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73-548: The village is special in the respect that it is the only settlement in Cyprus still inhabited by both its original Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot inhabitants. 850 of the inhabitants are Greek Cypriots and 487 are Turkish Cypriots. The village has three churches and one mosque . Pyla- Kokkinokremos is an archaeological site dating to the Late Bronze Age . Pyla is among the oldest villages in Cyprus. The village

146-577: 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,

219-471: A campus in the village, the only British university to have a site on the island. Pyla Tourist Area is the area that neighbours the sea and belongs to the administrative division of the village of Pyla. Several of the most luxurious hotels in Cyprus are located in the tourist area of Pyla, such as: Golden Bay, Lordos Beach and Sandy Beach. This strip is lined with a mix of taverns and restaurants, as well as tourist shops and boutiques, which all run parallel to

292-558: 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

365-560: 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

438-540: 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

511-547: A high standard of living. Economic modernization created a more flexible and open society and caused Greek Cypriots to share the concerns and hopes of other secularized West European societies. The Republic of Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, officially representing the entire island, but suspended for the time being in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus . Greeks in Cyprus number 659,115, according to

584-832: A result of a common ancient Greek ( Achaean ) genetic contribution, while Lebanese affinity can be explained through several migrations that took place from coastal Levant to Cyprus from the Neolithic (early farmers), the Iron Age (Phoenicians), and the Middle Ages (Maronites and other Levantine settlers during the Frankish era). The authors note however that the Calabrian samples used in the analysis were relatively small (n = 30 comparative dataset, n = 74 YHRD) and thus these results should be interpreted with caution. Furthermore, from

657-557: A road attempted to be built by the Turkish authorities in the island, which plans to connect the village of Arsos that lies within the occupied side to the village of Pyla in the buffer zone, bypassing the road in the northeast that passes through British military base checkpoints. UNFICYP, citing its duty to maintain the status quo, stated its intentions to halt and stop the road construction through peaceful means. Footage that reached media outlets and social media reflects UN jeeps blocking

730-552: A wide and homogeneous genetic domain, along with the people of the Aegean Islands (including Crete ), Sicily , and southern Italy (including the Greek-speaking minorities of Apulia and Calabria), while the continental part of Greece, including Peloponnesus, appears as slightly differentiated, by clustering with the other Southern Balkan populations of Albania and Kosovo. The study calls this distinct genetic domain,

803-741: 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

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876-773: 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

949-479: 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

1022-519: 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

1095-631: Is protected from above by my God, Hellenism will be lost, only when the world is gone." Archbishop Kyprianos' fictional response to Kucuk Mehmet's threat to execute the Greek Orthodox Christian bishops of Cyprus, in Vasilis Michaelides epic poem "The 9th of July of 1821 in Nicosia, Cyprus", written in 1884–1895. The poem is considered a key literary expression of Greek Cypriot Enosis sentiment. During

1168-526: 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

1241-763: 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,

1314-650: 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

1387-481: Is the low frequency of haplogroups I, R1a among Greek Cypriots because the mainland Greek population has received considerable migrations during the Byzantine era and the Middle Ages from other Balkanic populations, such as Slavs, Aromanians (Vlachs), and Albanians (Arvanites), while the biggest differentiating characteristic between Greek Cypriots and Middle Easterners is the much lower frequency of haplogroup J1 among

1460-783: The Arcadian dialect and those of Pamphylia and Cyprus indicates that the migration came from Achaea . The Achaean tribe may have been an original population of the Peloponnese, Pamphylia, and Cyprus, living in the latter prior to the Dorian invasion , and not a subsequent immigrant group; the Doric elements in Arcadian are lacking in Cypriot. Achaeans settled among the old population, and founded Salamis . The epic Cypria , dating to

1533-535: The Church of Cyprus , an autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church within the wider communion of Orthodox Christianity . In regard to the 1960 Constitution of Cyprus , the term also includes Maronites , Armenians , and Catholics of the Latin Church ("Latins"), who were given the option of being included in either the Greek or Turkish communities and voted to join the former due to a shared religion. Cyprus

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1606-495: 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

1679-516: 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

1752-492: 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

1825-527: The "Mediterranean genetic continuum". A 2017 archaeogenetics study, concluded that both the Mycenaean Greeks and the Minoans were genetically closely related, and that both are closely related, but not identical, to modern Greek populations. The F ST between the sampled Bronze Age populations and present-day West Eurasians was estimated, finding that Mycenaeans are least differentiated from

1898-469: The 2011 Cypriot census. There is a notable community of Cypriots and people of Cypriot descent in Greece. In Athens, the Greek Cypriot community numbers ca. 55,000 people. There is also a large Greek Cypriot diaspora, particularly in the United Kingdom . Cypriot cuisine , as with other Greek cuisine , was imprinted with the spices and herbs made common as a result of extensive trade links within

