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89-682: The Royal House of Troy was also divided into two branches, that of the Dardanoi and that of the Trojans (their city being called Troy, or sometimes Ilion/Ilium). The House of the Dardanoi (its members being the Dardanids , Greek : Δαρδανίδαι ; Latin : Dardanidae ) was older than the House of Troy, but Troy later became more powerful. Aeneas is referred to in Virgil 's Aeneid interchangeably as

178-506: A Dardanian or as a Trojan , but strictly speaking, Aeneas was of the branch of the Dardanoi. Many rulers of Rome , for example Julius Caesar and Augustus , claimed descent from Aeneas and the Houses of Troy and Dardania. Homer adds the epithet Dardanides (Δαρδανίδης) to Priam and to other prominent characters denoting that they are members of the house of the Dardanoi. Homer writes; The Dardanians were led by brave Aeneas, whom

267-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,

356-479: A blacksmith god, and Batradz , a mighty hero. The folklore of the Caucasus shows ancient Iranian Zoroastrian influence, involve battles with ancient Goths , Huns and Khazars , and contain many connections with ancient Indian , Norse Scandinavian , and Greek cultures. Caucasian folklore contains many links with the myths of the ancient Greeks. There are resemblances between the mother goddess Satanaya and

445-558: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in

534-560: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on

623-540: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near

712-611: A mere coincidence (e.g. Eneti and Enetoi , Bryges and Phryges , Moesians and Mysians ). Strabo described the Dardanoi as Illyrians and this view is also supported by modern scholars. Archaeological finds from the Troad dating back to the Chalcolithic period show striking affinity to archaeological finds known from the same era in Muntenia and Moldavia , and there are other traces which suggest close ties between

801-626: A mystery. The remains of their material culture reveal close ties with Luwian , other Anatolian groups, and Thracians . The Dardanoi were linked by ancient Greek and Roman writers with the Illyrian people of the same name who lived in the Balkans (i.e. the Dardani ), a notion supported by a number of parallel ethnic names found both in the Balkans and Anatolia that are considered too great to be

890-510: A spit, heat it up, stab it into the giant's eye, and escape. There are also links with the ancient Greek myth of Prometheus . Many legends, widespread in the Caucasus, contain motifs shared with the Prometheus story. These motifs include a giant hero, his conflict with God or gods, the stealing of fire and giving it to men, being chained, and being tormented by a bird who pecks at his liver (or heart). The Adyge / Circassian Nart Nasran,

979-678: Is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia . It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea , mainly comprising Armenia , Azerbaijan , Georgia , and parts of Southern Russia . The Caucasus Mountains , including the Greater Caucasus range, have conventionally been considered as a natural barrier between Europe and Asia , bisecting the Eurasian landmass. Mount Elbrus , Europe 's highest mountain,

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1068-804: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout

1157-663: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system

1246-479: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During

1335-609: Is considered by some sources to be the dividing line between Europe and Southwest Asia . According to that, the highest peak in the Caucasus, Mount Elbrus (5,642 meters) located in western Ciscaucasus, is considered the highest point in Europe. The Kuma-Manych Depression , the geologic depression that divides the Russian Plain from the North Caucasus foreland is often regarded by classical and non-British sources as

1424-558: Is likewise called the Caucasus by many." In the Tale of Past Years (1113 AD), it is stated that Old East Slavic Кавкасийскыѣ горы ( Kavkasijskyě gory ) came from Ancient Greek Καύκασος ( Kaúkasos ), which, according to M. A. Yuyukin, is a compound word that can be interpreted as the 'mountain of the seagull(s)' (καύ-: καύαξ, καύηξ, -ηκος, κήξ, κηϋξ 'a kind of seagull' + the reconstructed *κάσος 'mountain' or 'rock' richly attested both in place and personal names). In Georgian tradition,

1513-519: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to

1602-787: Is situated in the Western Caucasus area of Russia . On the southern side, the Lesser Caucasus includes the Javakheti Plateau and the Armenian highlands , part of which is in Turkey. The Caucasus is divided into the North Caucasus and South Caucasus , although the Western Caucasus also exists as a distinct geographic space within the North Caucasus. The Greater Caucasus mountain range in

