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70-689: A peltast ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : πελταστής , peltastes ) was a type of light infantry originating in Thrace and Paeonia and named after the kind of shield he carried. Thucydides mentions the Thracian peltasts, while Xenophon in the Anabasis distinguishes the Thracian and Greek peltast troops. The peltast often served as a skirmisher in Hellenistic armies. In the Middle Ages ,

140-577: 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

210-497: A Spartan phalanx in the Battle of Lechaeum in 390 BC, using mostly peltasts . In the account of Diodorus Siculus , Iphicrates is credited with re-arming his men with long spears, perhaps in around 374 BC. This reform may have produced a type of " peltast " armed with a small shield, a sword, and a spear instead of javelins. Some authorities, such as J.G.P. Best , state that these later " peltasts " were not truly peltasts in

280-577: 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,

350-478: A charge from the Persian cavalry, they opened their ranks and allowed the cavalry through while striking them with swords and hurling javelins at them. Peltasts became the main type of Greek mercenary infantry in the 4th century BC. Their equipment was less expensive than that of traditional hoplites and would have been more readily available to poorer members of society. The Athenian general Iphicrates destroyed

420-464: A civil war had taken place at Corinth, in which a group of pro-Spartan oligarchs was defeated and exiled by anti-Spartan democrats. Those exiles cooperated with Spartan forces in the region to gain control of Lechaeum , Corinth's port on the Corinthian Gulf . They then repulsed several attacks by the democrats based at Corinth and their Theban and Argive allies and secured their hold over

490-508: 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

560-590: 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

630-400: 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

700-459: 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 ,

770-496: A phalanx. Though it may seem strange for a unit that would fight in phalanx formation to be called peltasts , pelte would not be an inappropriate name for a Macedonian shield. They may have been similarly equipped with the Iphicratean hoplites or peltasts , as described by Diodorus. Peltasts were usually deployed on the flanks of the phalanx , providing a link with any cavalry, or in rough or broken ground. For example, in

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840-485: A policy or reform). The Lykian sarcophagas of Payava from about 400 BC depicts a soldier carrying a round pelte , but using a thrusting spear overarm. He wears a pilos helmet with cheekpieces, but no armour. His equipment therefore resembles Iphicrates's supposed new troops. Fourth-century BC peltasts also seem to have sometimes worn both helmets and linen armour . Alexander the Great employed peltasts drawn from

910-410: A shorter version of the kontarion spear employed by contemporary Byzantine heavy infantry. 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

980-460: 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

1050-404: A throw. In Archaic Greece , the Greek martial tradition had been focused almost exclusively on the heavy infantry, or hoplites . The style of fighting used by peltasts originated in Thrace , and the first Greek peltasts were recruited from the Greek cities of the Thracian coast. They are generally depicted on vases and in other images as wearing the typical Thracian costume, which includes

1120-683: 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

1190-820: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Battle of Lechaeum In 392 BC,

1260-763: 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,

1330-632: 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

1400-606: Is usually shown as crescent-shaped. It also appears in Scythian art and may have been a common type in Central Europe. The shield could be carried with a central strap and a handgrip near the rim or with just a central hand-grip. It may also have had a carrying strap (or guige ), as Thracian peltasts slung their shields on their backs when evading the enemy. Peltasts weapons consisted of several javelins , which may have had straps to allow more force to be applied to

1470-516: The Hellenica , Xenophon writes 'When Dercylidas learned this (that a Persian army was nearby), he ordered his officers to form their men in line, eight ranks deep (the hoplite phalanx), as quickly as possible, and to station the peltasts on either wing along with the cavalry. They could also operate in support of other light troops, such as archers and slingers. When faced with hoplites, peltasts operated by throwing javelins at short range. If

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1540-623: The History of the Peloponnesian War , writes They (the Spartan hoplites) themselves were held up by the weapons shot at them from both flanks by the light troops. Though they (the hoplites) drove back the light troops at any point in which they ran in and approached too closely, they (the light troops) still fought back even in retreat, since they had no heavy equipment and could easily outdistance their pursuers over ground where, since

