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107-457: Potnia ( Greek : πότνια , "mistress") is a poetic title of honour, used chiefly in addressing females, whether goddesses or women; its masculine analogue is posis ( πόσις ). Its hypothetical Proto-Indo-European (PIE) form * pot-nih a - , "mistress", "lady", "wife", is the feminine counterpart to *pótis , "husband"; cf. Latin ho spēs , "host", Sanskrit páti- , "master", "husband", fem. pátnī- , "lady", "wife". Potnia

214-586: A Linear B ( Mycenean Greek ) inscription ( PY En 609); the word 𐀅𐀔𐀳 , da-ma-te , probably refers to "households". On the other hand, 𐀯𐀵𐀡𐀴𐀛𐀊 , si-to-po-ti-ni-ja , " Potnia of the Grain", is regarded as referring to her Bronze Age predecessor or to one of her epithets . Demeter's character as mother-goddess is identified in the second element of her name meter ( μήτηρ ) derived from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *méh₂tēr (mother). In antiquity, different explanations were already proffered for

321-417: A Greek interpretation, but not necessarily an Indo-European one. Demeter was frequently associated with images of the harvest, including flowers, fruit, and grain. She was also sometimes pictured with her daughter Persephone. However, Demeter is not generally portrayed with any of her consorts; the exception is Iasion , the youth of Crete who lay with her in a thrice-ploughed field and was killed afterward by

428-577: 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,

535-492: A cave to mourn and to purify herself. She was consequently depicted with the head of a horse in this region. A sculpture of the Black Demeter was made by Onatas . In the earliest conceptions of Demeter she is the goddess of grain and threshing, however her functions were extended beyond the fields and she was often identified with the earth goddess ( Gaia ). Some of the epithets of Gaia and Demeter are similar showing

642-558: 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

749-560: 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

856-473: A field while she was picking flowers, with Zeus' leave. Demeter searched everywhere to find her missing daughter to no avail until she was informed that Hades had taken her to the Underworld. In response, Demeter neglected her duties as goddess of agriculture, plunging the earth into a deadly famine where nothing would grow, causing mortals to die. Zeus ordered Hades to return Persephone to her mother to avert

963-540: 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

1070-588: A form of agrarian magic. Theocritus described one of Demeter's earlier roles as that of a goddess of poppies: For the Greeks, Demeter was still a poppy goddess Bearing sheaves and poppies in both hands. Karl Kerényi asserted that poppies were connected with a Cretan cult which was eventually carried to the Eleusinian Mysteries in Classical Greece . In a clay statuette from Gazi,

1177-409: A horse's head holding a dove and dolphin, perhaps to symbolize her power over the Underworld, the air, and the water. The cult of Demeter in the region was related to Despoina , a very old chthonic divinity. Demeter shares the double function of death and fertility with her daughter Persephone. Demeter and Persephone were called Despoinai (the mistresses) and Demeters . This duality was also used in

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1284-633: A jealous Zeus with a thunderbolt. Demeter is assigned the zodiac constellation Virgo, the Virgin, by Marcus Manilius in his 1st-century Roman work Astronomicon. In art, the constellation Virgo holds Spica, a sheaf of wheat in her hand and sits beside constellation Leo the Lion. In Arcadia, she was known as "Black Demeter". She was said to have taken the form of a mare to escape the pursuit of her younger brother, Poseidon, and having been raped by him despite her disguise, she dressed all in black and retreated into

1391-483: A new plant arises from buried seed. This was most likely a belief shared by initiates in Demeter's mysteries, as interpreted by Pindar : "Blessed is he who has seen before he goes under the earth; for he knows the end of life and knows also its divine beginning." In Arcadia Demeter had the epithets Erinys (fury) and Melaina (black) which are associated with the myth of Demeter's rape by Poseidon. The epithets stress

1498-526: A number of tablets from Pylos, we find po-ti-ni-ja ( potnia ) without any accompanying word. Chadwick suggests that she was the mother-goddess of the Mycenaeans. It seems that she had an important shrine at the site Pakijanes near Pylos. Wanax ( wa-na-ka ) was her male companion in the Mycenean cult, and this title was usually applied to the god Poseidon ( po-se-da-o ). Another epithet of Poseidon