1691-924: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Caucasus The Caucasus ( / ˈ k ɔː k ə s ə s / ) or Caucasia ( / k ɔː ˈ k eɪ ʒ ə / ),

1780-499: Is speculative given that Pelasgian is so poorly known. The term Caucasus is not only used for the mountains themselves but also includes Ciscaucasia (which is part of the Russian Federation ) and Transcaucasia . According to Alexander Mikaberidze , Transcaucasia is a "Russo-centric" term. The Transcaucasus region and Dagestan were the furthest points of Parthian and later Sasanian expansions, with areas to

1869-526: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around

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1958-763: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,

2047-650: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with

2136-502: Is variously a one-eyed rock-throwing cannibal, who lives in a cave (the exit of which is often blocked by a stone), kills the hero's companions, is blinded by a hot stake, and whose flock of animals is stolen by the hero and his men, all motifs which (along with still others) are also found in the Polyphemus story. In one example from Georgia , two brothers, who are being held prisoner by a giant one-eyed shepherd called "One-eye", take

2225-694: The Achaemenid Empire , Parthia , and the Sassanid Empire , who would altogether rule the Caucasus for many hundreds of years. In 95–55 BC, under the reign of the Armenian king Tigranes the Great , the Kingdom of Armenia included Kingdom of Armenia, vassals Iberia, Albania, Parthia, Atropatene , Mesopotamia , Cappadocia , Cilicia , Syria , Nabataean kingdom , and Judea . By the time of

2314-495: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It

2403-741: The Georgian Amirani , the Chechen Pkharmat , and the Abkhazian Abrskil , are examples of such Prometheus-like figures. The Caucasus is an area of great ecological importance. The region is included in the list of 34 world biodiversity hotspots . It harbors some 6400 species of higher plants, 1600 of which are endemic to the region. Its wildlife includes Persian leopards , brown bears , wolves , bison , marals , golden eagles and hooded crows . Among invertebrates , some 1000 spider species are recorded in

2492-773: The Greater Caucasus mountain range. It consists of Southern Russia , mainly the North Caucasian Federal District 's autonomous republics and the Krais in Southern Russia, and the northernmost parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan . The North Caucasus lies between the Black Sea to its west, the Caspian Sea to its east, and borders the Southern Federal District to its north. The two Federal Districts are collectively referred to as "Southern Russia". The South Caucasus borders

2581-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as

2670-622: The Kartvelian , Northwest Caucasian , and Northeast Caucasian language families are indigenous to the area. Pliny the Elder 's Natural History (77–79 AD) derives the name of the Caucasus from a Scythian name, Croucasis , which supposedly means 'shimmering with snow'. German linguist Paul Kretschmer notes that the Latvian word kruvesis also means 'frozen mud'. Isidore of Seville 's Etymologies ( c.  625 AD) also says

2759-745: The Muslim conquest of Persia , large parts of the region came under the rule of the Arabs , and Islam penetrated the region. In the 10th century, the Alans (proto- Ossetians ) founded the Kingdom of Alania , that flourished in the Northern Caucasus , roughly in the location of latter-day Circassia and modern North Ossetia–Alania , until its destruction by the Mongol invasion in 1238–39. During

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2848-755: The Ottoman Empire . In the second half of the 19th century, the Russian Empire also conquered the North Caucasus. In the aftermath of the Caucasian Wars , the Russian military perpetrated an ethnic cleansing of Circassians , expelling this indigenous population from its homeland. Between the 1850s and World War I, about a million North Caucasian Muslims arrived in the Ottoman Empire as refugees. Having killed and deported most of

2937-606: The Simurgh . The Roman poet Ovid placed the Caucasus in Scythia and depicted it as a cold and stony mountain which was the abode of personified hunger. The Greek hero Jason sailed to the west coast of the Caucasus in pursuit of the Golden Fleece , and there met Medea , a daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis . The Caucasus has a rich folklore tradition. This tradition has been preserved orally—necessitated by

