69-467: Saint Christopher ( Greek : Ἅγιος Χριστόφορος , Hágios Christóphoros , lit. ' Christ-bearer ' ; Latin : Sanctus Christophorus ) is venerated by several Christian denominations. According to these traditions, he was a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd-century Roman emperor Decius ( r. 249–251 ), or alternatively under the emperor Maximinus Daia ( r. 308–313 ). Churches and monasteries were named after him by
138-577: 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 the following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered
207-652: A hippopotamus . The tooth was then removed from the altar and its veneration prohibited. Devotional medals with St. Christopher's name and image are commonly worn as pendants , especially by travelers, to show devotion and as a request for his blessing. Miniature statues are frequently displayed in automobiles . In French a widespread phrase for such medals is Regarde St Christophe et va-t-en rassuré ("Look at St Christopher and go on reassured", sometimes translated as "Behold St Christopher and go your way in safety"); Saint Christopher medals and holy cards in Spanish have
276-577: 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,
345-508: 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
414-485: A gold-plated reliquary holds the skull of St. Christopher. According to church tradition, a bishop showed the relics from the city wall in 1075 in order to end a siege of the city by an Italo-Norman army. The Cathedral of St. James in Šibenik holds a relic claimed to be the incorrupt leg of the saint is kept at the . It was brought over in 1484 from Constantinople through Corfu and originally intended to be transferred to Korčula . The feast day of Saint Christopher
483-689: A holy death; mariners; market carriers; motorists and drivers; sailors; storms; surfers; toothache ; mountaineering; and transportation workers. Christopher is the patron saint of many places, including: Baden, Germany ; Barga, Italy ; Brunswick, Germany ; Mecklenburg, Germany ; Rab, Croatia ; Roermond, the Netherlands ; Saint Christopher's Island ( Saint Kitts ); Toses, Catalonia, Spain ; Mondim de Basto, Portugal ; Agrinio, Greece ; Vilnius, Lithuania ; Riga, Latvia ; Havana, Cuba ; San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic ; Paete, Laguna, Philippines ; and Tivim, Goa, India . Numerous places are named for
552-590: A lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It 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
621-400: 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 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
690-464: A literal interpretation of its legendary tradition. Legends about the life and death of Saint Christopher first appeared in Greece in the 6th century and had spread to France by the 9th century. The 11th-century bishop and poet Walter of Speyer gave one version, but the most popular variations originated from the 13th-century Golden Legend . According to the legendary account of his life Christopher
759-549: A literal translation of the original Greek term 'dog-headed. (kunokephalos). This tradition may have translated the term as "dog-like" (canineus). This later evolved into a misreading as the Latin term Cananeus , ' Canaanite ', thus turning Christopher into a Canaanite. According to the medieval Irish Passion of St. Christopher, "This Christopher was one of the Dog-heads, a race that had the heads of dogs and ate human flesh." It
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#1732773389676828-472: A little child asked him to take him across the river. During the crossing, the river became swollen and the child seemed as heavy as lead, so much that Christopher could scarcely carry him and found himself in great difficulty. When he finally reached the other side, he said to the child: "You have put me in the greatest danger. I do not think the whole world could have been as heavy on my shoulders as you were." The child replied: "You had on your shoulders not only
897-459: A mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and 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 ,
966-460: 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 the early 19th century that
1035-576: Is celebrated on 27 July in Šibenik. Greek Orthodox churches in Grevena , Filothei , and Siatista hold other relics claimed to be those of the saint. In the Late Middle Ages, a claimed large tooth of St. Christopher was delivered to the church in Vercelli . Pilgrims came from all over Europe to look at this relic until the end of 18th century when a naturalist determined it was a tooth of
1104-501: Is in use throughout the Lusophone world. Because St. Christopher offered protection to travelers and against sudden death, many churches placed images or statues of him, usually opposite the south door, so he could be easily seen. He is usually depicted as a giant, with a child on his shoulder and a staff in one hand. In England, there are more wall paintings of St. Christopher than of any other saint; in 1904, Mrs. Collier, writing for
1173-890: 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 Christ%C3%B3foros Christóphoros ( Ancient Greek : Χριστόφορος )
1242-763: 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,
1311-579: 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 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
1380-740: The British Archaeological Association , reported 183 paintings, statues, and other representations of the saint, outnumbering all others except for the Virgin Mary . In the Eastern Orthodox Church , certain icons identify Saint Christopher with the head of a dog. Such images may carry echoes of the Egyptian dog-headed god, Anubis . Because of the association of the representation of dog-headed saint with stories of werewolves or of monstrous races,
1449-562: The British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of 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
