75-494: Zakynthos (also spelled Zakinthos ; Greek : Ζάκυνθος , romanized : Zákynthos [ˈzacinθos] ; Italian : Zacinto [dzaˈtʃinto] ) or Zante ( / ˈ z æ n t i / , US also / ˈ z ɑː n t eɪ / , Italian: [ˈdzante] ; Greek : Τζάντε , romanized : Tzánte [ˈdza(n)de] ; from the Venetian form, traditionally Latinized as Zacynthus )
150-689: A suffragan of Cephallenia (and later of the Metropolis of Corinth ). In 880, the Aghlabids raided Zakynthos, but were defeated by the Byzantine navy under Nasar . Plundered by the Pisans in 1099, it was captured by Margaritus of Brindisi in 1185, and thereafter formed part of the County Palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos . A Latin bishopric was installed on the island, alongside
225-536: A 6.4-magnitude earthquake south of the island caused no injuries, but damaged the local pier and a 13th-century monastery. Zakynthos lies in the eastern part of the Ionian sea, around 20 kilometres (12 miles) west of the Greek ( Peloponnese ) mainland. The island of Kefalonia lies 15 kilometres (9 miles) to the north. It is the southernmost of the main group of the Ionian islands (not counting distant Kythira ). Zakynthos
300-577: 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,
375-558: 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
450-508: 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
525-540: 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
600-440: A grammarian and satirist. Towards the end of the 18th century, the so-called Heptanese School of Literature developed, consisting mainly of lyrical and satirical poetry in the vein of Romanticism prevalent throughout Europe at the time. It also contributed to the development of modern Greek theatre. An important poet of this school was Zakynthian Dionysios Solomos ; another was Nikolaos Koutouzis , who also figures prominently in
675-722: A result a Greek-Norwegian educational collaboration is being established on the island. Science Park Zakynthos is a collaboration between the Technological Educational Institute of the Ionian Islands (TEI), the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB), and the Therianos Villas and Therianos Family Farm on Zakynthos. Among the most famous Zakynthians is the 19th-century poet Dionysios Solomos , whose statue adorns
750-564: Is twinned with: Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ ) is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of
825-555: Is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea . It is the third largest of the Ionian Islands , with an area of 405.55 km (156.6 sq mi), and a coastline 123 km (76 mi) in length. The name, like all similar names ending in -nthos , is pre- Mycenaean or Pelasgian in origin. In Greek mythology , the island was said to be named after Zacynthus , the son of the legendary Arcadian chief Dardanus . Zakynthos
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#1732772920032900-667: Is a tourist destination, especially amongst British tourists, with an international airport served by charter flights from northern Europe. The island's nickname is "the Flower of the Levant", bestowed upon it by the Venetians , who ruled Zakynthos from 1484 to 1797. The ancient Greek poet Homer mentioned Zakynthos in the Iliad and the Odyssey , stating that its first inhabitants were
975-413: Is a village and a community in the southern part of the island of Zakynthos . It is situated on a hillside, close to the Ionian Sea coast. The community includes the villages Apelati, Limni Keriou and Marathias. The community includes the island's southernmost point, Cape Marathia . Keri is 6 km south of Lithakia and 15 km southwest of Zakynthos (city) . The village suffered great damage from
1050-445: Is about 40 kilometres (25 miles) long and 20 kilometres (12 miles) wide, and covers an area of 405.55 km (156.58 sq mi). Its coastline is approximately 123 km (76 mi) long. According to the 2011 census, the island has a population of 40,759. The highest point is Vrachionas , at 758 metres (2,487 feet). Zakynthos has the shape of an arrowhead , with the "tip" (Cape Skinari) pointing northwest. The western half of
1125-804: 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
1200-479: 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
1275-466: Is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki ,
1350-519: 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
1425-825: 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 Keri, Greece Keri ( Greek : Κερί )
1500-763: 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,
1575-674: The Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from
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#17327729200321650-624: The Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are