1605-505: A tablet refers to a-ta-na-po-ti-ni-ja , "potnia Athana ", a form similar to the later Homeric form. This divine title could be the translation of a similar title of Pre-Greek origin, just as the title "Our Lady" in Christianity is translated in several languages. The Pre-Greek name may be related to a-sa-sa-ra , a possible interpretation of some Linear A texts. Although Linear A is not yet deciphered, Palmer relates tentatively

1712-804: 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

1819-773: 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

1926-479: 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

2033-521: Is attested in the Linear B script in Mycenean Greek : 𐀡𐀴𐀛𐀊 po-ti-ni-ja . The word was inherited in classical Greek with the same meaning. A related Greek word is despoina ("Des-potnia" from PIE *dems-potnia meaning "mistress of the house"). An alternative etymology of the goddess Demeter comes through Potnia and Despoina ("Dems-meter", from PIE *dems-méh₂tēr , meaning "mother of

2140-519: 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

2247-984: 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 Demeter In ancient Greek religion and mythology , Demeter ( / d ɪ ˈ m iː t ər / ; Attic : Δημήτηρ Dēmḗtēr [dɛːmɛ́ːtɛːr] ; Doric : Δαμάτηρ Dāmā́tēr )

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2354-526: 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

2461-763: 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,

2568-650: 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

2675-700: Is the Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture , presiding over crops , grains , food , and the fertility of the earth. Although Demeter is mostly known as a grain goddess, she also appeared as a goddess of health, birth, and marriage, and had connections to the Underworld . She is also called Deo ( Δηώ Dēṓ ). In Greek tradition, Demeter is the second child of the Titans Rhea and Cronus , and sister to Hestia , Hera , Hades , Poseidon , and Zeus . Like her other siblings except Zeus, she

2782-437: Is the mother and the giver of food generally. This view is shared by British scholar Jane Ellen Harrison , who suggests that Démeter's name means Grain-Mother , instead of Earth-Mother . An alternative Proto-Indo-European etymology comes through Potnia and Despoina , where Des- represents a derivative of PIE *dem (house, dome), and Demeter is "mother of the house" (from PIE *dems-méh₂tēr ). R. S. P. Beekes rejects

2889-495: 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

2996-548: The Edict of Thessalonica and banned paganism throughout the Roman Empire , people throughout Greece continued to pray to Demeter as "Saint Demetra", patron saint of agriculture . Around 1765–1766, the antiquary Richard Chandler , alongside the architect Nicholas Revett and the painter William Pars , visited Eleusis and mentioned a statue of a caryatid as well as the folklore that surrounded it, they stated that it

3103-641: The Great Mother Rhea - Cybele who was worshipped in Crete and Asia Minor with the music of cymbals and violent rites. It seems that poppies were connected with the cult of the Great Mother. In epic poetry and Hesiod 's Theogony , Demeter is the Grain-Mother, the goddess of cereals who provides grain for bread and blesses its harvesters. In Homer 's Iliad , the blonde Demeter with

3210-516: 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

3317-631: The Minoan poppy goddess wears the seed capsules, sources of nourishment and narcosis, in her diadem. According to Kerényi, "It seems probable that the Great Mother Goddess who bore the names Rhea and Demeter, brought the poppy with her from her Cretan cult to Eleusis and it is almost certain that in the Cretan cult sphere opium was prepared from poppies." In an older tradition in Crete

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3424-492: 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

3531-410: The potnia . Potnia is almost always accompanied by an epithet characterizing a particular place or function of the mistress : po-ti-ni-ja,a-si-wi-ja ( a-si-wi-ja = ethnic adjective, possibly "Asian (Lydian) woman"), si-to-po-ti-ni-ja ( sitos = "grain", of wheat or barley; probably referring to Demeter or her predecessor), po-ti-ni-ja,i-qe-ja ( Potnia Hippeia , "Horse Goddess"). At Knossos