3026-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in

3115-690: The "inhabitants of the southern coast of the Black Sea ". It was also noted that in Nakh Ков гас ( Kov gas ) means "gateway to steppe". The modern endonym for the region is usually similar in many languages, and is generally between Kavkaz and Kaukaz . The North Caucasus region is also known as the Ciscaucasus , whereas the South Caucasus region is alternatively known as the Transcaucasus . The North Caucasus contains most of

3204-470: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into

3293-742: The Armenians of Western Armenia during the Armenian genocide , the Turks intended to eliminate the Armenian population of Eastern Armenia . During the 1920 Turkish–Armenian War , 60,000 to 98,000 Armenian civilians were estimated to have been killed by the Turkish army. In the 1940s, around 480,000 Chechens and Ingush , 120,000 Karachay – Balkars and Meskhetian Turks , thousands of Kalmyks , and 200,000 Kurds in Nakchivan and Caucasus Germans were deported en masse to Central Asia and Siberia by

3382-456: The Caucasus region. As a result of her military campaigns and the temporary fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1204, Georgia became the strongest Christian state in the whole Near East area, encompassing most of the Caucasus stretching from Northern Iran and Northeastern Turkey to the North Caucasus. The Caucasus region was conquered by the Ottomans , Turco-Mongols , local kingdoms and khanates, as well as, once again, Iran . Up to and including

3471-423: The Caucasus was usually incorporated into the Iranian world . At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Empire conquered the territory from Qajar Iran . The territory of the Caucasus region was inhabited by Homo erectus since the Paleolithic Era . In 1991, early Hominini fossils dating back 1.8 million years were found at the Dmanisi archaeological site in Georgia . Scientists now classify

3560-474: The Caucasus. Most of arthropod biodiversity is concentrated on Great and Lesser Caucasus ranges. The region has a high level of endemism and several relict animals and plants, the fact reflecting the presence of refugial forests, which survived the Ice Age in the Caucasus Mountains. The Caucasus forest refugium is the largest throughout the Western Asian (near Eastern) region. The area has multiple representatives of disjunct relict groups of plants with

3649-471: The Dardanoi. Homer in the Iliad carefully distinguishes the Dardanoi from the Trojans, not only in the list of Trojan allies (11:816–823) but also in the frequently repeated formula keklyte meu, Trôes kai Dardanoi ed' epikuroi (e.g., 3.456)". Words used by Homer are: Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ )

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3738-421: The Greater Caucasus range and Southern Russia to its north, the Black Sea and Turkey to its west, the Caspian Sea to its east, and Iran to its south. It contains the Lesser Caucasus mountain range and surrounding lowlands. All of Armenia , Azerbaijan (excluding the northernmost parts), and Georgia (excluding the northernmost parts) are in the South Caucasus. The watershed along the Greater Caucasus range

3827-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit

3916-408: The Greek goddess of love Aphrodite . The story of how the trickster Nart Sosruquo, became invulnerable parallels that of the Greek hero Achilles . The ancient Greek Amazons may be connected to a Caucasian "warrior Forest-Mother, Amaz-an". Caucasian legends include stories involving giants similar to Homer 's Polyphemus story. In these stories, the giant is almost always a shepherd , and he

4005-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than

4094-442: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in

4183-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow

4272-446: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community

4361-452: The Middle Ages, Bagratid Armenia , Kingdom of Tashir-Dzoraget , Kingdom of Syunik and Principality of Khachen organized local Armenian population facing multiple threats after the fall of antique Kingdom of Armenia . Caucasian Albania maintained close ties with Armenia and the Church of Caucasian Albania shared the same Christian dogmas with the Armenian Apostolic Church and had a tradition of their Catholicos being ordained through

4450-439: The Patriarch of Armenia. In the 12th century, the Georgian king David the Builder drove the Muslims out of the Caucasus and made the Kingdom of Georgia a strong regional power. In 1194–1204 Georgian Queen Tamar 's armies crushed new Seljuk Turkish invasions from the southeast and south and launched several successful campaigns into Seljuk Turkish-controlled Southern Armenia. The Georgian Kingdom continued military campaigns in

4539-433: The Russian Federation. The Russian divisions include Dagestan , Chechnya , Ingushetia , North Ossetia–Alania , Kabardino–Balkaria , Karachay–Cherkessia , Adygea , Krasnodar Krai , and Stavropol Krai , in clockwise order. Two territories in the region claim independence but are recognized as such by only a handful of entities: Abkhazia , and South Ossetia . Abkhazia and South Ossetia are largely recognized by

