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Viewing A Brief History of the Greek LanguageA Brief History of the Greek Language
By Jacob Lumbroso Koine Greek is part of the legacy left by Alexander the Great's imperial conquests, which united Asia Minor, the north of Africa, and the vast territories of the Persian Empire. Though his death saw the end of the empire he had forged, there remained a common Greek language, Koine, that continued to be spoken in the lands he conquered. This became the common language of the Mediterranean basin and the ancestor of Modern Greek. The Greek language, as we know it today, had its origin during the classical era, though it has undergone a considerable number of changes. In our day, in its modern form, demotiki or 'popular' Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus. It is also recognized as a minority language in Italy, Turkey, and Albania. Greek is part of the Indo-European family of languages. The earliest form of Greek is said to have existed since around the 14th Century. BCE, in the Cretan inscriptions called Linear B. Mycenaean Greek, is distinguished from the later Classical or Greek of the 8th Century and after, when texts were written in the Greek alphabet. Various theories about the origins of the Greek language exist. One suggests that it originated with a migration of proto-Greek speakers into Greece, which dates to a period between 3200 BC and 1900 BC. Another theory holds that Greek evolved in Greece itself out of an early language of Indo-European origin. The Greek language, including Attic and Modern Greek, is written in a non-Latin script. Greek is one of the richest surviving languages in the world today, with a vocabulary of more than 600,000 words. Some scholars have stressed the similarity of Modern Greek to millennia old Greek languages. The extent of Modern Greek's commonality with ancient Greek is the subject of debate. It is claimed that a 'reasonably well educated' speaker of the modern tongue can read the ancient dialects, but it is not made clear how much of that 'education' consists of exposure to vocabulary and grammar obsolete in normal communication. The Greek language spoken in both in the Hellenistic and Byzantine eras is closer to Modern Greek. From 1934 to 1976, there was an attempt to impose a purified language, an attempt to correct centuries of natural linguistic changes, as the only acceptable form of Greek in Greece. After 1976, Dimoti'ci or the 'speech of the people' was accepted by the Greek government as the defacto form of the language. A large number of words and expressions have remained unchanged through the centuries, and have made their way into a number of other languages, including Latin, Italian, German, French, and English. Some examples of these include terminology used in astronomy, philosophy, democracy, and anthropology. About the Author: Jacob Lumbroso is a world traveler and an enthusiast of foreign languages and cultures. He writes articles on history and languages, and has used Pimsleur courses to learn various languages. Article Source: A Language Guide - http://www.a-language-guide.com More free articles: 1st Rate Articles - 1stRateArticles.com |
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