3638-575: The "potnia of the labyrinth", who probably presided over the palace of Knossos ( da-pu 2 -ri-to-jo, po-ti-ni-ja ). A famous Minoan seal impression found by Arthur Evans shows a nameless goddess brandishing a spear and standing upon the representation of a mountain flanked by rampant lions, and the representation seems similar to the Homeric potnia theron (the mistress of the animals). Several tablets in Linear B script found at Knossos and Pylos refer to

3745-402: The "queens" (wa-na-ssoi). Both Homer and Hesiod, writing c. 700 BC, described Demeter making love with the agricultural hero Iasion in a ploughed field during the marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia . According to Hesiod, this union resulted in the birth of Plutus . According to Diodorus Siculus , in his Bibliotheca historica written in the 1st century BC, Demeter and Zeus were also

3852-470: 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

3959-525: The Arcadian cults. According to Pausanias at Olympia they were called Despoinai ("mistresses", plural of Despoina ). Demeter and Persephone were also called "Demeteres" as duplicates of the earth goddess with a double function as chthonic and vegetation goddesses. Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ )

4066-577: The Athenian rhetorician Isocrates , Demeter's greatest gifts to humankind were agriculture which gave to men a civilized way of life, and the Mysteries which give the initiate higher hopes in this life and the afterlife. These two gifts were intimately connected in Demeter's myths and mystery cults. Demeter is the giver of mystic rites and the giver of the civilized way of life (teaching the laws of agriculture). Her epithet Eleusinia relates her with

4173-551: The Eleusinian mysteries, however at Sparta Eleusinia had an early use, and it was probably a name rather than an epithet. Demeter Thesmophoros (law-giving) is closely associated to the laws of cereal agriculture. The festival Thesmophoria was celebrated throughout Greece and was connected to a form of agrarian magic. Near Pheneus in Arcadia she was known as Demeter- Thesmia (lawfull), and she received rites according to

4280-486: 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

4387-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than

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4494-495: 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

4601-629: 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

4708-685: 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

4815-555: The Homeric "Mother Earth arοura " who gave the gift of cereals ( zeai or deai ). Most of the epithets of Demeter describe her as a goddess of grain. Her name Deo in literature probably relates her with deai a Cretan word for cereals. In Attica she was called Haloas (of the threshing floor) according to the earliest conception of Demeter as the Corn-Mother. She was sometimes called Chloe (ripe-grain or fresh-green) and sometimes Ioulo (ioulos : grain sheaf). Chloe

4922-575: The Illyrian god Dei-paturos ( dei- , "sky", attached to - paturos, "father"). The Lesbian form Dō- may simply reflect a different colloquial pronunciation of the non-Greek name. Another theory suggests that the element De - might be connected with Deo , an epithet of Demeter and it could derive from the Cretan word dea ( δηά ), Ionic zeia ( ζειά )—variously identified with emmer , spelt , rye , or other grains by modern scholars—so that she

5029-532: The King": wa-na-ssoi , wa-na-ka-te ). The "Two Queens" may be related to Demeter and Persephone or their precursors, goddesses who were no longer associated with Poseidon in later periods. In Pylos potnia (mistress) is the major goddess of the city and "wanax " in the tablets has a similar nature with her male consort in the Minoan cult. Potnia retained some chthonic cults, and in popular religion these were related to

5136-486: The Linear B inscription E-ne-si-da-o-ne , "earth-shaker". John Chadwick also argues that the dā element in the name of Demeter is not so simply equated with "earth". M. L. West has proposed that the word Demeter, initially Damater , could be a borrowing from an Illyrian deity attested in the Messapic goddess Damatura , with a form dā- ("earth", from PIE *dʰǵʰ(e)m- ) attached to - matura ("mother"), akin to

5243-546: The Pessinuntian Mother of the gods; ... the ancient Eleusinians Actaean Ceres; ... and the Egyptians who excel in ancient learning, honour me with the worship which is truly mine and call me by my true name: Queen Isis. Alongside the rest of her siblings, with the exception of her youngest brother Zeus, she was swallowed as a newborn by her father due to his fear of being overthrown by one of his children; she

