Corinthian War
74-643: Lysander ( / l aɪ ˈ s æ n d ər , ˈ l aɪ ˌ s æ n d ər / ; ‹See Tfd› Greek : Λύσανδρος Lysandros ; c. 454 BC – 395 BC) was a Spartan military and political leader. He destroyed the Athenian fleet at the Battle of Aegospotami in 405 BC, forcing Athens to capitulate and bringing the Peloponnesian War to an end. He then played a key role in Sparta's domination of Greece for
148-577: 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,
222-490: A deep impression on the young prince, developing with him a close friendship that was to have a decisive effect in the course of the war. Cyrus began funding Sparta's war effort on a large scale, and was encouraged to increase the pay of Lysander's crews from three to four obols, increasing their morale and Lysander's popularity among them. Once back in Ephesus, Lysander summoned a conference of influential oligarchs from all over
296-558: 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
370-560: 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
444-540: 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
518-492: A great amount and was condemned to death in absentia. The Athenian general Thrasybulus , who had been exiled from Athens by the Spartans' puppet government , led the democratic resistance to the new oligarchic government. In 403 BC, he commanded a small force of exiles that invaded Attica and, in successive battles, defeated first a Spartan garrison and then the forces of the oligarchic government (which included Lysander) in
592-537: A member of the Spartan Heracleidae ; that is, he claimed descent from Heracles but was not a member of a royal family. According to Plutarch , Lysander grew up in poverty and showed himself obedient, conformed to norms, and had a "manly spirit". It was custom in the Spartan upbringing for a young adult to be assigned as the "inspirer" ( eispnelas ) or "lover" ( erastes ) of an adolescent, and Lysander
666-425: A show of force off Attica in autumn 405 BC, Lysander began establishing contacts with Athenian oligarchic exiles and sponsored their return to the city as one of the conditions for peace, which was finally concluded in spring 404 BC. Lysander received the surrender of the last of Athens's allies, Samos , in the summer of 404 BC, after which he went in person to Athens in response to an appeal by Athenian oligarchs. On
740-587: A time. At Sparta, the position, unlike most high-level offices, was available to men from outside the Spartiate class; Lysander, the most famous occupant of the office, was a beneficiary of this rule. The Latinisation nauarchus was used by the Roman navy for its squadron commanders. The Greek-speaking Byzantines sometimes used the term to designate the captains of ships; the terms drungarios or strategos were used to designate their admirals. In
814-646: A war with Thebes and other Greek cities, which came to be known as the Corinthian War . The Spartans prepared to send out an army against this new alliance of Athens, Thebes, Corinth and Argos (with the backing of the Achaemenid Empire) and ordered Agesilaus to return to Greece. Agesilaus set out for Sparta with his troops, crossing the Hellespont and marching west through Thrace . The Spartans arranged for two armies, one under Lysander and
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#1732780347526888-804: 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
962-522: Is an Anglicisation of a Greek word meaning "leader of the ships", which in some states became the title of an office equivalent to that of a modern admiral . Also this status was very valuable in Ancient Greece. Not all states gave their naval commanders such a title. Athens , for instance, placed its fleet under the command of generals ( strategoi ) holding the same title as those who commanded its land forces. Such command structures reflected
1036-479: 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
1110-466: Is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into 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 ,
1184-519: 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
1258-860: 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 Navarch Navarch ( Greek : ναύαρχος , návarchos )
1332-763: 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,
1406-454: The Aegean , once again with the full cooperation of his Greek allies and Cyrus. In the meantime, Lysander visited Miletus , an ally of Sparta, and deceitfully massacred some leading democrats during the festival of Dionysus in early 405 BC to place his own adherents in power; replacing Miletus' democracy with an Oligarchy . In the summer, Lysander's principal benefactor, Cyrus, was summoned to
1480-527: The Agiad King of Sparta , arranged a settlement between the two parties which allowed the re-establishment of democratic government in Athens. Lysander still had influence in Sparta despite his setbacks in Athens. He was able to persuade the Spartans to select Agesilaus II , his younger lover , as the new Eurypontid Spartan king following the death of Agis II , and to persuade the Spartans to support Cyrus
1554-674: 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 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
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#17327803475261628-483: The Battle of Munychia . The leader of the Thirty Tyrants, Critias, was killed in the battle. The Battle of Piraeus was then fought between Athenian exiles who had defeated the government of the Thirty Tyrants and occupied Piraeus and a Spartan force sent to combat them. In the battle, the Spartans defeated the exiles, despite their stiff resistance. Despite opposition from Lysander, after the battle Pausanias
1702-624: 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 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
1776-576: 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 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
1850-495: 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
1924-762: The Hellenic Coast Guard . The rank of full admiral is held in active service only by the Chief of the General Staff of National Defence , when he is a naval officer, and customarily given to the Chiefs of the Hellenic Navy General Staff , who normally carry the rank of vice admiral, on retirement. Under the Greek monarchy , the five-star rank of archinávarchos ( αρχιναύαρχος ), equivalent to grand admiral or admiral of
