the following periods:
Mycenaean Greek: the language of the Mycenaean civilization. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the15th or 14th 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 theMiddle Ages, but remained officially in use in the Byzantine world, and was reintroduced to the rest of Europe with the Fall of Constantinople and Greek migration toItaly.
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 became a lingua franca across the Mediterranean region. 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 theRoman 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 language of the ByzantineEmpire, and continued to be used until, and after the fall of that Empire in the15th centure. Also known as Byzantine Greek.
Modern Greek or Romeika: 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:Dhimotiki (Δημοτική), the Demotic (vernacular) language, and Katharevusa (Καθαρεύουσα), an imitation of classical Greek, which was used for literary, juridic, administrative and scientific purposes during the 19th and early 20th centuries. This problem was brought to an end in 1976, when Dhimotikí was declared the official language of Greece.
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.

To estimate type frequency, we can use a typical English dictionary of 80,000 words, corresponding very roughly to the vocabulary of an English-speaking adult. Based on this sample, about 5% of the English vocabulary comes from Greek directly, and about 25% indirectly. If modern technical and scientific coinages using Greek roots are also counted, the percentage increases.
Kostis Palamas was a Greek poet. His most important poem "The twelve lays (or words) of the gypsy" (1907) is a poetical-philosophical journey.Romain Rolland considered him the greatest poet of Europe and he was twice nominated for the Nobel prize for poetry but never received it.

Nikos Kazantzakis in, author of poems,novels,essays,plays, and travel books, was arguably the most important and most translated Greek writer and philosopher of the 20th century.

Giorgos Seferis (Febryary19, 1900– September 20,1971) was one of the most important Greek poets of the 20th century, and a Nobel laureate.



Odysseas Elytis was a Greek poet, considered as one of the most important representatives of modernism in Greece. Although his original family name was Alepoudelis, he became famous with the pseudonym 'Elytis'. In 1979 he was awarded the Nobel prize in Literature.
Yiannis Ritsos was aGreek poet.He is considered to be one of the four greatest Greek poets of the twentieth century, together with Kostis Palamas, Giorgos Seferis and Odysseus Elytis. The French poet Louis Aragon once said that Ritsos was "the greatest poet of our age." He was unsuccessfully proposed nine times for the Nobel Prize for Literature. When he won the Lenin PeacePrizee (also known as the Stalin Peace Prize prior to 1956) he declared "this prize it's more important for me than the Nobel".