5350-567: The Underworld by Hades . At the Aventine, the new cult took its place alongside the old. It did not refer to Liber, whose open and gender-mixed cult played a central role in plebeian culture as a patron and protector of plebeian rights, freedoms and values. The exclusively female initiates and priestesses of the new " greek style " mysteries of Ceres and Proserpina were expected to uphold Rome's traditional, patrician -dominated social hierarchy and traditional morality . Unmarried girls should emulate

5457-404: 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),

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5564-413: The ages, highest of the gods, queen of the shades, first of those who dwell in heaven, representing in one shape all gods and goddesses. My will controls the shining heights of heaven, the health-giving sea winds, and the mournful silences of hell; the entire world worships my single godhead in a thousand shapes, with divers rites, and under many a different name. The Phrygians, first-born of mankind, call me

5671-507: The altar were called "ompniai" and in Attica the goddess was known as Ompnia (related to corns). These cakes were oferred to all gods. In some fests big loafs ( artoi ) were offered to the goddess and in Boeotia she was known as Megalartos (of the big loaf) and Megalomazos (of the big mass, or big porridge). Her function was extended to vegetation generally and to all fruits and she had

5778-402: 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

5885-548: The chastity of Proserpina, the maiden; married women should seek to emulate Ceres, the devoted and fruitful mother. Their rites were intended to secure a good harvest and increase the fertility of those who partook in the mysteries. Beginning in the 5th century BCE in Asia Minor , Demeter was also considered equivalent to the Phrygian goddess Cybele . Demeter's festival of Thesmophoria was popular throughout Asia Minor, and

5992-441: The classical period ( Thesmophoroi , Double named goddesses ) and particularly in an oath: "By the two goddesses". In the cult of Phlya she was worshipped as Anesidora who sends up gifts from the Underworld. In Sparta, she was known as Demeter- Chthonia (chthonic Demeter). After each death the mourning should end with a sacrifice to the goddess. Pausanias believes that her cult was introduced from Hermione , where Demeter

6099-408: The darker side of her character and her relation to the dark underworld, in an old chthonic cult associated with wooden structures (xoana). Erinys had a similar function with the avenging Dike (Justice). In the mysteries of Pheneus the goddess was known as Cidaria . Her priest would put on the mask of Demeter, which was kept secret. The cult may have been connected with both the Underworld and

6206-533: The disaster. However, because Persephone had eaten food from the Underworld, she could not stay with Demeter forever, but had to divide the year between her mother and her husband, explaining the seasonal cycle as Demeter does not let plants grow while Persephone is gone. Her cult titles include Sito ( Σιτώ ), "she of the Grain", as the giver of food or grain, and Thesmophoros ( θεσμός , thesmos : divine order, unwritten law; φόρος , phoros : bringer, bearer), "giver of customs" or "legislator", in association with

6313-469: The earliest Amphictyony centred on the cult of Demeter at Anthele (Ἀνθήλη), lay on the coast of Malis south of Thessaly, near Thermopylae. Mysian Demeter had a seven-day festival at Pellené in Arcadia. The geographer Pausanias passed the shrine to Mysian Demeter on the road from Mycenae to Argos and reports that according to Argive tradition, the shrine was founded by an Argive named Mysius who venerated Demeter. Even after Theodosius I issued

6420-404: 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

6527-558: The end of the Second Punic War . The cult originated in southern Italy (part of Magna Graecia ) and was probably based on the Thesmophoria, a mystery cult dedicated to Demeter and Persephone as "Mother and Maiden". It arrived along with its Greek priestesses, who were granted Roman citizenship so that they could pray to the gods "with a foreign and external knowledge, but with a domestic and civil intention". The new cult

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6634-618: 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

6741-414: The epithets eukarpos (of good crop), karpophoros (bringer of fruits), malophoros (apple bearer) and sometimes Oria (all the fruits of the season). These epithets show an identity in nature with the earth goddess. The central theme in the Eleusinian Mysteries was the reunion of Persephone with her mother, Demeter when new crops were reunited with the old seed, a form of eternity. According to

