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59-552: The term, strummolo , likely comes from the Greek word, strombos (στρόμβος) or strobilos (στρόβιλος), which means "swirl" (mulinello) or “object able to turn.” In the Domestic Neapolitan and Tuscan Vocabulary , compiled by Basilio Puoti , in 1841, the top is defined as a “wooden object shaped like a cone, with a metal point on top, that children use to play, making it turn with a string attached around it.” The top

118-577: 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,

177-535: A cappellaccio." This literally means a 'large hat' or figuratively, having made ‘a big mistake.’ The strummolo or spinning top , entered into the figurative Neapolitan language, giving rise to a series of idiomatic sayings. One common Neapolitan expression, typically said with exasperation, is o spavo è curto e 'o strummolo è a tiriteppola : which literally means the twine is short and the spinning top swerves from all sides, said to illustrate an entangled and irreparable combination of things that don't work. Another

236-558: 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

295-560: 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

354-540: 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

413-521: A resemblance. Because the date of the fragment was found to be around 1500 BCE, considerably earlier than Linear B, linguists determined that the Cypriot syllabary was derived from Linear A and not Linear B . Several other fragments of clay tablets were also found in Enkomi. They date to a later period, around the late 13th or 12th century BCE. The script found on these tablets has considerably evolved and

472-543: A significant part of Linear A. The earliest inscriptions are found on clay tablets. Parallel to the evolution of cuneiform , the signs soon became simple patterns of lines. There is no evidence of a Semitic influence due to trade, but this pattern seemed to have evolved as the result of habitual use. The structure of the Cypriot syllabary is very similar to that of Linear B . This is due to their common origin and underlying language (albeit different dialects). The Cypriot script contains 56 signs. Each sign generally stands for

531-496: A syllable in the spoken language: e.g. ka, ke, ki, ko, ku. Hence, it is classified as a syllabic writing system. Because each sign stands for an open syllable (CV) rather than a closed one (CVC), the Cypriot syllabary is also an 'open' syllabary. To see the glyphs above, you must have a compatible font installed, and your web browser must support Unicode characters in the U+10800–U+1083F range. The main difference between

590-469: Is " vedimmo si è 'o strummolo o 'a funicella " (let's see if it's the spinning top or the string), meaning let's try to understand what it is exactly that doesn't work. The expression " paré 'nu strummolo " (to be like a spinning top, a silly person) can be a friendly or joking way to tease someone. It can also be used as a homophony with and in the place of strùnz, a vulgar term to insult someone, meaning bastard . In Western Sicily , strummolo takes

649-540: Is a syllabic script used in Iron Age Cyprus , from about the 11th to the 4th centuries BCE, when it was replaced by the Greek alphabet . It has been suggested that the script remained in use as late as the 1st century BC. A pioneer of that change was King Evagoras of Salamis . It is thought to be descended from the Cypro-Minoan syllabary , itself a variant or derivative of Linear A . Most texts using

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708-804: 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

767-479: 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

826-673: Is called pirrùculu , while in Scorrano it is called fìtu . 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

885-562: Is inscribed on two sides, providing two lists of personal names with Greek formations. The broken marble fragment describes a fragment of an oath. This inscription often mentions King Nicocles , the last king of Paphos and includes some important words and expressions. Four inscribed objects were found in the British Museum stores, a silver cup from Kourion, a White Ware jug, and two limestone tablet fragments. The number of discoveries of new inscriptions has increased. However, most of

944-415: 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 ,

1003-519: 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

1062-401: Is ribbed horizontally, to make it easier to wind the string around it. Once the string is wound around the top, the child holds the end and puts the top in the palm of their hand. Then, with a quick movement of the wrist, he or she opens his or her hand and throws the top to the ground, still holding onto the string. This makes the top spin quickly on its metal handle. The point is clearly to make

1121-883: 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 Cypriot syllabary The Cypriot or Cypriote syllabary (also Classical Cypriot Syllabary)

1180-763: 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,

1239-674: 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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1298-624: 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

1357-627: 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

1416-495: 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

1475-516: 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

1534-657: 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

1593-492: 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

1652-527: The "Common" and the South-Western or "Paphian". The script was deciphered in the 19th century by George Smith due to the Idalion bilingual . Egyptologist Samuel Birch (1872), the numismatist Johannes Brandis (1873), the philologists Moritz Schmidt , Wilhelm Deecke , Justus Siegismund (1874) and the dialectologist H. L. Ahrens (1876) also contributed to decipherment. About 1,000 inscriptions in

