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75-666: The Empire of Nicaea ( Greek : Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων ) or the Nicene Empire was the largest of the three Byzantine Greek rump states founded by the aristocracy of the Byzantine Empire that fled when Constantinople was occupied by Western European and Venetian armed forces during the Fourth Crusade , a military event known as the Sack of Constantinople . Like the other Byzantine rump states that formed due to

150-577: 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,

225-617: A combined invasion by Manfred, the Despot of Epirus, and the Latin Prince of Achaea at the Battle of Pelagonia . In 1260, Michael began the assault on Constantinople itself, which his predecessors had been unable to do. He allied with Genoa , and his general Alexios Strategopoulos spent months observing Constantinople in order to plan his attack. In July 1261, as most of the Latin army

300-558: 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

375-560: 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

450-689: A few weeks before the fall of Constantinople . Nicaea, however, was the closest to the Latin Empire and was in the best position to attempt to re-establish the Byzantine Empire. Theodore Laskaris was not immediately successful, as Henry of Flanders defeated him at Poimanenon and Prusa (now Bursa ) in 1204. But Theodore was able to capture much of northwestern Anatolia after the Bulgarian defeat of Latin Emperor Baldwin I in

525-540: 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

600-572: A new threat from the Ottomans , when they arose to replace the Seljuks. After 1261, Constantinople once more became the capital of the Byzantine Empire. The territories of the former Empire of Nicaea were stripped of their wealth, which was used to rebuild Constantinople and to fund numerous wars in Europe against the Latin states and Epirus. Soldiers were transferred from Asia Minor to Europe, leaving

675-460: A shift in how the word "Hellene" was used in Byzantine parlance. Up to this point, "Hellene" had borne a negative connotation and was in particular associated with the remnants of paganism. In this period, however, both the terms "Graikoi" and "Hellenes" appear to enter into the diplomatic usage of the empire as a form of religious and ethnic self-identification, spurred by a desire to differentiate

750-804: 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

825-773: 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

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900-479: 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

975-519: 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

1050-1027: 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 Battle of the Rhyndacus (1211) The Latin emperor, Henry of Flanders , desired to expand his territory in Asia Minor at

1125-526: 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

1200-763: 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,

1275-650: 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

1350-406: The Battle of Adrianople , because Henry was recalled to Europe to defend against invasions from Tsar Kaloyan of Bulgaria . Theodore also defeated an army from Trebizond, as well as other minor rivals, leaving him in charge of the most powerful of the successor states. Numerous truces and alliances were formed and broken over the next few years, as the Byzantine successor states, the Latin Empire,

1425-656: The Bulgarian Empire and the Seljuks of Iconium (whose territory also bordered Nicaea) fought each other. In 1211, at Antioch on the Meander , Theodore defeated a major invasion by the Seljuks, who were backing a bid by Alexios III Angelos to return to power. The losses suffered at Antioch, however, led to a defeat at the hands of the Latin Empire at the Rhyndacus River and the loss of most of Mysia and

1500-495: 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

1575-613: The Holy Roman Empire by marrying Constance II of Hohenstaufen , daughter of Frederick II . In 1246, John attacked Bulgaria and recovered most of Thrace and Macedonia, and proceeded to incorporate Thessalonica into his realm. By 1248, John had defeated the Bulgarians and surrounded the Latin Empire. He continued to take land from the Latins until his death in 1254. Theodore II Laskaris , John III's son, faced invasions from

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1650-516: 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

1725-690: The Laskaris family, it lasted from 1204 to 1261, when the Nicenes restored the Byzantine Empire after they recaptured Constantinople. Thus, the Nicene Empire is seen as a direct continuation of the Byzantine Empire, as it fully assumed the traditional titles and government of the Byzantines in 1205. The Despotate of Epirus contested the claim in 1224 and became the Empire of Thessalonica , but

1800-638: The Marmara Sea coast in the subsequent Treaty of Nymphaeum . The Nicenes were compensated for this territorial loss when, in 1212, the death of David Komnenos allowed their annexation of his lands in Paphlagonia . In 1205, Theodore assumed the traditional titles of the Byzantine emperors. Three years later, he convoked a church council to elect a new Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople . The new patriarch crowned Theodore emperor and established his seat at Theodore's capital, Nicaea. In 1219, he married

1875-537: The Rhyndacus river . Henry had probably some 260 Frankish knights . Laskaris had a larger force overall, but only a handful of Frankish mercenaries of his own, as they had suffered especially heavily against the Seljuks. Laskaris prepared an ambush at the Rhyndacus, but Henry assaulted his positions and scattered the Nicaean troops in a day-long battle on 15 October. The Latin victory, won reportedly without casualties,

1950-492: 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

2025-706: The 1204 fracturing of the empire, such as the Empire of Trebizond and the Despotate of Epirus , it was a continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire that survived well into the Middle Ages . A fourth state, known in historiography as the Latin Empire , was established by an army of Crusaders and the Republic of Venice after the capture of Constantinople and the surrounding environs. Founded by