6848-527: The first element of her name. It is possible that Da ( Δᾶ ), a word which corresponds to Gē ( Γῆ ) in Attic, is the Doric form of De ( Δῆ ), "earth", the old name of the chthonic earth-goddess, and that Demeter is "Mother-Earth". Liddell & Scott find this "improbable" and Beekes writes, "there is no indication that [ da ] means "earth", although it has also been assumed in the name of Poseidon found in

6955-452: 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

7062-585: The form of a snake, explaining the origin of the symbol on Hermes ' staff. Their daughter is said to be Persephone, whom Zeus, in turn, mates with to conceive Dionysus . According to the Orphic fragments, "After becoming the mother of Zeus, she who was formerly Rhea became Demeter." There is some evidence that the figures of the Queen of the Underworld and the daughter of Demeter were initially considered separate goddesses. However, they must have become conflated by

7169-702: The goddess Demeter. In Greek religion potniai (mistresses) appear in plural (like the Erinyes) and are closely related to the Eleusinian Demeter. Major cults to Demeter are known at Eleusis in Attica, Hermion (in Crete), Megara , Celeae, Lerna , Aegila , Munychia , Corinth , Delos , Priene , Akragas , Iasos , Pergamon , Selinus , Tegea , Thoricus , Dion (in Macedonia) Lykosoura , Mesembria , Enna , and Samothrace . Probably

7276-463: The goddess of childbirth, who was involved with the annual birth of the divine child. Elements of this early form of worship survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the following words were uttered: "the mighty Potnia had born a strong son." Tablets from Pylos of c.  1400  – c.  1200 BC record sacrificial goods destined for "the Two Queens and Poseidon" ("to the Two Queens and

7383-473: The heart of both festivals were myths concerning Demeter as the mother and Persephone as her daughter. In the Roman period, Demeter became conflated with the Roman agricultural goddess Ceres through interpretatio romana . The worship of Demeter has formally merged with that of Ceres around 205 BC, along with the ritus graecia cereris , a Greek-inspired form of cult, as part of Rome's general religious recruitment of deities as allies against Carthage, towards

7490-412: The help of the wind separates the grain from the chaff. Homer mentions the Thalysia a Greek harvest-festival of first fruits in honour of Demeter . In Hesiod, prayers to Zeus-Chthonios (chthonic Zeus ) and Demeter help the crops grow full and strong. This was her main function at Eleusis , and she became panhellenic. In Cyprus , "grain-harvesting" was damatrizein . Demeter was the zeidoros arοura ,

7597-461: The house"). Potnia is possibly also etymologically related to Ptgyh , an attested Philistine goddess. The figure of a goddess of nature, of birth and death was dominant during the Bronze Age, in both Minoan and Mycenean cults. In the Mycenean cult she was known by the title Potnia. The earliest references to the title are inscriptions in Linear B ( Mycenean Greek ) syllabic script found at Pylos and at Knossos , Crete , dated 1450-1300 BC. On

7704-428: The identity of their nature. In most of her myths and cults, Demeter is the "Grain-Mother" or the "Earth-Mother". In the older chthonic cults the earth goddess was related to the Underworld and in the secret rites (mysteries) Demeter and Persephone share the double function of death and fertility. Demeter is the giver of the secret rites and the giver of the laws of cereal agriculture. She was occasionally identified with

7811-439: 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

7918-414: 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

8025-424: The local version. Demeter's emblem is the poppy, a bright red flower that grows among the barley. In addition to her role as an agricultural goddess, Demeter was often worshipped more generally as a goddess of the earth, from which crops spring up. Her individuality was rooted to the less developed personality of Gaia (earth). In Arcadia Demeter Melaina (the black Demeter) was represented as snake-haired with

8132-640: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek

8239-441: 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

8346-455: The myth of Persephone and Adonis in many ways mirrors the myth of Cybele and Attis . Some late antique sources syncretized several "great goddess" figures into a single deity. For example, the Platonist philosopher Apuleius , writing in the late 2nd century, identified Ceres (Demeter) with Isis, having her declare: I, mother of the universe, mistress of all the elements, first-born of

