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117-573: Kastro-Kyllini is situated in the westernmost part of Elis and the Peloponnese , 12 kilometres (7 miles) west of Andravida and about 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of Pyrgos . It covers the northern part of the Kyllini peninsula, which juts into the Ionian Sea . The peninsula is covered with hills, but the area to the east of the peninsula is very flat. The Crusader fortress of Chlemoutsi

234-577: 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,

351-505: A brief time by a Catalan corsair. When the population drove him out, they obtained the consent of Thomas to submit to the Pope's protection before the end of 1460. The Mani Peninsula at the south end of the Morea resisted under a loose coalition of the local clans, and that area then came under Venice 's rule. The last holdout was Salmeniko , in the Morea's northwest. Graitzas Palaiologos was

468-543: A commission at Andravida consisted of Latin bishops, two bannerets and five Greek magnates and chaired by himself, to assess the land and divide it, according to Latin practice, in fiefs . The result was divide the country into twelve baronies , mostly centred around a newly constructed castle—a testament to the fact that the Franks were a military elite amidst a potentially hostile Greek population. The twelve temporal barons were joined by seven ecclesiastic lords, headed by

585-558: 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

702-560: 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

819-540: 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

936-581: A personal fief of the Villehardouins. The barons retained considerable powers and privileges, so that the Prince was not an absolute sovereign but rather a "first among equals" among them. Thus they had the right to construct a castle without the Prince's permission, or to decree capital punishment . Since Salic Law was not adopted in Achaea, women could also inherit the fiefs. Frankish supremacy in

1053-684: A prisoner of the Ottomans and his younger brother Thomas fled. By the end of the summer the Ottomans had achieved the submission of virtually all cities possessed by the Greeks . Ottoman incursions into the Morea resumed under Turahan Bey after 1423. Despite the reconstruction of the Hexamilion wall at the Isthmus of Corinth, the Ottomans under Murad II breached it in 1446, forcing the Despots of

1170-516: A turning point. Rivalries among the insurgents eventually erupted into civil war in 1824, which enabled the Ottoman Egyptian vassal Ibrahim Pasha to land in the peninsula in 1825. The Peloponnese peninsula was the scene of fierce fighting and extensive devastation following the arrival of Ibrahim's Egyptian troops. Partly as a result of the atrocities committed by Ibrahim, the UK, France, and

1287-631: A white wine made from Moschofilero , the Nemea wine region makes renowned red wines from the Agiorgitiko grape, and fortified red wine is made in the region around the city of Patras from Mavrodafni grapes. 37°20′59″N 22°21′08″E  /  37.34972°N 22.35222°E  / 37.34972; 22.35222 Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ )

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1404-591: Is 3 km (2 mi) southwest of Myrsini and 3 km (2 mi) north of Machos . Neochori is in a flat, rural area. Peloponnese The Peloponnese ( / ˌ p ɛ l ə p ə ˈ n iː z , - ˈ n iː s / PEL -ə-pə- NEEZ , -⁠ NEESS ), Peloponnesus ( / ˌ p ɛ l ə p ə ˈ n iː s ə s / PEL -ə-pə- NEE -səs ; Greek : Πελοπόννησος , romanized :  Pelopónnēsos , IPA: [peloˈponisos] ) or Morea ( Medieval Greek : Μωρέας , romanized :  Mōrèas ; Greek: Μωριάς , romanized:  Mōriàs )

1521-757: Is a peninsula and geographic region in Southern Greece , and the southernmost region of the Balkans . It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmus of Corinth land bridge which separates the Gulf of Corinth from the Saronic Gulf . From the late Middle Ages until the 19th century, the peninsula was known as the Morea , a name still in colloquial use in its demotic form. The peninsula

1638-804: 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

1755-719: 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

1872-479: 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

1989-486: Is divided among three administrative regions : most belongs to the Peloponnese region, with smaller parts belonging to the West Greece and Attica regions. The Peloponnese is a peninsula located at the southern tip of the mainland, 21,549.6 square kilometres (8,320.3 sq mi) in area, and constitutes the southernmost part of mainland Greece. It is connected to the mainland by the Isthmus of Corinth , where

