You may speak the language of the gods without even knowing it

Greek Independence Day is celebrated on 25 March, marking the anniversary of the start of the Greek revolution against the Ottoman empire. The War of Greek Independence which broke out on this date culminated in the creation of the modern nation of Greece as we know it today.

We all know something or another about the culture and history of Greece. Who has not studied about its famous philosophers, dreamt of visiting one of its idyllic islands or admired the fascinating architecture of the Acropolis? However, beyond this superficial knowledge how much do we really know about our Mediterranean neighbours?

From the expression it’s all Greek to me, it’s plain to see that the Greek language with all its complexities is unknown territory for (nearly) all of us. They say that you can have a better understanding of a culture through its language, so let us invite you to take an interesting delve into the Greek language to unveil some of the details of its history and some amusing curiosities.

A brief history

Greek belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is therefore related to many other European languages. While the Indo-European family branched out into several sub-families thousands of years ago, the Hellenic branch split off and resulted in the Greek language which is considered the main, if not only, member of this branch.

The first written record of Proto-Greek dates to the 15th century B.C: Linear B, a writing system that the Mycenaean people adopted from the neighbouring Minoan civilisation. With the passing of the centuries, there is little remaining evidence of this system, only some clay tablets that register the accounts of the Mycenaean palaces.

The Greek language evolved over the following centuries, giving rise to a wide variety of dialects that emerged throughout the Mediterranean basin. Ancient Greek covers the language spoken in the region of Greece over a long period of time: from approximately the 9th century B.C. to the 6th century A.D.

In the 4th century B.C. a variant of Greek became the lingua franca of the region: Koine (meaning common), which came from Attic, the dialect of Athens. This is the language spoken by Alexander the Great and also in which the New Testament was written.

Koine evolved into medieval Greek, which lasted until the 15th century, with the fall of the Byzantine empire.

Modern-day Greek is considerably different from its “great-great-grandfather”, Ancient Greek. From the 19th century onwards, its development was marked by the so-called Greek language question: a debate on whether the popular variant (Dimotiki) or the more cultured variant (Katharevousa), closer to Koine, should be adopted as the official language. This dispute was resolved in 1976 when Demotic Greek or dimotiki was adopted as the official language of the Greek nation.

Fun facts!

It is the language of 13 million native speakers
Almost half of them live in Athens
Of all the languages spoken today, it has the oldest written records
There are Greek communities all over the world: in Australia, the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom etc.
Around 12% of English words derive from Greek.
In Calabria and Salento (southern Italy), the Greko language still remains, a Greek variant that possibly evolved from the Ancient Greek spoken by the inhabitants of Magna Graecia.

Etymology

It can be fascinating to uncover the etymology of everyday words and discover that a great number of them come from Hellas. It turns out that we speak Greek every day without being aware of it! Here are some examples…

Music: from μουσική (mousikē ), meaning or relating to the Muses.
Telephone: from τηλε (têle, “afar”) and φωνος (phōnḗ, “sound”)
Photograph: from φῶς (phōs, “light”) and γράφειν (graphé, “writing”).
Oxígeno: from ὀξύς (oxys, “sour”) and -γενής (-genés, from the root of γίγνομαι (gígnomai, “to be born or generated”)
Poetry: from ποίησις (poíēsis); derived from its original meaning of “creation”, “the act of making, crafting or producing”
Aesthetics: from αἰσθητική (aisthētikḗ), [knowledge] which is obtained through the senses
Dilemma: from δίλημμα (dílēmma: from “di-“ double and “lêmma”, premise)

… and there are hundreds more!

If you are still thirsty for more…

If this has caught your interest and you want to learn more about Greek, we recommend that you read the book “The Ingenious Language: Nine Epic reasons to love Greek” by Andrea Marcolongo (Europa Compass).

We also leave you with two very educational videos.