8453-399: 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

8560-536: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It

8667-706: 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

8774-544: The parents of Dionysus. Diodorus described the myth of Dionysus' double birth (once from the earth, i.e. Demeter, when the plant sprouts) and once from the vine (when the fruit sprouts from the plant). Diodorus also related a version of the myth of Dionysus' destruction by the Titans ("sons of Gaia "), who boiled him, and how Demeter gathered up his remains so that he could be born a third time (Diod. iii.62). Diodorus states that Dionysus' birth from Zeus and his older sister Demeter

8881-420: The potnia of the labyrinth da-pu-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja . Poseidon was often given the title wa-na-ka ( wanax ) in Linear B inscriptions in his role as King of the Underworld, and his title E-ne-si-da-o-ne indicates his chthonic nature. He was the male companion (paredros) of the goddess in the Minoan and probably Mycenean cult. In the cave of Amnisos , Enesidaon is associated with the cult of Eileithyia ,

8988-447: The secret female-only festival called the Thesmophoria. Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sacred law and the cycle of life and death. She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries , a religious tradition that predated the Olympian pantheon and which may have its roots in the Mycenaean period c.  1400 –1200 BC. Demeter

9095-437: 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

9202-739: The time of Hesiod in the 7th century BC. Demeter and Persephone were often worshipped together and were often referred to by joint cultic titles. In their cult at Eleusis, they were referred to simply as "the goddesses", usually distinguished as "the older" and "the younger"; in Rhodes and Sparta , they were worshipped as "the Demeters"; in the Thesmophoria, they were known as "the thesmophoroi" ("the legislators"). In Arcadia they were known as "the Great Goddesses" and "the mistresses". In Mycenaean Pylos, Demeter and Persephone were probably called

9309-477: The vegetation cult was related with the deity of the cave. During the Bronze Age, a goddess of nature dominated both in Minoan and Mycenean cults. In the Linear B inscriptions po-ti-ni-ja (potnia) refers to the goddess of nature who was concerned with birth and vegetation and had certain chthonic apects. Some scholars believe that she was the universal mother goddess. A Linear B inscription at Knossos mentions

9416-464: The word a-sa-sa-ra-me which seems to have accompanied goddesses, with the Hittite išhaššara , which means "lady or mistress", and especially with išhaššaramis (my lady). In classical Greece the title potnia is usually applied to the goddesses Demeter , Artemis , Athena , and Persephone . This title was also given to the earth goddess Gaia (Ge). A similar title Despoina , "the mistress",

9523-471: Was e-ne-si-da-o-ne ("earth-shaker") and in the cave of Amnisos (Crete) Enesidaon is related to the cult of Eileithyia . She was a goddess of nature concerned with the annual birth of the divine child. Potnia and her male companion ( paredros ) survived in the Eleusinian cult , where the following words were uttered : "Mighty Potnia has born a strong son". An inscription from Knossos refers to

9630-574: 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

9737-568: 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

9844-557: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe

9951-433: Was associated with Hades . In a local legend a hollow in the earth was the entrance to the underworld, by which the souls could pass easily. In Elis she was called Demeter- Chamyne (goddess of the ground), in an old chthonic cult associated with the descent to Hades. At Levadia the goddess was known as Demeter- Europa and she was associated with Trophonius , an old divinity of the underworld. The oracle of Trophonius

10058-459: Was considered sacred by the locals because it protected their crops. They called the statue "Saint Demetra", a saint whose story had many similarities to the myth of Demeter and Persephone, except that her daughter had been abducted by the Turks and not by Hades . The locals covered the statue with flowers to ensure the fertility of their fields. This tradition continued until 1865, when the statue

10165-469: Was famous in the antiquity. Pindar uses the rare epithet Chalkokrotos (bronze sounding). Brazen musical instruments were used in the mysteries of Demeter and the Great-Mother Rhea - Cybele was also worshipped with the music of cymbals. In central Greece Demeter was known as Amphictyonis (of the dwellers-round), in a cult of the goddess at Anthele near Thermopylae (hot gates). She