2106-702: Is dominated by the Chlemoutsi fortress. The name Kastro means "castle", and refers to Chlemoutsi. The fortress was built by prince Geoffrey I Villehardouin of the Principality of Achaea in 1220-1223, who called it Clairmont (from which Chlemoutsi is a derivation ). After the decline of the Principality the castle gradually lost its importance. Today it is as a monument and is sometimes used for concerts. The thermal springs of Kyllini (Loutra Kyllinis) are 4 km (2 mi) southwest of Kastro, near

2223-511: Is headed by a city. The largest city is Patras (pop. 170,000) in Achaia, followed by Kalamata (pop. 55,000) in Messenia. Peloponnese for the most part enjoys a hot-summer Mediterranean climate ( Köppen climate classification : Csa ), while the Gulf of Corinth has a hot semi-arid climate ( Köppen climate classification : BSh ). Rainfall is higher in the west coasts, while the east of

2340-519: 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

2457-437: Is situated on the highest point of the peninsula, about 220 metres (722 feet) above sea level . Between the northernmost point, Cape Kyllini, and the town Kyllini the ruins of the medieval town of Glarentza have been excavated. There are forests and olive groves in the hills. Agriculture is the dominant land use in the plains. There are several popular beaches on the coast. The thermal springs of Kyllini ( Loutra Kyllinis ) are

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2574-526: 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

2691-763: 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,

2808-650: 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

2925-634: The Chronicle of Monemvasia , in 805 the Byzantine governor of Corinth went to war with the Slavs, exterminated them, and allowed the original inhabitants to claim their lands. They regained control of the city of Patras and the region was re-settled with Greeks. Many Slavs were transported to Asia Minor , and many Asian, Sicilian and Calabrian Greeks were resettled in the Peloponnese. By the turn of

3042-521: The Corinth Canal was constructed in 1893. However, it is also connected to the mainland by several bridges across the canal, including two submersible bridges at the north and the south end. Near the northern tip of the peninsula, there is another bridge, the Rio–Antirrio bridge (completed 2004). The peninsula has a mountainous interior, although extensive lowlands are also found in the west, in

3159-495: 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

3276-782: The Evrotas Valley in the south, and in the Argolid Peninsula in the northeast. The Peloponnese possesses four south-pointing peninsulas, the Messenian , the Mani , the Cape Malea (also known as Epidaurus Limera), and the Argolid in the far northeast of the Peloponnese. Mount Taygetus in the south is the highest mountain in the Peloponnese, at 2,407 metres (7,897 ft). Οther important mountains include Cyllene in

3393-516: 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

3510-487: The Isthmus of Corinth . His attack opened the peninsula to invasion, though Murad died before he could exploit this. His successor Mehmed II "the Conqueror" captured the Byzantine capital Constantinople in 1453. The despots, Demetrios Palaiologos and Thomas Palaiologos , brothers of the last emperor, failed to send him any aid, as Morea was recovering from a recent Ottoman attack. Their own incompetence resulted in

3627-650: The Latin Archbishop of Patras . Each of the latter was granted a number of estates as knightly fiefs, with the Archbishop receiving eight, the other bishops four each, and likewise four granted to each of the military orders : the Templars , Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights . Shortly after 1260, a thirteenth barony, that of Arcadia (modern Kyparissia ) was established, which was also

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3744-591: The Morea revolt of 1453–1454 led by Manuel Kantakouzenos against them, during which they invited in Ottoman troops to help them put down the revolt. At this time, the Greek archons made peace with Mehmed. After more years of incompetent rule by the despots, their failure to pay their annual tribute to the Sultan, and finally their own revolt against Ottoman rule, Mehmed came into the Morea in May 1460. Demetrios ended up