1610-562: 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

1680-726: The Byzantine army of the Komnenian period in the late 11th and 12th centuries. Although the peltasts of Antiquity were light skirmish infantry armed with javelins, it is not safe to assume that the troops given this name in the Byzantine period were identical in function. Byzantine peltasts were sometimes described as "assault troops". Byzantine peltasts appear to have been relatively lightly equipped soldiers capable of great battlefield mobility, who could skirmish but who were equally capable of close combat. Their arms may have included

1750-657: 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

1820-516: 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

1890-808: The Paphlagonians and Phrygians wore wicker helmets and native boots reaching halfway to the knee. They carried small shields, short spears, javelins and daggers. From the mid-5th century BC onwards, peltast soldiers began to appear in Greek depictions of Persian troops. They were equipped like Greek and Thracian peltasts , but were dressed in typically Persian army uniforms. They often carried light axes, known as sagaris , as sidearms. It has been suggested that these troops were known in Persian as takabara and their shields as taka . The Persians may have been influenced by Greek and Thracian peltasts . Another alternative source of influence would have been

1960-473: The Third Macedonian War , this went up to 5,000 (most likely to accommodate the elite agema , which was a sub-unit in the peltast corps). The fact that they are always mentioned as being in their thousands suggests that, in terms of organization, the peltasts were organized into chiliarchies . This elite corps was most likely of the same status, of similar equipment and role as Alexander

2030-652: 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

2100-468: 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

2170-417: 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,

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2240-566: 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

2310-648: The Anatolian hill tribes, such as the Corduene , Mysians or Pisidians . In Greek sources, these troops were either called peltasts or peltophoroi (bearers of pelte ). In the Hellenistic period , the Antigonid kings of Macedon had an elite corps of native Macedonian peltasts . However, this force should not be confused with the skirmishing peltasts discussed earlier. The peltasts were probably, according to F.W. Walbank, about 3,000 in number, although by

2380-573: The Great's hypaspists . Within this corps of peltasts was its elite formation, the Agema . These troops were used on forced marches by Philip V of Macedon , which suggests that they were lightly equipped and mobile. However, at the battle of Pydna in 168 BC, Livy remarks on how the Macedonian peltasts defeated the Paeligni and of how this shows the dangers of going directly at the front of

2450-544: 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

2520-549: 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

2590-468: The Spartans, seeing these two developments, broke and ran for the boats, pursued by the peltasts all the way. In all, 250 of the 600 men in the regiment were killed. News of the Spartan defeat was a profound shock to Agesilaus, who soon returned home to Sparta. In the months following Agesilaus' departure, Iphicrates reversed many of the gains that the Spartans had made near Corinth, recapturing three of

2660-681: The Thracian tribes to the north of Macedonia, particularly the Agrianoi . In the 3rd century BC, peltasts were gradually replaced with thureophoroi infantrymen. Later references to peltasts may not in fact refer to their style of equipment as the word peltast became a synonym for mercenary . A tradition of fighting with javelins, light shield and sometimes a spear existed in Anatolia and several contingents armed like this appeared in Xerxes I 's army that invaded Greece in 480 BC. For example,

2730-404: 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),

2800-479: 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

2870-506: The bulk of his army, he left a sizable force at Lechaeum to guard the port. Part of this force was composed of men from the city of Amyclae , who traditionally returned home for a certain religious festival when on campaign. With this festival approaching, the Spartan commander at Lechaeum marched out with a force of hoplites and cavalry to escort the Amyclaeans past Corinth on their way home. After successfully leading his force well past

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2940-457: The city, the commander ordered his hoplites to turn and return to Lechaeum, while the cavalry continued on with the Amyclaeans. Although he would be marching near the walls of Corinth, he expected no trouble, believing that the men in the city were thoroughly cowed and unwilling to confront him. The Athenian commanders in Corinth, Iphicrates, who commanded the peltasts, and Callias, who commanded

3010-796: 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 ,

3080-441: 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

3150-431: The distinctive Phrygian cap made of fox-skin and with ear flaps. They also usually wore patterned tunics, fawnskin boots and long cloaks, called zeiras , decorated with a bright, geometric, pattern. However, many mercenary peltasts were probably recruited in Greece. Some vases have also been found showing hoplites (men wearing Corinthian helmets , greaves and cuirasses , holding hoplite spears) carrying peltes . Often,