2100-462: The 13th century also drew parallels between the situation of the empire after 1204 and that of Classical Greeks. This evidence has helped to strengthen the view of some scholars, such as A. E. Vacalopoulos, who see these references, combined with a re-evaluation of Byzantium's classical past, to be the genesis of Greek nationalism. With the loss of Constantinople, this comparison played on the idea of "Hellenes" surrounded by barbarians; Choniates equated

2175-470: 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

2250-587: The Asian territories held by the Latin Empire in the process. In 1224, the Latin Kingdom of Thessalonica was captured by the Despot of Epirus Theodore Komnenos Doukas , who crowned himself emperor in rivalry to Vatatzes and established the Empire of Thessalonica . It proved short-lived, as it came under Bulgarian control after the Battle of Klokotnitsa in 1230. With Trebizond lacking any real power, Nicaea

2325-463: The Bulgarians in Thrace , but successfully defended the territory. A conflict between Nicaea and Epirus broke out in 1257. Epirus allied with Manfred of Sicily when Theodore II died in 1258. John IV Laskaris succeeded him, but since he was still a child he was put under the regency of the general Michael Palaiologos. Michael proclaimed himself co-emperor (as Michael VIII ) in 1259, and soon defeated

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2400-486: 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

2475-425: 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

2550-495: 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

2625-629: 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

2700-685: 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

2775-463: The Roman Empire was not overturned, as the usage of the word Rhomaioi for subjects of the Nicene emperors demonstrates. The official ideology of the Nicene Empire was one of reconquest and militarism, which was not to be seen in later 14th-century Palaiologan rhetoric. The ideology of 13th-century Nicaea was characterized by belief in the continued significance of Constantinople and the hope to recapture

2850-514: The Seljuk sultan killed by Theodore I with Xerxes, and patriarch Germanos II recalled the victory of John III Vatatzes as another battle of Marathon or Salamis . In much the same way, Theodore II Laskaris compared his father's victories to those of Alexander the Great and proceeded to extol the martial values of contemporary "Hellenes". In addition, during this period there seems to have been

2925-404: 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),

3000-402: 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

3075-491: The city, drawing less on claims of political universalism or Hellenic nationalism than on Old Testament ideas of Jewish providence. The emperor in this period is frequently compared to Moses or Zorobabel , or even as the " Pillar of Fire " that guides God's people to the Promised Land, e.g. in a speech delivered by Theodore I Laskaris , written by Niketas Choniates . The rhetoric of this period also glorified war and

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3150-493: The city. There is a debate among scholars regarding the exact timing of the shift in meaning of the word Hellene. Roderick Beaton, considering the evidence of the usage of the term "Hellenes" in the 12th century, sees the re-evaluation of the term as occurring before the loss of Constantinople in 1204. In addition, unlike Vacalopoulos, Beaton sees not the birth of Greek nationalism, but rather an embryonic "ethnic" awareness, primarily based around language. Michael Angold notes that

3225-573: The daughter of Latin Empress Yolanda of Flanders , but he died in 1221 and was succeeded by his son-in-law, John III Doukas Vatatzes The accession of Vatatzes was initially challenged by the Laskarids, with the sebastokratores Isaac and Alexios, brothers of Theodore I, seeking the aid of the Latin Empire. Vatatzes prevailed over their combined forces, however, in the Battle of Poimanenon , securing his throne and regaining almost all of

3300-417: The development of this view on reconquest, and during this period there is mention that Patriarch Michael IV Autoreianos offered full remission of sins to Nicene troops about to enter battle, a practice almost identical to a western plenary indulgence . However, the granting of such indulgences was short-lived, and many of the possible crusader influences seem to have dropped off after 1211. The Byzantines of

3375-404: 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

3450-429: The empire and its citizens from the Latins. Patriarch Germanus II of Constantinople in particular exemplifies this new vision of ethnic and religious identity. His letters equate good birth with the purity of his Hellenistic ancestry, placing more value in his Hellenistic linguistic and ethnic background than in any association with Constantinople, and showing his contempt for the Latins who prided themselves on possessing

3525-618: 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

3600-586: The establishment of Turkish beyliks on former Byzantine territory. While the emperor Andronikos II attempted to improve the situation, it was unsuccessful. By c. 1300, nearly the whole of the former Empire of Nicaea had been conquered by the Turks, with only a tiny strip of territory directly opposite Constantinople clinging on. The final end of Byzantine Asia Minor came with the fall of Bursa in 1326, Nicaea in 1331 and Nicomedia in 1337. The Nicene Empire consisted of Byzantium's most highly populated Greek region, with

3675-714: The exception of Thrace which was under Latin/Bulgar control. As such, the Empire was able to raise a reasonably numerous military force of around 20,000 soldiers at its height – numbers recorded as participating in its numerous wars against the Crusader states. The Nicenes continued some aspects of the Komnenian army , but without the resources available to the Komnenian emperors the Nicene Byzantines could not match