3861-616: The Ottoman Turks on 31 May 1460, Mystras was the residence of a Despot who ruled over the Byzantine Morea, known as the " Despotate of the Morea ". For the larger portion of his reign, Manuel maintained peaceful relations with his Latin neighbors and secured a long period of prosperity for the area. Greco-Latin cooperation included an alliance to contain the raids of the Ottoman Sultan Murad I into Morea in

3978-648: The Roman period , the peninsula remained prosperous but became a provincial backwater, relatively cut off from the affairs of the wider Roman world . After the partition of the Empire in 395, the Peloponnese became a part of the East Roman or Byzantine Empire . The devastation of Alaric 's raid in 396–397 led to the construction of the Hexamilion wall across the Isthmus of Corinth. Through most of late antiquity ,

4095-522: The klephts ' activities. With the outbreak of the " Great Turkish War " in 1683, the Venetians under Francesco Morosini occupied the entire peninsula by 1687, and received recognition by the Ottomans in the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699). The Venetians established their province as the " Kingdom of the Morea " (It. Regno di Morea ), but their rule proved unpopular, and when the Ottomans invaded

4212-492: 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

4329-510: The 1360s. The rival Palaiologos dynasty seized the Morea after Manuel's death in 1380, with Theodore I Palaiologos becoming despot in 1383. Theodore I ruled until 1407, consolidating Byzantine rule and coming to terms with his more powerful neighbours—particularly the expansionist Ottoman Empire , whose suzerainty he recognised. Subsequent despots were the sons of the Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos , brother of

4446-470: 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

4563-529: The 9th century, the entire Peloponnese was formed into the new thema of Peloponnesos , with its capital at Corinth. The imposition of Byzantine rule over the Slavic enclaves may have largely been a process of Christianization and accommodation of Slavic chieftains into the Imperial fold, as literary, epigraphic and sigillographic evidence testify to Slavic archontes participating in Imperial affairs. By

4680-486: 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

4797-425: 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

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4914-495: 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

5031-629: 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

5148-685: 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

5265-659: The Hellenization campaign also shows that the Slavs had settled among many Greeks, in contrast to areas further north in what is now Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia, as those areas could not be Hellenized when they were recovered by the Byzantines in the early 11th century. A human genetics study in 2017 showed that the Peloponnesians have little admixture with populations of the Slavic homeland and are much closer to Sicilians and southern Italians. Apart from

5382-510: The Morea to re-acknowledge Ottoman suzerainty, and again under Turahan in 1452 and 1456. Following the occupation of the Duchy of Athens in 1456, the Ottomans occupied a third of the Peloponnese in 1458, and Sultan Mehmed II extinguished the remnants of the Despotate in 1460. A few holdouts remained for a time. The rocky peninsula of Monemvasia refused to surrender, and it was first ruled for

5499-475: The Peloponnese rose against the Ottomans with Russian aid during the so-called " Orlov Revolt " of 1770, but it was swiftly and brutally suppressed by bands of Muslim Albanian mercenaries hired by the Ottomans. Referred to by the local Greek populace as " Turk-Albanians ", those forces had also destroyed many cities and towns in Epirus during the 1769–70 revolt there. The Peloponnese suffered more than any other Greek inhabited area by irregular Albanian gangs during

5616-494: The Peloponnese to continue their military service under the Republic of Venice or the Kingdom of Naples . At the end of the Ottoman–Venetian wars, a large number of Albanians had fled from the Peloponnese to Sicily. A demographic census by Alfred Philippson , based on fieldwork between 1887 and 1889, found that out of the approximately 730,000 inhabitants of the Peloponnese, and the three neighboring islands of Poros , Hydra and Spetses , Arvanites numbered 90,253, or 12.3% of

5733-407: The Peloponnese was at the heart of the affairs of ancient Greece , possessed some of its most powerful city-states, and was the location of some of its bloodiest battles. The major cities of Sparta , Corinth , Argos and Megalopolis were all located on the Peloponnese, and it was the homeland of the Peloponnesian League . Soldiers from the peninsula fought in the Persian Wars , and it was also

