| Koine Greek is part of the legacy left by | | | | The Greek language including Attic and Modern |
| Alexander the Great's imperial conquests which | | | | Greek, is written in a non-Latin script. Greek is |
| united Asia Minor, the north of &rica, and the vast | | | | one of the richest surviving languages in the world |
| territories of the Persian empire. Though his death | | | | today, with a vocabulary more than 600,000 |
| saw the end of the empire he had forged, there | | | | words. Some scholars have stressed the similarity |
| remained a common Greek language, Koine, that | | | | of Modern Greek to millennia old Greek languages. |
| continued to be spoken in the lands he conquered. | | | | The extent of Modern Greek's commonality with |
| This became the common language of the | | | | ancient Greek has been extensively reviewed and |
| Mediterranean basin and the ancestor of Modern | | | | debated. It is claimed that a "reasonably well |
| Greek. | | | | educated" speaker of the modern tongue can |
| The Greek language, as we know it today, had its | | | | read the ancient dialects, but it is not made very |
| origin during the classical era, though it has | | | | clear how much of that education consists of |
| undergone a considerable number of changes. In | | | | exposure to vocabulary and grammar obsolete in |
| our day, in its modern form, demotik?r 'popular' | | | | normal communication. |
| Greek is the official language of Greece and | | | | The Greek language spoken in both in the |
| Cyprus. It is also a recognized minority language in | | | | Hellenistic and Byzantine eras is nearer to Modern |
| Italy, Turkey, and Albania. | | | | Greek. From 1934 to 1976 there was an attempt |
| Greek is part of the Indo-European family of | | | | to impose a purified language, an attempt to |
| languages. The earliest form of Greek is thought | | | | correct centuries of natural linguistic changes) as |
| to have originated in the 14th century BCE in | | | | the only acceptable form of Greek in Greece. |
| Cretan inscriptions. Mycenaean Greek is | | | | After 1976, Dimoti'ci, "speech of the people" was |
| distinguished from later Classical or Greek of the | | | | finally accepted by the Greek government as |
| 8th century BCE and after, when texts came to | | | | both the de facto and de jure forms of the |
| be written in the Greek alphabet. | | | | language. A large number of words and |
| Various theories about the origins of the Greek | | | | expressions have remained unchanged through |
| language exist. One suggests that it originated | | | | the centuries, and have found their way into a |
| with a migration of proto-Greek speakers into | | | | number of other languages, among them Latin, |
| Greece, which is dated to any period between | | | | Italian, German, French and English. Some |
| 3200 BC to 1900 BC. Another theory holds that | | | | examples of these include mostly terminology |
| Greek evolved in Greece itself out of an early | | | | names, such as astronomy, philosophy, |
| language of Indo-European origin. | | | | democracy and anthropology. |