1998-554: The Hellespont to threaten the route of grain transports to Athens from the Black Sea , forcing the Athenians to send their fleet, 180 ships, in pursuit. Lysander set up anchor at Lampsacus and plundered it, while the Athenians took up a position at Aegospotami in the opposing shore of the straits. For several days Lysander refused battle, studying the opponent's moves, until, during a moment of enemy carelessness, he surprised
2072-516: 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
2146-657: 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 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
2220-492: 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
2294-599: The Athenians and brought the riches home to Sparta. For centuries the possession of money was illegal in Lacedaemonia, but the newly minted navy required funds and Persia could not be trusted to maintain financial support. Roman historian Plutarch strongly condemns Lysander's introduction of money; despite being publicly held, he argues its mere presence corrupted rank-and-file Spartans who witnessed their government's newfound value for it. Corruption quickly followed; while general Gylippus ferried treasure home, he embezzled
Lysander - Misplaced Pages Continue
2368-662: The Athenians and captured most of their vessels as they were still ashore and unmanned. The entire Athenian fleet was gone, and Sparta had finally won the Peloponnesian War. Now in full command of the seas, Lysander began touring the Aegean to receive the surrender of enemy strongholds, ordering all captured Athenian garrisons and cleruchs (colonists) home in order to overcrowd the city and hasten its surrender through famine. In many Greek cities, he installed ten-man governing boards (decarchies) whose members were selected from
2442-486: 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
2516-428: The Greek cities in the Aegean, encouraged them to organize into political clubs ( hetaireiai ), and promised to put them in power in their respective cities in the event of Athens' defeat. In doing so, Lysander created in effect a network of clients who were loyal to him personally and contributed to Sparta's war effort with increased eagerness. As Lysander was fitting out his vessels at Ephesus, an Athenian fleet roughly
2590-470: The Greek cities. As Spartan law did not allow an admiral to hold office twice, Lysander was instead appointed the secretary ( epistoleus ) or second-in-command to Callicratidas's eventual successor, Aracus , with the understanding that the latter would allow Lysander to take the lead. Making his base at Ephesus again, the Spartan began gathering and rebuilding the remnants of the Peloponnesian fleet in
2664-495: 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
2738-629: 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
2812-685: 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
2886-568: The Peloponnesian League's main naval base for the Aegean . His arrival was shortly followed by that of Cyrus , young son of the Persian king Darius , who had been appointed by his father as governor of the provinces of Asia Minor in response to an earlier Spartan embassy requesting increased aid in the war against Athens. Lysander promptly went to meet Cyrus at his headquarters in nearby Sardis , and with calculated deference made
2960-502: The Persian King Artaxerxes II. Lysander was arguably hoping to receive command of the Spartan forces not joining the campaign. However, Agesilaus had become resentful of Lysander's power and influence. So Agesilaus frustrated the plans of his former mentor and left Lysander in command of the troops in the Hellespont, far from Sparta and mainland Greece. Back in Sparta by 395 BC, Lysander was instrumental in starting
3034-582: The Roman biographer Cornelius Nepos charges him with "cruelty and perfidy", Lysander – according to Xenophon – nonetheless spared the population of captured Greek poleis such as Lampsacus . The Westland Lysander aircraft was named after him. According to Duris of Samos , Lysander was the first Greek to whom the cities erected altars and sacrificed to him as to a god and the Samians voted that their festival of Hera should be called Lysandreia. He
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3108-491: The Spartan kingships collective and that the Spartan king should not automatically be given the leadership of the army. There is argument amongst historians as to whether this was an invention to discredit Lysander after his death. However, in the view of Nigel Kennell, the plot fits with what we know of Lysander. Lysander is one of the main protagonists of the history of Greece by Xenophon, a contemporary. For other (later) sources he remains an ambiguous figure. For instance, while
3182-643: The Younger in his unsuccessful rebellion against his older brother, Artaxerxes II of Persia . Hoping to restore the juntas of oligarchic partisans that he had put in place after the defeat of the Athenians in 404 BC, Lysander arranged for Agesilaus II, the Eurypontid Spartan king, to take command of the Greeks against Persia in 396 BC. The Spartans had been called on by the Ionians to assist them against
3256-404: 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),
3330-402: 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
3404-669: The anniversary of the Battle of Salamis , Lysander sailed into the Piraeus , ordered the razing of Athens's city walls and the burning of its fleet, and sent for female flautists from the city to play music as the deed was carried out. He also oversaw a meeting of the Athenian assembly which effectively abolished Athens's democracy and replaced it with a governing board of thirty oligarchs (the Thirty Tyrants ). After storming and seizing Samos, Lysander returned to Sparta. Alcibiades,
3478-572: The deathbed of his father, the King, and, before departing, took the extraordinary step of entrusting the Spartan with his entire treasury and with the revenues from the Persian-ruled cities under his administration. Lysander finally set sail with some 125–150 ships, and among his early actions, which are variously reported by the sources, were the massacre and enslavement of the population of Iasus and Cedreae , allies of Athens. He continued toward