5850-437: The Peloponnesian Greek population. This is especially true in Mani and Tsakonia , where Slavic incursions were minimal, or non-existent. Being agriculturalists, the Slavs probably traded with the Greeks, who remained in the towns, while Greek villages continued to exist in the interior, governing themselves, possibly paying tribute to the Slavs. The first attempt by the Byzantine imperial government to re-assert its control over

5967-405: The Principality of Achaea were beaten back in the battles of Prinitsa and Makryplagi , but the Byzantines were firmly ensconced in Laconia. Warfare became endemic, and the Byzantines slowly pushed the Franks back. The insecurity engendered by the raids and counter-raids caused the inhabitants of Lacedaemon to abandon their exposed city and settle at Mystras, in a new town built under the shadow of

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6084-405: The Russian Empire decided to intervene in favor of the Greeks. The decisive naval Battle of Navarino was fought in 1827 off Pylos on the west coast of the Peloponnese, where a combined British, French and Russian fleet decisively defeated the Turko-Egyptian fleet. Subsequently, a French expeditionary corps cleared the last Turko-Egyptian forces from the peninsula in 1828. The city of Nafplion, on

6201-404: 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),

6318-402: 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

6435-408: The arrival of Slavs to southern Greece to the late 6th century, according to Florin Curta there is no evidence for a Slavic presence in the Peloponnese until after c.  700 AD , when Slavs may have been allowed to settle in specific areas that had been depopulated. Relations between the Slavs and Greeks were probably peaceful apart from intermittent uprisings. There was also a continuity of

6552-420: The coast such as Navarino and Coron , which they retained into the 15th century. The Franks popularized the name Morea for the peninsula, which first appears as the name of a small bishopric in Elis during the 10th century. Its etymology is disputed, but it is most commonly held to be derived from the mulberry tree ( morea ), whose leaves are similar in shape to the peninsula. In 1208, William I founded

6669-441: The coast. It is a beach resort, surrounded by forests. The most famous baths also offers inhalation therapy, said to assist in asthma and skin problems. It is situated next to Roman ruins. The community of Neochori ( Greek : Νεοχώρι ) consists of the villages Neochori and Vytinaiika. Neochori is on the road from Kyllini to Lechaina, 6 km (4 mi) southeast of Kyllini and 6 km (4 mi) southwest of Lechaina . It

6786-410: The coast. Refugees from Asia Minor settled in Kato Panagia as a result of the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) . The community of Kastro ( Greek : Κάστρο ) consists of the town Kastro and the small villages Analipsi, Kalamia, Karavaki, Loutra Kyllinis and Psili Rachi. Kastro is 5 km (3 mi) south of Kyllini and 7 km (4 mi) northwest of Vartholomio . It is situated in the hills, and

6903-589: The decades following. In Patras nearly no one was left alive after the Turkish-Albanian invasion. The city of Mystras was left in ruins and the metropolitan bishop Ananias was executed despite having saved the life of several Turks during the uprising. A great number of local Greeks were killed by the Albanian groups, while children were sold to slavery. It is estimated that 20,000 local Greeks were captured during those nine years of devastation by those Albanian mercenaries and sold to slave markets. Also an additional of 50,000 Greeks left Peloponesse: around one-sixth of

7020-416: The despot Theodore: Theodore II, Constantine, Demetrios, and Thomas. As Latin power in the Peloponnese waned during the 15th century, the Despotate of the Morea expanded to incorporate the entire peninsula in 1430 with territory being acquired by dowry settlements, and the conquest of Patras by Constantine. However, in 1446 the Ottoman Sultan Murad II destroyed the Byzantine defences—the Hexamilion wall at

7137-441: The destruction of the Byzantine Empire by the forces of the Fourth Crusade , the Crusaders under William of Champlitte and Geoffrey of Villehardouin marched south through mainland Greece and conquered the Peloponnese against sporadic local Greek resistance . The Franks then founded the Principality of Achaea , nominally a vassal of the Latin Empire , while the Venetians occupied several strategically important ports around