1711-615: The Cypriot syllabary have been found throughout many different regions. However, these inscriptions vary greatly in length and credibility. Most inscriptions found are dated to be around the 6th century. There are no inscriptions known to be before the 8th century. Most of the tablets found are from funerary monuments and contained merely names of the deceased. A few dedicatory inscriptions were also found but of very little contribution to decipherment. The most important tablets are mainly found in Enkomi and Paphos . Efforts to collect and publish

1770-486: 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

1829-495: 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

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1888-629: 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

1947-685: 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

2006-404: 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),

2065-402: 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

2124-439: 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

2183-480: The known corpus began in the 1800s. In the 1900s the work was taken up by T. B. Mitford and Olivier Masson. Over the years a number of inaccuracies and duplications crept into the collects corpus. In 2015, Massimo Perna published a consolidated and corrected corpus totaling 1,397 inscriptions. The earliest dated inscription from Cyprus was discovered at Enkomi in 1955. It was a part of a thick clay tablet with only three lines of writing. Epigraphers immediately saw

2242-467: 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

2301-576: 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

2360-441: 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

2419-461: The most significant contribution to the decipherment of Cypriot syllabary – the Tablet of Idalium . It is a large bronze tablet with long inscriptions on both sides. The Tablet of Idalium is dated to about 480–470 BCE. Excluding a few features in morphology and vocabulary, the text is a complete and well-understood document. It details a contract made by the king Stasicyprus and the city of Idalium with

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2478-600: The name of strùmmula, strùmmalu , or strùmmulu , while in Eastern Sicily it is called tuppéttu . There are even many other less commonly used names, like paloggiu , which comes from the dialect from Messina . In Taranto , it takes the name of 'u currùchələ , which is derived from curru + rutulu or from the Latin, carruca. Similar terms, curutulu e curuddhu are used in Lecce . In Lizzano , however, it

2537-399: 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

2596-706: 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

2655-468: The physician Onasilus and his brothers. As payment for the physicians' care for wounded warriors during a Persian siege of the city, the king promises them certain plots of land. This agreement is put under the protection of the goddess Athena . Recent discoveries include a small vase dating back to the beginning of the 5th century BCE and a broken marble fragment in the Paphian (Paphos) script. The vase

2714-541: 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

2773-446: The representation of the manner of articulation . In the Linear B script, liquid sounds /l/ and /r/ are covered by one series, while there are separate series for the dentals /d/ and /t/. In the Cypriot syllabary, /d/ and /t/ are combined, whereas /l/ and /r/ are distinct. There are minor differences in the forms of the signs used in different sites. However, the syllabary can be subdivided into two different subtypes based on area:

2832-615: The script are in the Arcadocypriot dialect of Greek , but also one bilingual (Greek and Eteocypriot ) inscription was found in Amathus . It is thought that the Cypriot syllabary is derived from the Cypro-Minoan syllabary ; the latter is thought to be derived from the Linear A script, and certainly belongs to the circle of Aegean scripts . The most obvious change is the disappearance of ideograms, which were frequent and represented

2891-513: The signs have become simple patterns of lines. Linguists named this new script as Cypro-Minoan syllabary . Idalium was an ancient city in Cyprus, in modern Dali , Nicosia District. The city was founded on the copper trade in the 3rd millennium BCE. Its name in the 8th century BCE was "Ed-di-al" as it appears on the Sargon Stele of 707 BCE. From this area, archeologists found many of the later Cypriot syllabic scripts. In fact, Idalium held

2950-437: 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

3009-399: The top spin for the longest amount of time possible, and the game can be played alone or as a competition between more children. Besides the classic spinning top game illustrated above, Puoti also described the aliossi , ferri , naibi or coderone variations . When the throw wouldn't be successful and the top would fall sideways and wouldn't spin, they would use the expression, "to do

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3068-726: The two lies not in the structure of the syllabary but the use of the symbols. Final consonants in the Cypriot syllabary are marked by a final, silent e. For example, final consonants, n, s, and r are noted by using ne, re, and se. Groups of consonants are created using extra vowels. Diphthongs such as ae, au, eu, and ei are spelled out completely. However, nasal consonants that occur before another consonant are omitted completely. Compare Linear B 𐀀𐀵𐀫𐀦 ( a-to-ro-qo , reconstructed as * [án.tʰroː kʷos] ) to Cypriot 𐠀𐠰𐠦𐠡𐠩 ( a-to-ro-po-se , read right-to-left), both forms related to Attic Greek : ἄνθρωπος ( ánthrōpos ) "human". One other minor difference involves

3127-447: 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

3186-529: 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

3245-574: 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

3304-568: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of

3363-505: 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

3422-580: 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

3481-673: 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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