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#17327733896761518-657: 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 the objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek
1587-516: 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
1656-780: The United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout 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
1725-468: 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 the ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in
1794-417: 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 the noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However,
1863-566: 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
1932-411: The 7th century. There is no evidence for the historicity of the saint. The most famous legend connected to the saint recounts that after converting to Christianity, he devoted his life to carrying travelers across a river. One day he carried an unknown young boy across a river after which the boy revealed himself as Christ. Because of his help to travelers, he became the patron saint of travelers. In
2001-544: 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
2070-549: 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
2139-649: The Greek, many native forms of Christopher are used both to refer to the saint and as a personal name. The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates Christopher of Lycea (or Lycia ) with a Feast Day on 9 May. The liturgical reading and hymns refer to his imprisonment by Decius who tempts Christopher with harlots before ordering his beheading. The Kontakion in the Fourth Tone (hymn) reads: Thou who wast terrifying both in strength and in countenance, for thy Creator's sake thou didst surrender thyself willingly to them that sought thee; for thou didst persuade both them and
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2208-593: 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 is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek
2277-600: The Roman numerus Marmaritarum ('Unit of the Marmaritae'). He was reported to be of enormous size, with the head of a dog instead of a man. This was in line with the cultural beliefs of the time, which held that typical Marmaritae were tall, strong, and rascally; being a cynocephalus was also consistent with this image. Roman writer Pliny the Elder reported that the " Cynamolgi cynocephali , of Ethiopia were men with
2346-649: The Russian Orthodox Church proscribed the depiction of the saint with a dog head in the 18th century. The roots of that iconography lie in a hagiographic narrative set during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian , which tells of a man named Reprebus , (also, Rebrebus or Reprobus ; 'the reprobate' or 'scoundrel'). He was captured by Roman forces fighting against tribes dwelling to the west of Egypt in Cyrenaica and forced to join
2415-404: 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),
2484-479: 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 the older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from
2553-540: The city. The king ordered him to be killed. Various attempts failed, but finally Christopher was beheaded. The name Christopher , as used in the Anglophone world, is the English version of the Greek name Χριστόφορος ( Christóphoros or Christóforos ). It is formed from the word elements Χριστός ( Christós , 'Christ'), and φέρειν ( phérein , 'to bear'), together signifying, "Christ bearer". Widely dispersed into other languages and cultures from
2622-796: 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 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 ,
2691-441: 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 is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before
2760-457: The devil. He came across a band of marauders, one of whom declared himself to be the devil, so Christopher decided to serve him. But when he saw his new master avoid a wayside cross and found out that the devil feared Christ, he left him and enquired from people where to find Christ. He met a hermit who instructed him in the Christian faith. Christopher asked him how he could serve Christ. When
2829-528: 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 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
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2898-412: 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 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
2967-487: The heads of dogs." Pliny's work, The Natural History was, during the first century A.D., a well-respected compendium of Roman science. It reports accepted "knowledge" about people from Cyrenaica . Pliny notes that these "dog-headed men" resided in "Ethiopia"—a name used to encapsulate areas of Africa West and South of Alexandrian Egypt by contemporary Romans. Reprebus and the unit were later transferred to Syrian Antioch , where bishop Peter of Attalia baptised him and where he
3036-418: The hermit suggested fasting and prayer, Christopher replied that he was unable to perform that service. The hermit then suggested that because of his size and strength Christopher could serve Christ by assisting people to cross a dangerous river, where they were perishing in the attempt. The hermit promised that this service would be pleasing to Christ. After Christopher had performed this service for some time,
3105-536: The iconography of the Western Church , the saint is often depicted as a giant with a staff carrying the infant Jesus across a river on his shoulders. Small images of him are often worn around the neck, on a bracelet, carried in a pocket, or placed in vehicles. He is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers . The Eastern Church tradition depicts the saint as a cynocephalus ('dog-headed creature') in
3174-449: The language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to 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
3243-467: 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