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7254-404: 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

7371-406: The east coast of the peninsula, became the first capital of the independent Greek state . By the conclusion of the war, the entire Muslim population of the newly independent Greek state, including the Peloponnese, had been exterminated or had fled. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the region became relatively poor and economically isolated. A significant part of its population emigrated to

7488-580: The east, and the Ionian to the west. The island of Kythira , off the Epidaurus Limeira peninsula to the south of the Peloponnese, is considered to be part of the Ionian Islands. The island of Elafonisos used to be part of the peninsula but was separated following the major quake of 365 AD . Since antiquity, and continuing to the present day, the Peloponnese has been divided into seven major regions: Achaea (north), Corinthia (northeast), Argolis (east), Arcadia (center), Laconia (southeast), Messenia (southwest), and Elis (west). Each of these regions

7605-448: The end of the 2nd millennium BC. Archeological research has found that many of its cities and palaces show signs of destruction. The subsequent period, known as the Greek Dark Ages , is marked by an absence of written records. In 776 BC, the first Olympic Games were held at Olympia , in the western Peloponnese and this date is sometimes used to denote the beginning of the classical period of Greek antiquity. During classical antiquity ,

7722-426: The end of the 9th century, the Peloponnese was culturally and administratively Greek again, except for a few small Slavic tribes in the mountains such as the Melingoi and Ezeritai . Although they were to remain relatively autonomous until Ottoman times, such tribes were the exception rather than the rule. Even the Melingoi and Ezeritai, however, could speak Greek and appear to have been Christian. The success of

7839-419: The energetic Evrenos Bey took control. Exploiting the quarrels between Byzantines and Franks, he plundered across the peninsula and forced both the Byzantine despots and the remaining Frankish rulers to acknowledge Ottoman suzerainty and pay tribute. This situation lasted until the Ottoman defeat at the Battle of Ankara in 1402, after which Ottoman power was for a time checked. From 1349 until its surrender to

7956-448: 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

8073-417: The fertile lands, Muslims remained a distinct minority. Christian communities retained a large measure of self-government, but the entire Ottoman period was marked by a flight of the Christian population from the plains to the mountains. This occasioned the rise of the klepht s, armed brigands and rebels, in the mountains, as well as the corresponding institution of the government-funded armatoloi to check

8190-452: 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

8307-455: The fortress. While Mystras served as the provincial capital from this time, it became a royal capital in 1349, when the first despot was appointed to rule over the Morea. The Byzantine Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos , reorganized the territory in 1349 to establish it as an appanage for his son, the Despot Manuel Kantakouzenos . Around that time, the Ottoman Turks began raiding the Peloponnese, but their raids intensified only after 1387 when

8424-518: The fortresses. The Greek insurgents made rapid progress and the entire peninsula was under Greek control within a few months, except for a few coastal forts and the main Turkish garrison at Tripolitsa . The fighting was fierce and marked by atrocities on both sides; eventually the entire Muslim population was either massacred or fled to the forts. The capture of Tripolitsa in September 1821 marked

8541-477: The groundwork for the Greek War of Independence . The Peloponnesians played a major role in the Greek War of Independence – the war began in the Peloponnese, when rebels took control of Kalamata on March 23, 1821. After the arrival of Ypsilantis's emissaries, local people rose under the leadership of Mavromichalis . Greek and Albanian insurgents organised in units of armed civilians took control of most of

8658-479: The independent Slavic tribes of the Peloponnese occurred in 783, with the logothete Staurakios ' overland campaign from Constantinople into Greece and the Peloponnese, which according to Theophanes the Confessor made many prisoners and forced the Slavs to pay tribute. From the mid-9th century, following a Slavic revolt and attack on Patras , a determined Hellenization process was carried out. According to

