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Greek (ελληνικά, IPA:  or ελληνική γλώσσα, IPA: ) is an Indo-European language spoken by 14 million people, mainly in Greece and Cyprus but also by minority and emigrant Greek communities in numerous other countries. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries. Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family and has been written in the Greek alphabet since the 9th century BC in Greece and the 4th century BC in Cyprus. Before, it was written in Linear B in the mid-2nd millennium BC and the Cypriot syllabary in the first half of the 1st millennium BC respectively.

The Greek language enjoys a high level of respect worldwide, as it is the language of one of the most influential civilizations in human history and one of the greatest literatures of all time, the Greek literature, which has a continuous history of three thousand years. It has lent many scientific and technical words to English and other European languages, and has been estimated that 12% of the English vocabulary is of Greek origin. Greek is also the original language of the New Testament, and served as the lingua franca of the Hellenistic period and later in the regions which were part of the Byzantine Empire, such as Middle East, North Africa, Southeastern Europe and Asia Minor.

History

Greek has been spoken in the Balkan Peninsula 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 languages.

The later Greek alphabet (unrelated to Linear B) is derived from the Phoenician alphabet (abjad); with minor modifications, it is still used today. The Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods:

Proto-Greek: the assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek which is not recorded. Proto-Greek speakers possibly entered the Greek peninsula in the early 2nd millennium BC. Since then, Greek has been spoken uninterruptedly in Greece.; Mycenaean Greek: the language of the Mycenaean civilization. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th or 14th century BC onwards.; Ancient Greek: in its various dialects was the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilization. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire. Ancient Greek fell into disuse in western Europe in the Middle 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 to the areas of Italy.; 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 Eastern Mediterranean and Near East. Koine Greek can be initially traced within the armies and conquered territories of Alexander the Great, but after the Hellenistic colonization 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. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, 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, as it was the original language the New Testament was written in.; Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek: the continuation of Koine Greek during Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Medieval Greek is a cover term for a whole continuum of different speech and writing styles, ranging from vernacular continuations of spoken Koine that were already approaching Modern Greek in many respects, to highly learned forms imitating classical Attic. Much of the written Greek that was used as the official language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine.; Modern Greek: Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period, as early as 11th century. It is the language used by modern Greeks and apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it.;

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