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4628-445: The Southern Caucasus (except western Georgia), northwestern Iran, the northeastern Caucasus, eastern Turkey, and as far as Syria. Under Ashurbanipal (669–627 BC), the boundaries of the Assyrian Empire reached as far as the Caucasus Mountains. Later ancient kingdoms of the region included Armenia , Albania , Colchis and Iberia , among others. These kingdoms were later incorporated into various Iranian empires, including Media ,

4717-543: The Soviet security apparatus. About a quarter of them died. The Southern Caucasus region was unified as a single political entity twice – during the Russian Civil War ( Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic ) from 9 April 1918 to 26 May 1918, and under the Soviet rule ( Transcaucasian SFSR ) from 12 March 1922 to 5 December 1936. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Georgia , Azerbaijan and Armenia became independent nations. The region has been subject to various territorial disputes since

4806-424: The Troad and the Carpatho-Balkan region of Europe . Archaeologists in fact have stated that the styles of certain ceramic objects and bone figurines show that these objects were brought into the Troad by Carpatho-Danubian colonists; for example, certain ceramic objects have been shown to have Cucuteni origins. Egyptian records from the Battle of Qadesh refer to Hittite allies known as Drdny , likely referring to

4895-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),

4984-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of

5073-446: The area. Russian is used as a lingua franca most notably in the North Caucasus. The peoples of the northern and southern Caucasus mostly are Shia Muslims , Sunni Muslims , Eastern Orthodox Christians or Armenian Christians . Located on the peripheries of Turkey , Iran , and Russia , the region has been an arena for political, military, religious, and cultural rivalries and expansionism for centuries. Throughout its history,

5162-464: The assemblage of fossil skeletons as the subspecies Homo erectus georgicus . The site yields the earliest unequivocal evidence for the presence of early humans outside the African continent; and the Dmanisi skulls are the five oldest hominins ever found outside Africa . Kura–Araxes culture from about 4000 BC until about 2000 BC enveloped a vast area of approximately 1,000 km by 500 km, and mostly encompassed, on modern-day territories,

5251-427: The closest relatives in Eastern Asia, southern Europe, and even North America. Over 70 species of forest snails of the region are endemic. Some relict species of vertebrates are Caucasian parsley frog , Caucasian salamander , Robert's snow vole , and Caucasian grouse , and there are almost entirely endemic groups of animals such as lizards of genus Darevskia . In general, the species composition of this refugium

5340-426: The collapse of the Soviet Union, leading to the First Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988–1994), the East Prigorodny Conflict (1989–1991), the War in Abkhazia (1992–93) , the First Chechen War (1994–1996), the Second Chechen War (1999–2009), Russo-Georgian War (2008), and the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War (2020). In Greek mythology , the Caucasus was one of the pillars supporting the world. After presenting man with

5429-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of

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5518-473: The early 19th century, most of the Southern Caucasus and southern Dagestan all formed part of the Persian Empire . In 1813 and 1828 by the Treaty of Gulistan and the Treaty of Turkmenchay respectively, the Persians were forced to irrevocably cede the Southern Caucasus and Dagestan to Imperial Russia . In the ensuing years after these gains, the Russians took the remaining part of the Southern Caucasus , comprising western Georgia, through several wars from

5607-448: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute

5696-419: The fact that for most of the languages involved, there was no alphabet until the early twentieth century—and only began to be written down in the late nineteenth century. One important tradition is that of the Nart sagas , which tell stories of a race of ancient heroes called the Narts. These sagas include such figures as Satanaya , the mother of the Narts, Sosruquo a shape changer and trickster, Tlepsh

5785-408: The fair Aphrodite, a goddess bedded with a mortal man, bore to Anchises in the mountains of Ida. He was not alone, for with him were the two sons of Antenor, Archilochus and Acamas, both skilled in all the arts of war. The strait of the Dardanelles was named after the Dardanoi, who lived in the region. The ethnic affinities of the Dardanoi, and of the Trojans, and the nature of their language remain