8775-439: 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

8892-483: The invasion by those mercenary groups the local population had to found refuge in the mountains of Peloponnese to avoid persecution. The total population decreased during this time, while the Muslim element in it increased. As such Greek resistance in the peninsula was reinforced and powerful groups of klephts were formed under the clans of Zacharias, Melios, Petmezas and Kolokotronis. Klephtic songs of that era describe

9009-532: The larger cities of Greece, especially Athens , and other countries such as the United States and Australia. It was badly affected by the Second World War and Greek Civil War , experiencing some of the worst atrocities committed in Greece during those conflicts. Living standards improved dramatically throughout Greece after the country accedes to the European Union in 1981. The Corinth Canal

9126-580: The larger groups of Albanian settlers, amounting to 10,000, settled the Peloponnese during the reign of Theodore I Palaiologos , first in Arcadia and subsequently in other regions around Messenia , Argolis , Elis and Achaia . Around 1418, a second large group arrived, possibly fleeing Aetolia , Acarnania and Arta , where Albanian political power had been defeated. The settling Albanians lived in tribes spread out into small villages, practicing nomadic lifestyles based on pastoralism and animal husbandry. By

9243-708: The largest beach facility in the western Peloponnese. There is a monastery , the Monastery of Blachernae , southeast of Kato Panagia. The small island Kafkalida, near Cape Kyllini, is uninhabited. It carries a lighthouse. There were two railway lines in Kastro-Kyllini. The Kavasila – Vartholomio – Kyllini railway branched off the Patras – Pyrgos railway at Kavasila , and ran to Kyllini via Vartholomio . A branch line ran from Vartholomio to Loutra Kyllinis. Both lines have been abandoned. Several secondary roads connect

9360-571: The last Venetian possessions on the Greek mainland were lost. Following the Ottoman conquest, the peninsula was made into a province ( sanjak ), with 109 ziamets and 342 timars . During the first period of Ottoman rule (1460–1687), the capital was first in Corinth (Turk. Gördes ), later in Leontari ( Londari ), Mystras ( Misistire ) and finally in Nauplion (Tr. Anaboli ). Sometime in

9477-467: 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

9594-495: The legend of the hero Pelops , who was said to have conquered the entire region. The name Peloponnesos means Island or Peninsula (archaic meaning of the word nesos ) of Pelops. The Mycenaean civilization , mainland Greece's (and Europe's) first major civilization, dominated the Peloponnese in the Bronze Age from the palaces of Mycenae , Pylos and Tiryns ; among others. The Mycenaean civilization collapsed suddenly at

9711-640: 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

9828-499: The mid-15th century, they formed a substantial part of the population of the Peloponnesus. Military sources of the era (1425) report about 30,000 Albanian men who could carry arms in the Peloponnese. The Greeks tended to live in large villages and cities, while Albanians in small villages. Following Ottoman conquest, many Albanians fled to Italy, settling primarily in nowadays Arbereshe villages of Calabria and Sicily . On

9945-628: The mid-17th century, the Morea became the centre of a separate eyalet , with Patras ( Ballibadra ) as its capital. Until the death of Suleiman the Magnificent in 1570, the Christian population (counted at some 42,000 families c. 1550 ) managed to retain some privileges and Islamization was slow, mostly among the Albanians or the estate owners who were integrated into the Ottoman feudal system. Although they quickly came to control most of

10062-540: The migration and settlement of Christian Albanians to parts of Central Greece and the Peloponnese, a group that eventually became known as the Arvanites The Albanians settled in successive waves, often invited by the local rulers. They start appearing more frequently in the historical record from during the second part of the 14th century, when they were being offered arable land, pasture and favorable taxation in exchange for military service. One of

10179-461: The military commander there, stationed at Salmeniko Castle . While the town eventually surrendered, Graitzas and his garrison and some town residents held out in the castle until July 1461, when they escaped and reached Venetian territory. Only the Venetian fortresses of Modon , Coron , Navarino , Monemvasia , Argos and Nauplion escaped Ottoman control. The same period was also marked by