1971-497: The 2011 census, 659,115 respondents recorded their ethnicity as Greek, forming almost 99% of the 667,398 Cypriot citizens and over 78% of the 840,407 total residents of the area controlled by the Republic of Cyprus. These figures do not include the 29,321 citizens of Greece residing in Cyprus, ethnic Greeks recorded as citizens of other countries, or the population of Northern Cyprus . The majority of Greek Cypriots are members of

2044-470: 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

2117-454: The 7th century BC, may have originated in Cyprus. The Byzantine era profoundly molded Greek Cypriot culture. The Greek Orthodox Christian legacy bestowed on Greek Cypriots in this period would live on during the succeeding centuries of foreign domination. Because Cyprus was never the final goal of any external ambition, but simply fell under the domination of whichever power was dominant in the eastern Mediterranean , destroying its civilization

2190-571: The Greek Cypriots. Greek Cypriots are also differentiated by Turkish Cypriots in some aspects; namely Turkish Cypriots have 5.6% Eastern Eurasian (likely Central Asian/Turkic) and 2.1% North African patrilineal ancestry, while Greek Cypriots have 0.6% Eastern Eurasian and no North African patrilineal ancestry. Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ )

2263-486: 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

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2336-425: 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

2409-442: 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

2482-617: The Greek sub-populations, Cretan Greeks were found to be the closest to Cypriots. In terms of Rst pairwise genetic differences, which indicate deeper shared paternal ancestry than shared haplotypes, Greeks appear genetically close to Cypriots, and equidistant from Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Both Greek and Turkish Cypriots have similar frequencies for their major patrilineal haplogroups, with the main subclades for both being J2a-M410 (23.8% and 20.3% resp.), E-M78 (12.8% and 13.9% resp.) and G2-P287 (12.5% and 13.7% resp.). The biggest differentiating characteristic between Greek Cypriots and mainland Greeks

2555-629: 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

2628-685: 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

2701-593: The Ottoman sultan acted as ethnarch , or leader of the Greek nation, and gained secular powers as a result of the gradual dysfunction of Ottoman rule, for instance in adjudicating justice and in the collection of taxes. Turkish settlers suffered alongside their Greek Cypriot neighbors, and the two groups together endured centuries of oppressive governance from Constantinople . A minority of Greek Cypriots converted to Islam during this period, and are sometimes referred to as "neo-Muslims" by historians. Politically,

2774-818: The Ottoman Empire. Names of many dishes came to reflect the sources of the ingredients from the many lands . Coffee houses pervasively spread throughout the island into all major towns and countless villages. The everyday language of Greek Cypriots is Cypriot Greek , a dialect of Modern Greek . It shares certain characteristics with varieties of Crete , the Dodecanese and Chios , as well as those of Asia Minor . Greek Cypriots are generally educated in Standard Modern Greek, though they tend to speak it with an accent and preserve some Greek Cypriot grammar. A 2017 study, found that Cypriots belong to

2847-755: The United Kingdom, United States, Australia, South Africa and Europe, although most left Cyprus before 1974. There are today estimated to be 335,000 Greek Cypriot emigrants living in Great Britain. The majority of the Greek Cypriots in Great Britain currently live in England ; there is an estimate of around 3,000 in Wales and 1,000 in Scotland . By the early 1990s, Greek Cypriot society enjoyed

2920-404: 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),

2993-402: 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

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3066-667: The beachside which offers organised facilities, as well as kiosks and ice-cream stands. Pyla Tourist Area continues through the new Larnaca-Dhekelia sea road, onwards to the C.T.O. (Cyprus Tourist Organisation) beach. Currently, Aspis FC is the only football club in the village of Pyla. Also, the village hosts a volleyball club, named Finikas. On August 18, 2023, Turkish soldiers from the Turkish Occupation Forces , Security Forces Command , de facto Turkish Cypriot Police and Turkish-Cypriot civilians alike came in conflict with UNFICYP soldiers and vehicles for blocking

3139-543: The concept of enosis – unification with the Greek "motherland" – became important to literate Greek Cypriots after Greece declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821. A movement for the realization of enosis gradually formed, in which the Church of Cyprus played a dominant role during the Cyprus dispute . "Hellenism is a race as aged as the world, Nobody could be found to eliminate it, Nobody, for it

3212-439: The construction of the road will continue. Greek Cypriots Greek diaspora Constantinople and Asia Minor : Africa : Other regions : Other groups : Other languages Greek Cypriots ( Greek : Ελληνοκύπριοι , romanized :  Ellinokýprioi , Turkish : Kıbrıs Rumları ) are the ethnic Greek population of Cyprus , forming the island's largest ethnolinguistic community. According to