1725-627: The Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute the objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of
1800-495: 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
1875-516: 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
1950-630: The Ionian Islands , it receives sizeable amounts of precipitation during the winter while the summers are mostly hot and sunny. The average annual temperature stands at around 18.5 °C (65.3 °F) while humidity is fairly high throughout the year, even during the summer months. Famous landmarks include the Navagio beach , a cove on the northwest shore isolated by high cliffs and accessible only by boat. Numerous natural "blue caves" are cut into cliffs around Cape Skinari; they are accessible only by small boats, which are popular amongst tourists. Keri , on
2025-765: The Late Bronze Age and the eighth century BC. In the Odyssey , Homer mentions 20 nobles from Zakynthos among a total of 108 of Penelope's suitors. The Athenian military commander Tolmides concluded an alliance with Zakynthos during the First Peloponnesian War , sometime between 459 and 446 BC. In 430 BC, the Lacedaemonians led a force of about 1,000 heavy infantry, led by the Spartan admiral Cnemus , in an attack upon Zakynthos. Although
2100-657: The Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of
2175-565: The United States of the Ionian Islands until the Union of the Ionian Islands with Greece in 1864. During the Axis occupation of Greece , Mayor Loukas Karrer and Bishop Chrysostomos Dimitriou refused German orders to turn in a list of the members of the town's Jewish community for deportation to the death camps. Instead they hid all (or most) of the town's Jewish people in rural villages. According to some sources, all 275 Jews of Zakynthos survived
2250-492: 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
2325-491: The teredo , so this new source of tar was valuable to them. The tar was dredged up from the bottom of a lake (now known as Lake Keri ) using leafy myrtle branches tied to the ends of poles. It was then collected in pots and could be carried to the beach and swabbed directly onto ship hulls . Alternatively, the tar could be shipped to the Athenian naval yard at Piraeus for storage. Philip V of Macedon seized Zakynthos in
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2400-486: 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
2475-495: 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
2550-629: 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
2625-685: 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
2700-553: The Heptanese School of Painting. Others include Georgios Tertsetis (1800–1873), politician, poet, and historian. The 1998 novel 'Fugitive Pieces' by Canadian author Anne Michaels includes a section set on Zakynthos during the Nazi occupation. The young Jewish narrator, Jakob Beer, is hidden in a rural home. He notes that while he enjoyed the luxury of a room, 'thousands were stuffed into baking stoves, sewers, garbage bins. In
2775-1027: The Orthodox one. By 1460, and during the reign of Mehmed II , the Ottoman Turks eventually controlled most of the Peloponnese with the exception of the remaining Venetian-controlled towns of Argos , Nafplio , Monemvassia , Methoni , and Koroni . After the collapse of the Hexamilion , which was supposed to act as a defense across the Isthmus of Corinth , and hence, protect the Peloponnese, Leonardo III Tocco made an agreement with Venice to accept 10,000 refugees from this region. Leonardo III Tocco and his realm were increasingly vulnerable to Ottoman Turkish attacks. These refugees consisted of Greeks, Arvanites , and some Venetian officials. Zakynthos
2850-491: The Zakynthos town contains a small Venetian castle. Zakynthos is a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. The seat of administration is Zakynthos , the main town of the island. As a part of the 2011 Kallikratis government reform , the regional unit Zakynthos was created out of the former prefecture Zakynthos ( Greek : Νομός Ζακύνθου ). The prefecture had
2925-404: 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),
3000-402: 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
3075-525: The attackers managed to burn much of the surrounding countryside, the city itself refused to surrender and the attack ultimately failed. The Zakynthians are then enumerated among the autonomous allies of Athens in the disastrous Sicilian expedition . After the Peloponnesian War , Zakynthos seems to have passed under the supremacy of Sparta because in 374 BC, Timotheus, an Athenian commander, on his return from Kerkyra, landed some Zakynthian exiles on