10296-441: 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

10413-412: The northeast (2,376 m or 7,795 ft), Aroania in the north (2,355 m or 7,726 ft), Erymanthos (2,224 m or 7,297 ft) and Panachaikon in the northwest (1,926 m or 6,319 ft), Mainalon in the center (1,981 m or 6,499 ft), and Parnon in the southeast (1,935 m or 6,348 ft). The entire peninsula is earthquake-prone and has been the site of many earthquakes in

10530-399: 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

10647-536: 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

10764-706: 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

10881-602: The other hand, in an effort to control the remaining Albanians, during the second half of the 15th century, the Ottomans adopted favorable tax policies towards them, likely in continuation of similar Byzantine practices. This policy had been discontinued by the early 16th century. Throughout the Ottoman–Venetian wars , many Albanians died or were captured in service to the Venetians; at Nafpaktos , Nafplio , Argos , Methoni , Koroni and Pylos . Furthermore, 8,000 Albanian stratioti , most of them along with their families, left

10998-722: The past. The longest river is the Alfeios in the west (110 km or 68 mi), followed by the Evrotas in the south (82 km or 51 mi), and also the Pineios , also in the west (70 km or 43 mi). The Peloponnese, with its indented coasts, is home to numerous spectacular beaches, which are a major tourist draw. Two groups of islands lie off the Peloponnesian coast: the Argo-Saronic Islands to

11115-528: The peninsula in 1715, most local Greeks welcomed them. The Ottoman reconquest was easy and swift, and was recognized by Venice in the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718. The Peloponnese now became the core of the Morea Eyalet , headed by the Mora valesi , who until 1780 was a pasha of the first rank (with three horsetails ) and held the title of vizier . After 1780 and until the Greek War of Independence ,

11232-582: The peninsula is significantly drier. Average annual temperatures can reach up to 20.3 °C (68.5 °F) while summer highs reach over 36.0 °C (96.8 °F) in Sparta , within the Evrotas Valley . On 27 June 2007, Monemvasia registered a staggering minimum temperature of 35.9°C, which is the highest minimum temperature ever recorded in mainland Greece and Continental Europe . The peninsula has been inhabited since prehistoric times . Its modern name derives from ancient Greek mythology , specifically

11349-513: The peninsula retained its urbanized character: in the 6th century, Hierocles counted 26 cities in his Synecdemus . By the latter part of that century, however, building activity seems to have stopped virtually everywhere except in Constantinople, Thessalonica, Corinth, and Athens. This has traditionally been attributed to calamities such as plague, earthquakes and Slavic invasions. However, more recent analysis suggests that urban decline

11466-506: The peninsula, as evidenced by the abundance of Slavic toponyms , but these toponyms accumulated over centuries rather than as a result of an initial "flood" of Slavic invasions, and many appear to have been mediated by speakers of Greek, or in mixed Slavic-Greek compounds. Fewer Slavic toponyms appear on the eastern coast, which remained in Byzantine hands and was included in the thema of Hellas , established by Justinian II c.  690 . While traditional historiography has dated

11583-513: The peninsula, however, received a critical blow after the Battle of Pelagonia , when William II of Villehardouin was forced to cede the newly constructed fortress and palace at Mystras near ancient Sparta to a resurgent Byzantium. At this point, the emperor concluded an agreement with the captive prince: William and his men would be set free in exchange for an oath of fealty, and for the cession of Monemvasia, Grand Magne, and Mystras. The handover

11700-407: The population. Nevertheless, attacks by Muslim Albanian mercenaries in the region continued not only against the Greek population but also against Turks. The extensive destruction and lack of control in the Peloponnese forced the central Ottoman government to send a regular Turkish military force to suppress those Albanian troops in 1779, and eventually drive them out from Peloponnese. As a result of

11817-500: The pre-1770 population. The Ottoman government was unable to pay the wages the Albanian mercenaries demanded for their service, causing the latter to ravage the region even after revolt had been put down. 1770-1779 was a prolonged period of devastation and atrocities committed by Albanian irregulars in the Peloponnese. In 1774 the Russo-Turkish War ended with the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca which granted general amnesty to