3552-494: The fact that, especially early in the Classical period, fleets operated in close conjunction with land forces, and indeed, the title of navarch did not begin to appear until the time of the Peloponnesian War , when fleets began to operate more independently. This separate title was originally used in cities that lacked an established naval tradition, Sparta being the most prominent, but entered broader use later, being adopted by
3626-485: The former Athenian leader, emerged after the Spartan victory at Aegospotami and took refuge in Phrygia , northwestern Asia Minor with Pharnabazus , its Persian satrap . He sought Persian assistance for the Athenians. However, the Spartans decided that Alcibiades must be removed and Lysander, with the help of Pharnabazus, arranged the assassination of Alcibiades. Lysander amassed a huge fortune from his victories against
3700-439: 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
3774-460: The intruder before they had properly deployed for battle, inflicting modest losses. Alcibiades, who had been away on urgent business, returned upon hearing of this setback and again offered battle off Ephesus, but Lysander once more refused, and the Athenians had to withdraw. However, Lysander ceased to be the Spartan navarch after this victory and, in accordance with the Spartan law, was replaced by Callicratidas . Callicratidas' ability to continue
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#17327803475263848-467: 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
3922-576: 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
3996-439: The modern Hellenic Navy , návarchos is the highest rank, equivalent to full admiral. All but one of the remaining flag ranks are also derivations of this word: antinávarchos ( αντιναύαρχος , 'deputy-admiral') is the equivalent to vice admiral and yponávarchos ( υποναύαρχος , 'under-admiral'), equivalent to rear admiral , while archiploíarchos is the equivalent of commodore . The same ranks are also used by
4070-441: 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
4144-727: The navies of the Hellenistic period states such as Macedon , Syracuse , the Ptolemaic Kingdom , the Seleucid Empire , the Achaean League , and Rhodes . At Sparta and many other city-states, the position was held for one year only (a situation that compelled the Spartans to resort to an elaborate legal fiction when they wished to reinstate Lysander for more than one year in command). Admirals of despotic or monarchic states, however, could serve for years at
4218-465: The next decade until his death at the Battle of Haliartus . Lysander's vision for Sparta differed from most Spartans; he wanted to overthrow the Athenian Empire and replace it with Spartan hegemony. Little is known of Lysander's early life. His year of birth is estimated at 454 BC. Some ancient authors record that his mother was a helot or slave. Lysander's father was Aristocritus, who was
4292-399: 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
4366-706: 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
4440-449: The oligarchic clubs he had sponsored earlier, supported and supervised by a Spartan harmost (military governor). Democrats and other opponents of his narrow oligarchies were often massacred or banished. In a propaganda gesture he restored places like Aegina , Melos and Scione to populations whom the Athenians had forcibly uprooted throughout the course of the war. Following an unsuccessful attempt to bring about Athens's surrender with
4514-608: The other under Pausanias of Sparta , to rendezvous at and attack the city of Haliartus in Boeotia . Lysander arrived before Pausanias and persuaded the city of Orchomenus to revolt from the Boeotian League . He then advanced to Haliartus with his troops. In the Battle of Haliartus , Lysander was killed after bringing his forces too near to the walls of the city. Following Lysander's death, Agesilaus II "discovered" an abortive scheme by Lysander to increase his power by making
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#17327803475264588-604: The predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around 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
4662-461: The size of his own, led by the famous Alcibiades , set up anchor at the nearby port of Notium . At first, the Spartan was content to refuse battle and let his higher wages, funded by Cyrus, encourage desertions among the enemy crews. Eventually, however, one of the Athenian officers, despite orders to stay put, was drawn into a fight with an advance party of Peloponnesian ships. Lysander gave a timely order for his entire fleet to advance, and drove off
4736-437: 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
4810-447: The various stages of 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
4884-529: The vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in 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
4958-458: The war at sea was neatly sabotaged when Lysander returned all the donated funds to Cyrus when he left office. After Callicratidas was defeated and killed at the Battle of Arginusae , Cyrus and the oligarchic clubs which Lysander had sponsored all sent embassies to Sparta requesting the former admiral's return to command. The Spartan government consented, a sign of confidence in his ability and an endorsement of his policy of supporting oligarchies in
5032-574: 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
5106-554: Was also the first Greek who had songs of triumph written about him. Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ ) 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
5180-423: 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
5254-442: 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
5328-612: Was matched in this role with the future king Agesilaus , the younger son of Archidamus II . Nothing is known of Lysander's actual career before he was elected, in 408 BC, to Sparta's annual office of admiral, to conduct the long-running Peloponnesian War against Athens. From Gythium on the eastern shore of the Peloponnese , Lysander set out with 30 triremes. He sailed to Rhodes , where he collected some more ships, and made his way to Cos , Miletus , Chios , gathering ships, until he finally arrived at Ephesus , which he turned into
5402-580: 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
5476-673: 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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