3750-497: The expense of the Nicaeans. He had already achieved a victory in 1205 at Adramyttium , but the need to counter the Bulgarians in Europe had forced him to conclude a truce and depart. By 1211, only a small exclave around Pegai remained in Latin hands. Taking advantage of the losses suffered by the Nicaean army against the Seljuks in the Battle of Antioch on the Meander , Henry landed with his army at Pegai and marched eastward to

3825-452: 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

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3900-612: The ideology of the period displays the ability of the Byzantines to react and adapt to changing cultural and political circumstances, including exile, and that the ideological developments of this period were, for the most part, cut short and discarded by the restored empire of the Palaiologoi , as Michael VIII returned to the ideology of earlier periods. Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ )

3975-439: 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

4050-467: 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

4125-458: 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

4200-441: 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

4275-411: The name of the state. During that time there was a concerted ethnic Greek self-identification initiative. Some scholars see the Nicene empire period as an indication of rising ethnic Hellenic consciousness and Greek nationalism . However, these scholars caution that a rise in ethnic consciousness did not affect the official imperial ideology. In the official ideology, the traditional view of Byzantium as

4350-399: 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

4425-455: The numbers, nor the quality, of the armies that the emperor Manuel and his predecessors had fielded. Western Asia Minor had access to the sea, making it wealthier than most of the splinter states around and in time became the most powerful state in the region, if only for a short period. The court of the Nicene state widely used the term "Hellenes" instead of the earlier "Romans" to describe its Greek speaking population. Contemporaries preferred

4500-408: 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

4575-475: The old frontier relatively undefended. Raids by Turkish ghazis were left unchecked, and the frontier was increasingly overrun. The usurpation of the legitimate Laskarid ruler John IV Laskaris by Michael VIII Palaiologos in 1261 alienated much of the populace against the restored Byzantine Empire at Constantinople. John IV was left behind at Nicaea, and was later blinded on Michael's orders on his eleventh birthday, 25 December 1261. This made him ineligible for

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4650-706: 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

4725-426: The reconquest of Constantinople using images not drawn from the Old Testament. For example, in his panegyric of Theodore I Laskaris, Choniates describes a battle with a Seljuk sultan as a battle between Christianity and Islam, rhetorically comparing the wounds of Theodore, who had himself slain an enemy commander, to those of Christ on the cross. Dimiter Angelov suggests that western crusading ideology may have influenced

4800-457: The son-in-law of Emperor Alexios III Angelos , was proclaimed emperor, but he too, realizing the situation in Constantinople was hopeless, fled to the city of Nicaea in Bithynia . The Latin Empire , established by the Crusaders in Constantinople, had poor control over former Byzantine territory, and Greek successor states of the Byzantine Empire sprang up in Epirus , Trebizond , and Nicaea . Trebizond had broken away as an independent state

4875-437: 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

4950-439: The throne, and he was exiled and imprisoned in a fortress in Bithynia. This action led to the excommunication of Michael VIII Palaiologos by the Patriarch Arsenius Autoreianus, and a later revolt led by a Pseudo-John IV near Nicaea. The subsequent history of the former territory of the Empire of Nicaea is one of gradual conquest by the Turks. After the death of Michael VIII in 1282, Turkish raids turned into permanent settlement and

5025-438: The use of "Hellas" or the adjective "Hellenikon" for the Empire of Nicaea. As such, Emperor Theodore Laskaris sometimes replaced the terms Romaioi (Romans) and Graikoi by Hellenes. Emperor Theodore II describes his realm as the new Hellas . Patriarch Germanos II used in official correspondence with the western world the term: "Graikoi" to describe the local population and "Empire of the Greeks" ( Greek : Βασιλεία των Γραικών ) as

5100-515: 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

5175-423: 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

5250-442: 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

5325-468: Was fighting elsewhere, Alexios was able to convince the guards to open the gates of the city. Once inside he burned the Venetian quarter (as Venice was an enemy of Genoa, and had been largely responsible for the capture of the city in 1204). Michael was recognized as emperor a few weeks later, restoring the Byzantine Empire. Part of Achaea was soon recaptured, but Trebizond and Epirus remained independent Byzantine Greek states. The restored empire also faced

5400-521: Was forced to renounce its claim by the Nicenes in 1242. The Empire of Trebizond , which declared its independence a few weeks before the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, withdrew all claims to being a continuation of the Byzantine Empire in the Treaty of 1282 . In 1204, Byzantine emperor Alexios V Doukas Mourtzouphlos fled Constantinople after crusaders invaded the city. Soon after, Theodore I Laskaris ,

5475-552: Was the only effective Byzantine state left, and John III expanded his territory across the Aegean Sea . In 1235, he allied with Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria , allowing him to extend his influence over Thessalonica and Epirus. In 1242, the Mongols invaded Seljuk territory to the east of Nicaea, and although John III was worried they might attack him next, they ended up eliminating the Seljuk threat to Nicaea. In 1245, John allied with

5550-580: 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

5625-673: 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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