3312-452: 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 the 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is
3381-465: 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 the infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of
3450-696: The names of the state ministers of the Byzantine Empire and those church ministers who were involved in the laying of the foundation stone, the construction or the consecration of the church. The inscription attests to the veneration of Saint Christopher in Chalcedon in the 5th century. A nunnery in Galatia was consecrated to Saint Christopher around the year 600. The Museum of Sacred Art at Saint Justine's Church (Sveta Justina) in Rab , Croatia claims
3519-535: The phrase Si en San Cristóbal confías, de accidente no morirás ("If you trust St. Christopher, you won't die in an accident"). St. Christopher was a widely popular saint, especially revered by athletes, mariners , ferrymen , and travelers. He is revered as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers . He holds patronage of things related to travel and travelers—against lightning and pestilence —and patronage for archers ; bachelors ; boatmen; soldiers; bookbinders ; epilepsy ; floods; fruit dealers; fullers ; gardeners ;
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#17327733896763588-643: The regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek 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
3657-580: The saint, including Saint Christopher Island , the official name of the Caribbean island of Saint Kitts, and St. Christopher Island in Antarctica . Many places are named after the saint in other languages, for example Saint-Christophe is a common French place name; similarly, San Cristóbal is a place name in many Spanish-speaking or Spanish-influenced countries, and the São Cristóvão
3726-437: 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
3795-524: The whole world but Him who made it. I am Christ your king, whom you are serving by this work." The child then vanished. Christopher later visited Lycia and there comforted the Christians who were being martyred. Brought before the local king, he refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods. The king tried to win him by riches and by sending two beautiful women to tempt him. Christopher converted the women to Christianity, as he had already converted thousands in
3864-437: The women that sought to arouse in thee the fire of lust, and they followed thee in the path of martyrdom. And in torments thou didst prove to be courageous. Wherefore, we have gained thee as our great protector, O great Christopher. The Roman Martyrology remembers him on 25 July. The Tridentine calendar commemorates him on the same day only in private Masses . By 1954 his commemoration had been extended to all Masses, but it
3933-574: 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
4002-505: 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
4071-490: 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 is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and
4140-615: Was commonly accepted at the time that there were several types of races, the Cynocephalus, or dog-headed people, being one of many believed to populate the world. The German bishop and poet Walter of Speyer portrayed St. Christopher as a giant of a cynocephalic species in the land of the Chananeans who ate human flesh and barked. Eventually, Christopher met the Christ child, regretted his former behavior, and received baptism. He, too,
4209-460: Was dropped in 1970 as part of the general reorganization of the calendar of the Roman rite as mandated by the motu proprio , Mysterii Paschalis . His commemoration is of Roman tradition, in view of the relatively late date (about 1550) and limited manner in which it was accepted into the Roman calendar, but his feast continues to be observed locally. A stone inscription of 2 m × 1 m (6 ft 7 in × 3 ft 3 in)
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#17327733896764278-581: Was found in the ruins of a church in the ruins of the ancient city Chalcedon near present day Istanbul . The inscription bears witness to the laying of the foundation stone, the construction and the consecration of a church in the name of "Saint Christopher's Martyrdom". The inscription states that this Church of St Christopher dates back to the time of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, the Council of Chalcedon . The inscription also mentions
4347-431: Was initially called Reprobus . He was a Canaanite , 5 cubits (7.5 feet (2.3 m)) tall and with a fearsome face. While serving the king of Canaan, he took it into his head to go and serve "the greatest king there was". He went to the king who was reputed to be the greatest, but one day he saw the king cross himself at the mention of the devil. On thus learning that the king feared the devil , he departed to look for
4416-487: Was martyred in 308. Scholars have suggested that the Byzantine depiction of St. Christopher as dog-headed may have resulted from his identification as a member of the tribe of the Marmaritae who were a land of cannibals and dog-headed peoples. The Greek tradition interpreted this literally, which led to Byzantine icons often depicting St. Christopher with a dog's head. The Latin tradition in the opposite direction away from
4485-485: 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 the epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in
4554-426: Was rewarded with a human appearance, whereupon he devoted his life to Christian service and became an athlete of God , one of the soldier saints . 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
4623-580: 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
4692-637: 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 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
4761-673: 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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