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3150-551: The crawlspaces of double ceilings, in stables, pigsties, chicken coops'. The narrative refers to Mayor Karrer and Archbishop Chrysostomos's refusal to collaborate with the Germans. The island is covered by a network of roads, particularly the flat eastern part, with main routes linking the capital with Volimes in the north, Keri in the south, and the Vassiliki peninsula in the west. The road between Volimes and Lithakia connects
3225-603: The early 3rd century BC, when it was a member of the Aetolian League. In 211 BC, the Roman praetor Marcus Valerius Laevinus took the city of Zakynthos with the exception of the citadel. It was afterwards restored to Philip V of Macedon. The Roman general Marcus Fulvius Nobilior finally conquered Zakynthos in 191 BC for Rome. In the Mithridatic War , it was attacked by Archelaus, the general of Mithridates, but he
3300-439: 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
3375-592: The island and assisted them in establishing a fortified post. These exiles must have belonged to the anti-Spartan party as the Zakynthian rulers applied for help to the Spartans who sent a fleet of 25 to the island. The importance of this alliance for Athens was that it provided them with a source of tar . Tar is a more effective protector of ship planking than pitch (which is made from pine trees ). The Athenian trireme fleet needed protection from rot, decay and
3450-423: The island is a mountainous plateau and the southwest coast consists mostly of steep cliffs. The eastern half is a densely populated fertile plain with long sandy beaches, interrupted with several isolated hills, notably Bochali which overlooks the city and the peninsula of Vasilikos in the northeast. The peninsulas of Vassilikos to the north and Marathia to the south enclose the wide and shallow bay of Laganas on
3525-524: The island is the Rimada , a 16th-century romance in verse about Alexander the Great . Notable early writers include Tzanes Koroneos, author of Andragathemata of Bouas , a work of historical fiction; Nikolaos Loukanis , a 16th-century Renaissance humanist; Markos Defaranas (1503–1575), possibly the author of the Rimada ; Pachomios Roussanos (1508–1553), a scholar and theologian; and Antonio Catiforo (1685–1763),
3600-565: The island with dense vegetation. The principal agricultural products are olive oil , currants , grapes and citrus fruit. The Zante currant is a small sweet seedless grape that is native to the island. The Bay of Laganas is the site of the first National Marine Park and the prime nesting area for loggerhead sea turtles ( Caretta caretta ) in the Mediterranean. Zakynthos has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate ( Csa ) with hot, dry summers and mild to cool, rainy winters. Like most of
3675-467: 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
3750-528: The main port there is a connection to the port of Kyllini , which is the usual place of arrival to the island by sea from the mainland. From the port of Agios Nikolaos there is a connection to the island of Kefalonia . Ionian University 's Department of Environment has been located on Zakynthos since 2003. It has developed laboratory and field station infrastructures in Zakynthos and the Strofades islets . Freshwater resources on Zakynthos are limited, and as
3825-551: The main town square. The Italian poet Ugo Foscolo was born in Zakynthos: he wrote the sonnet " A Zacinto " dedicated to the island. The famous Renaissance surgeon and anatomist Andreas Vesalius died on Zakynthos after being shipwrecked while making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. His body is thought to have been buried on the island but the site has been lost. Early 19th-century poet and playwright Elizabeth Moutzan-Martinegou
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#17327729200323900-576: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek
3975-441: 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
4050-399: 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
4125-706: 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
4200-517: The port of Kyllini on the mainland. Another ferry connects the village of Agios Nikolaos to Argostoli on Kefalonia. Minor uninhabited islands around Zakynthos included in the municipality and regional unit are: Marathonisi, Pelouzo, Agios Sostis in the Laganas bay, Agios Nikolaos near the eponymous harbor on the northern tip, and Agios Ioannis near Porto Vromi on the western coast. The mild Mediterranean climate and plentiful winter rainfall endow
4275-541: The predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation
4350-500: The rural population's growth rate is higher than that of the urban population in Zakynthos. Out of the 507 births, 141 were in urban areas and 366 were in rural areas. Out of the 407 deaths, 124 were in urban areas and 283 were in rural areas. Since Zakynthos was under the rule of the Venetian Republic, it had closer contact with Western literary trends than other areas inhabited by Greek people. An early literary work from