11934-406: The province was headed by a muhassil . The pasha of the Morea was aided by several subordinate officials, including a Christian translator ( dragoman ), who was the senior Christian official of the province. As during the first Ottoman period, the Morea was divided into 22 districts or beyliks . The capital was first at Nauplion, but after 1786 at Tripolitza (Tr. Trabliçe ). The Greeks of

12051-632: The region are still unknown. It is thought to be one of the largest environmental disasters in modern Greek history. The principal modern cities of the Peloponnese are (2011 census): The Peloponnese possesses many important archaeological sites dating from the Bronze Age through to the Middle Ages. Among the most notable are: ‡ UNESCO World Heritage Site Specialities of the region: Several notable Peloponnese wines have Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status. The Mantineia region makes

12168-587: The resistance activities. Nevertheless, through the privileges granted with the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji , especially the right for the Christians to trade under the Russian flag, led to a considerable economic flowering of the local Greeks, which, coupled with the increased cultural contacts with Western Europe ( Modern Greek Enlightenment ) and the inspiring ideals of the French Revolution , laid

12285-625: The scene of the Peloponnesian War of 431–404 BC. The entire Peloponnese with the notable exception of Sparta joined Alexander's expedition against the Persian Empire. Along with the rest of Greece, the Peloponnese fell to the expanding Roman Republic in 146 BC, when the Romans razed the city of Corinth and massacred its inhabitants. The Romans created the province of Achaea comprising the Peloponnese and central Greece. During

12402-437: 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

12519-493: The total population. The Venetian fortresses were conquered in a series of Ottoman-Venetian Wars : the first war , lasting from 1463 to 1479, saw much fighting in the Peloponnese, resulting in the loss of Argos , while Modon and Coron fell in 1500 during the second war . Coron and Patras were captured in a crusading expedition in 1532, led by the Genoese admiral Andrea Doria , but this provoked another war in which

12636-467: The troubled relations with the Slavs, the coastal regions of the Peloponnese suffered greatly from repeated Arab raids following the Arab capture of Crete in the 820s and the establishment of a corsair emirate there. After the island was recovered by Byzantium in 961 however, the region entered a period of renewed prosperity, where agriculture, commerce, and urban industry flourished. In 1205, following

12753-409: The villages. The municipal unit Kastro-Kyllini is subdivided into the following communities (constituent villages in brackets): The community of Kato Panagia ( Greek : Κάτω Παναγιά ) consists of the villages Kato Panagia, Ikaros and Moni Vlachernon. The village Kato Panagia is directly adjacent to Kyllini, on the road to Lechaina . The village Ikaros is 3 kilometres (2 miles) further east, also on

12870-574: 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

12987-568: 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

13104-557: 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

13221-517: Was closely linked with the collapse of long-distance and regional commercial networks that underpinned and supported late antique urbanism in Greece, as well as with the generalized withdrawal of imperial troops and administration from the Balkans. The scale of the Slavic invasion and settlement in the 7th and 8th centuries remains a matter of dispute, although it is nowadays considered much smaller than previously thought. The Slavs did occupy most of

13338-646: Was completed in the late 19th century, linking the Aegean Sea with the Gulf of Corinth and the Ionian. In 2001, the Rio-Antirio Bridge was completed, linking the western Peloponnese to western Greece. In late August 2007, large parts of Peloponnese suffered from wildfires , which caused severe damage in villages and forests and the death of 77 people. The impact of the fires to the environment and economy of

13455-440: Was effected in 1262, and henceforth Mystras was the seat of the governor of the Byzantine territories in the Morea. Initially this governor ( kephale ) was changed every year, but after 1308 they started being appointed for longer terms. Almost immediately on his return to the Morea, William of Villehardouin renounced his oath to the emperor, and warfare broke out between Byzantines and Franks. The first Byzantine attempts to subdue

13572-580: 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

13689-673: 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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