3220-528: 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

3290-412: 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

3360-471: The first charge (by the Greek troops), but had instead charged along the river through the Greek peltasts . However he did not kill a single man as he passed through. The Greeks opened their ranks (to allow the Persian cavalry through) and proceeded to deal blows (with swords) and throw javelins at them as they went through. Xenophon's description makes it clear that these peltasts were armed with swords, as well as javelins, but not with spears. When faced with

3430-510: The hoplites charged, the peltasts would retreat. As they carried considerably lighter equipment than the hoplites, they were usually able to evade successfully, especially in difficult terrain. They would then return to the attack once the pursuit ended, if possible, taking advantage of any disorder created in the hoplites' ranks. At the Battle of Sphacteria , the Athenian forces included 800 archers and at least 800 peltasts . Thucydides , in

3500-483: The hoplites in pursuit, instead of racing ahead to ride down the fleeing peltasts. Unable to drive off the peltasts, and suffering losses all the while, the Spartans were driven back to a hilltop overlooking Lechaeum. The men in Lechaeum, seeing their predicament, sailed out in small boats to as close as to the hill as they could reach, about a half mile away. The Athenians, meanwhile, began to bring up their hoplites, and

3570-528: The hoplites, saw that an entire Spartan mora , or regiment, of 600 men was marching past the city unprotected by either peltasts or cavalry, and decided to take advantage of this. Accordingly, the Athenian hoplites formed up just outside Corinth, while the peltasts pursued the Spartan hoplites, flinging javelins at them. To stop this, the Spartan commander ordered some of his men to charge the Athenians, but

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3640-449: 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

3710-467: 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

3780-452: 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

3850-465: 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

3920-602: The mythical Amazons (women warriors) are shown with peltast equipment. Peltasts gradually became more important in Greek warfare, in particular during the Peloponnesian War . Xenophon , in the Anabasis , describes peltasts in action against Achaemenid cavalry at the Battle of Cunaxa in 401 BC, where they were serving as part of the mercenary force of Cyrus the Younger . Tissaphernes had not fled at

3990-401: The peltasts fell back, easily outrunning the hoplites, and then, when the Spartans turned to rejoin their unit, the peltasts followed them and continued to throw their javelins, inflicting several casualties. This process was repeated several times, with similar results. Even when a group of Spartan cavalrymen arrived, the Spartan commander made the curious decision that they should keep pace with

4060-535: The place had been uninhabited until then, the going was rough and difficult. When fighting other types of light troops, peltasts were able to close more aggressively in melee , as they had the advantage of possessing shields, swords, and helmets. A type of infantryman called a peltast ( peltastēs ) is described in the Strategikon , a 6th-century AD military treatise associated with the early Byzantine emperor Maurice . Peltasts were especially prominent in

4130-505: The port. The Athenians then sent a force to assist in defending Corinth, with Iphicrates commanding the peltasts. The Spartans and the exiles, meanwhile, raided Corinthian territory from Lechaeum, and in 391 BC King Agesilaus led a large Spartan army to the area and captured several strongpoints. The Athenians and their allies were largely bottled up in Corinth, but eventually found an opportunity to take advantage of Spartan negligence. While Agesilaus moved about Corinthian territory with

4200-643: 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

4270-400: The same term was used for a type of Byzantine infantryman. Peltasts carried a crescent-shaped wicker shield called a " pelte " ( Ancient Greek πέλτη , peltē ; Latin: pelta ) as their main protection, hence their name. According to Aristotle , the pelte was rimless and covered in goat- or sheepskin. Some literary sources imply that the shield could be round, but in art it

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4340-437: 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

4410-627: The traditional sense, but lightly armored hoplites carrying the pelte shield in conjunction with longer spears—a combination that has been interpreted as a direct ancestor to the Macedonian phalanx . However, thrusting spears are included in some illustrations of peltasts before the time of Iphicrates and some peltasts may have carried them as well as javelins rather than as a replacement for them. As no battle accounts describe peltasts using thrusting spears, it may be that they were sometimes carried by individuals by choice (rather than as part of

4480-515: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or

4550-557: 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

4620-556: 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

4690-485: 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

4760-580: 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

4830-637: 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

4900-673: 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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