4425-404: The same territory as the present regional unit. In the same reform, the current municipality Zakynthos was created out of the six former municipalities: In 2006, there were 507 births and 407 deaths. Zakynthos is one of the regions with the highest population growth in Greece. It is also one of the only three prefectures (out of 54) in which the rural population has a positive growth rate. In fact,
4500-433: The son of King Dardanos of Arcadia, called Zakynthos, and his men. Before being renamed Zakynthos, the island was said to have been called Hyrie. Zakynthos was then conquered by King Arkesios of Kefalonia , and then by Odysseus from Ithaca . Zakynthos participated in the Trojan War and is listed in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships which, if accurate, describes the geopolitical situation in early Greece at some time between
4575-461: The south of the island, is a mountain village with a lighthouse. The whole western shore from Keri to Skinari contains rock formations including arches. Northern and eastern shores feature numerous wide sandy beaches, some of which attract tourists in summer months. The largest resort is Laganas . Marathonissi islet (also known as "Turtle Island") near Limni Keriou has tropical vegetation, turquoise waters, beaches, and sea caves. Bochali hill above
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#17327729200324650-405: The southeast part of the island. The capital, which has the same name as the prefecture, is the town of Zakynthos . It lies on the eastern part of the northern coast. Apart from the official name, it is also called Chora (i.e. the Town, a common denomination in Greece when the name of the island itself is the same as the name of the principal town). The port of Zakynthos has a ferry connecting to
4725-437: 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
4800-447: The various stages of the Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than
4875-529: The vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in the early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between
4950-411: The war. Both were later recognized as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem . In contrast, over 80% of Greek Jews were deported to death camps and murdered in the Holocaust . Zakynthos was hit by a 7.3-magnitude earthquake on 12 August 1953 , destroying most of the buildings on the island. Subsequently, all buildings have been strengthened to protect against further tremors. On 26 October 2018,
5025-400: The western half of the island. The island has one airport, Zakynthos International Airport , on former GR-35, offering connecting flights with other Greek airports and numerous tourist charters. Opened in 1972, it is located 4.3 km (2.7 mi) from Zakynthos . Zakynthos also features two ports, the main port located in the capital, and another in the village of Agios Nikolaos . From
5100-515: 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
5175-544: Was also born there. The Museum of Solomos and Eminent Zakynthians , located on St Mark's plaza, includes local art from the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as sculptures, musical instruments contemporary to the eminent Zakynthians, and ceramics. In particular, it features Dionysios Solomos and Andreas Kalvos . Since the mid-1980s, Zakynthos has become a hub for 18-to-30-year-old tourists, leading to Alykanas and Laganas (formerly quiet villages) becoming hotbeds of clubbing hotels, nightclubs, bars and restaurants. Zakynthos
5250-423: 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
5325-442: 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
5400-881: Was captured by the Ottoman Empire in 1478 but conquered by the Republic of Venice in 1482. It remained in Venetian hands, as part of the Venetian Ionian Islands , until the Fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797. It then passed successively under French rule , became part of the autonomous Septinsular Republic in 1800, and returned to the French in 1807. Seized by the British in 1809, it formed part of
5475-564: Was repulsed. In 459, the island was plundered by the Vandals under Geiseric , who carried off 500 local aristocrats. Zakynthos appears to have been spared from the Slavic invasions of the 6th–7th centuries, as no Slavic names are attested on the island. During the middle Byzantine period (7th–12th centuries), Zakynthos belonged to the Theme of Cephallenia , and the local bishopric was likewise
5550-580: 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
5625-673: 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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