3285-459: The construction site of the road with Turkish construction vehicle operators removing the vehicles forcefully. This assault on the UN forces drew international condemnation from Greece , France , the United States , the European Union and the United Kingdom . Criticism from UN and Cypriot authorities stated that the construction would have negative repercussions on the stagnant negotiations to resolve

3358-404: 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

3431-618: 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

3504-452: 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

3577-482: The help of their subject millets , or religious communities. The millet system allowed the Greek Cypriot community to survive, administered on behalf of Constantinople by the Archbishop of the Church of Cyprus. Cypriot Greeks were now able to take control of the land they had been working on for centuries. Although religiously tolerant, Ottoman rule was generally harsh and inefficient. The patriarch serving

3650-439: 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

3723-409: The island's division. Three peacekeepers were seriously injured and required hospitalisation. The Turkish president accused the UN force of bias against Turkish Cypriots and added that Turkey will not allow any “unlawful” behavior toward Turks on Cyprus. The U.N. Security Council said that the incident was a violation of the status quo that is contrary to council resolutions and condemned the assault on

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3796-530: The island. In addition, tax collection was also part of the heavy oppressive attitude of the occupiers to the locals of the island, in that it was now being conducted by the Latin churches themselves. The Ottoman conquest of Cyprus in 1571 replaced Venetian rule. Despite the inherent oppression of foreign subjugation, the period of Ottoman rule (1570–1878) had a limited impact on Greek Cypriot culture. The Ottomans tended to administer their multicultural empire with

3869-467: 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

3942-640: 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

4015-441: 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

4088-464: The next decade and a half, enosis was a key issue for Greek Cypriots, and a key cause of events leading up to the 1974 coup , which prompted the Turkish invasion and occupation of the northern part of the island. Cyprus remains divided today, with the two communities almost completely separated. Many of those whom lost their homes, lands and possessions during the Turkish invasion, emigrated mainly to

4161-399: 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

4234-536: 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

4307-706: 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

4380-466: The peacekeepers. The U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said that “threats to the safety of U.N. peacekeepers and damage to U.N. property are unacceptable and may constitute serious crimes under international law." On October 9, 2023, both the Turkish side and UNFICYP announced that they have reached an agreement and, further, Turkish Cypriot Foreign Minister Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu stated that

4453-512: The period of British colonial rule (1878–1960), an efficient colonial administration was established, but government and education were administered along ethnic lines, accentuating differences. For example, the education system was organized with two Boards of Education, one Greek and one Turkish, controlled by Athens and Istanbul , respectively. The resulting Greco-Turkish educational systems emphasized linguistic, religious, cultural, and ethnic differences and downplayed traditional ties between

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4526-402: The populations of Greece, Cyprus, Albania, and Italy. A 2017 study, found that both Greek Cypriots' and Turkish Cypriots' patrilineal ancestry derives primarily from a single pre-Ottoman local gene pool. The frequency of total haplotypes shared between Greek and Turkish Cypriots is 7-8%, with analysis showing that none of these being found in Turkey, thus not supporting a Turkish origin for

4599-401: The shared haplotypes. No shared haplotypes were observed between Greek Cypriots and mainland Turkish populations, while total haplotypes shared between Turkish Cypriots and mainland Turks was 3%. Both Cypriot groups show close genetic affinity to Calabrian (southern Italy) and Lebanese patrilineages. The study states that the genetic affinity between Calabrians and Cypriots can be explained as

4672-437: 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

4745-489: The two Cypriot communities. The two groups were encouraged to view themselves as extensions of their respective motherlands, leading to the development of two distinct nationalities with antagonistic loyalties. The importance of religion within the Greek Cypriot community was reinforced when the Archbishop of the Church of Cyprus, Makarios III , was elected the first president of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960. For

4818-574: 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

4891-568: 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

4964-505: 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

5037-403: Was first inhabited during the Middle Ages. On several old maps it is marked with the names Pila or Pilla. The name of the village is Greek which leads to the assumption that the village existed during the Byzantine years. The name "Pyla" is after the Greek word "πύλη" (entrance), probably because it was the only way to travel to the plain of Mesaoria . The University of Central Lancashire has

5110-592: Was never a military objective or necessity. The Greek Cypriots did however endure the oppressive rule of first the Lusignans and then the Venetians from the 1190s through to 1570. King Amaury , who succeeded his brother Guy de Lusignan in 1194, was particularly intolerant of the Orthodox Church. Greek Cypriot land was appropriated for the Latin churches after they were established in the major towns on

5183-555: Was part of the Mycenaean civilization with local production of Mycenaean vases dating to the Late Helladic III (1400–1050 BC). The quantity of this pottery concludes that there were numerous Mycenaean settlers, if not settlements, on the island. Archaeological evidence shows that Greek settlement began unsystematically in c. 1400 BC, then steadied (possibly due to Dorian invaders on the mainland) with definite settlements established in c. 1200 BC. The close connection between

5256-517: 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

5329-673: 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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