10272-598: Was forcibly removed by Edward Daniel Clarke and donated to the University of Cambridge . The statue is now located in the Fitzwilliam Museum , the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. Demeter's two major festivals were sacred mysteries . Her Thesmophoria festival (11–13 October) was women-only. Her Eleusinian mysteries were open to initiates of any gender or social class. At

10379-462: Was given to the nameless goddess of the mysteries of Arcadian cult, later conflated with Kore ( Persephone ), the goddess of the Eleusinian Mysteries . Homer in the Iliad (xxi 470) mentions a potnia theron ("mistress of the animals") who is obviously Artemis. Karl Kerenyi identifies Persephone with the nameless "mistress of the labyrinth". Demeter and Persephone were the two great goddesses of

10486-476: Was installed in the already ancient Temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera , Rome's Aventine patrons of the plebs ; from the end of the 3rd century BC, Demeter's temple at Enna, in Sicily , was acknowledged as Ceres' oldest, most authoritative cult centre, and Libera was recognized as Proserpina, Roman equivalent to Persephone. Their joint cult recalls Demeter's search for Persephone after the latter's abduction into

10593-498: Was later freed when Zeus made Cronus disgorge all of his children by giving him a special potion. Demeter is notable as the mother of Persephone, described by both Hesiod and in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter as the result of a union with her younger brother Zeus. An alternate recounting of the matter appears in a fragment of the lost Orphic theogony, which preserves part of a myth in which Zeus mates with his mother, Rhea , in

10700-511: Was often considered to be the same figure as the Anatolian goddess Cybele , and she was identified with the Roman goddess Ceres . Demeter may appear in Linear A as da-ma-te on three documents ( AR Zf 1 and 2, and KY Za 2), all three dedicated to religious situations and all three bearing just the name ( i-da-ma-te on AR Zf 1 and 2). It is unlikely that Demeter appears as da-ma-te in

10807-412: Was said to be the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon. According to Pausanias, a Thelpusian tradition said that during Demeter's search for Persephone, Poseidon pursued her. Demeter turned into a horse to avoid her younger brother's advances. However, he turned into a stallion and mated with the goddess, resulting in the birth of the horse god Arion and a daughter "whose name they are not wont to divulge to

10914-430: Was somewhat of a minority belief, possibly via conflation of Demeter with her daughter, as most sources state that the parents of Dionysus were Zeus and Persephone, and later Zeus and Semele. Hesiod's Theogony (c. 700 BC) describes Demeter as the second daughter of Cronus and Rhea , and the sister of Hestia , Hera , Hades , Poseidon , and Zeus . In Arcadia, a major Arcadian deity known as Despoina ("Mistress")

11021-428: Was swallowed by her father as an infant and rescued by Zeus. Through her brother Zeus, she became the mother of Persephone , a fertility goddess and resurrection deity . One of the most notable Homeric Hymns , the Homeric Hymn to Demeter , tells the story of Persephone's abduction by Hades and Demeter's search for her. When Hades, the King of the Underworld, wished to make Persephone his wife, he abducted her from

11128-452: Was the goddess of young corn and young vegetation and "Iouloi" were harvest songs in honour of the goddess. The reapers called Demeter Amallophoros (bringer of sheaves) and Amaia (reaper). The goddess was the giver of abundance of food and she was known as Sito (of the grain) and Himalis (of abundance ). The bread from the first harvest-fruits was called thalysian bread ( Thalysia ) in honour of Demeter. The sacrificial cakes burned on

11235-400: Was the patron goddess of an ancient Amphictyony . Thermopylae is the place of hot springs considered to be entrances to Hades , since Demeter was a chthonic goddess in the older local cults. The Athenians called the dead "Demetrioi", and this may reflect a link between Demeter and the ancient cult of the dead, linked to the agrarian belief that a new life would sprout from the dead body, as

11342-580: 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

11449-673: 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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