5874-421: The first century BC, Zoroastrianism had become the dominant religion of the region; however, the region would go through two other religious transformations. Owing to the strong rivalry between Persia and Rome , and later Byzantium . The Romans first arrived in the region in the 1st century BC with the annexation of the kingdom of Colchis, which was later turned into the province of Lazicum . The next 600 years

5963-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in

6052-409: The gift of fire, Prometheus (or Amirani in the Georgian version ) was chained there by Zeus , to have his liver eaten daily by an eagle as punishment for defying Zeus's wish to keep the "secret of fire" from humans. In Persian mythology , the Caucasus might be associated with the mythic Mount Qaf which is believed to surround the known world. It is the battlefield of Saoshyant and the nest of

6141-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn

6230-414: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write

6319-458: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek

6408-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and

6497-487: The name means shining white like snow: "Thus, toward the east, where it rises to a greater height, it is called the Caucasus, due to the whiteness of its snow, for in an eastern language, caucasus means “white,” that is, shining white with a very thick snow cover. For the same reason the Scythians, who live next to this mountain range, call it Croacasim, for among them whiteness or snow is called casim. 3. The Taurus range

6586-429: The natural and historical boundary between Europe and Asia. Another opinion is that the rivers Kura and Rioni mark this border, or even that of the river Aras . The Caucasus is a linguistically , culturally and geographically diverse region. The nation states that compose the Caucasus today are the post-Soviet states Georgia (including Adjara and Abkhazia ), Azerbaijan (including Nakhchivan ), Armenia , and

6675-417: The north is mostly shared by Russia and Georgia as well as the northernmost parts of Azerbaijan . The Lesser Caucasus mountain range in the south is occupied by several independent states, mostly by Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, but also extends to parts of northeastern Turkey , and northern Iran . The region is known for its linguistic diversity : aside from Indo-European and Turkic languages,

6764-526: The north of the Greater Caucasus range practically impregnable. The mythological Mount Qaf , the world's highest mountain that ancient Iranian lore shrouded in mystery, was said to be situated in this region. The region is also one of the candidates for the location of Airyanem Vaejah , the apparent homeland of the Iranians of Zoroaster . In Middle Persian sources of the Sasanian era, the Caucasus range

6853-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks

6942-600: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It

7031-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as

7120-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of

7209-718: The term Caucasus is derived from Caucas ( Georgian : კავკასოსი Ḳavḳasosi ), the son of the Biblical Togarmah and legendary forefather of the Nakh peoples . According to German philologists Otto Schrader and Alfons A. Nehring, the Ancient Greek word Καύκασος ( Kaukasos ) is connected to Gothic hauhs 'high' as well as Lithuanian kaũkas 'hillock' and kaukarà 'hill, top', Russian куча 'heap'. British linguist Adrian Room claims that * kau- also means 'mountain' in Pelasgian , though this

7298-417: The world community as part of Georgia. The region has many different languages and language families. There are more than 50 ethnic groups living in the region. No fewer than three language families are unique to the area. In addition, Indo-European languages, such as East Slavic , Armenian and Ossetian , and Turkic languages , such as Azerbaijani , Kumyk language and Karachay–Balkar , are spoken in

7387-574: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or

7476-568: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of

7565-494: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe

7654-594: Was marked by a conflict between Rome and Sassanid Empire for the control of the region. In western Georgia the eastern Roman rule lasted until the Middle Ages. As the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia (an eponymous branch of the Arsacid dynasty of Parthia ) was the first nation to adopt Christianity as state religion (in 301 AD), and Caucasian Albania and Georgia had become Christian entities, Christianity began to overtake Zoroastrianism and pagan beliefs. With

7743-666: Was referred to as Kaf Kof . The term resurfaced in Iranian tradition later on in a variant form when Ferdowsi , in his Shahnameh , referred to the Caucasus mountains as Kōh-i Kāf . "Most of the modern names of the Caucasus originate from the Greek Kaukasos (Lat., Caucasus ) and the Middle Persian Kaf Kof ". "The earliest etymon" of the name Caucasus comes from Kaz-kaz , the Hittite designation of

7832-580: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect

7921-673: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage

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