Category:Greek
From Namespedia - Names Meaning and Origins
Greek is a part of the Indo-European languages, considered to be the oldest of these languages family, with an over 3500 years history. Greek is the official language used in Greece, spoken by around 20 million people living mainly in Greece and Cyprus and it is officially recognized as a minority language in parts of Turkey, Italy and Albania. Around the world Greek is spoken in Australia, Calabria (southern Italy region), Canada, Ukraine and United States. The Greek language history starts with the Mycenaean civilization, around the 13-th century B.C.E. Koine (meaning “common” in Greek) was the first common dialect, ancestor of modern Greek and its also known for having a major impact on Western culture as a lingua franca for the Mediterranean (was a second language used inside the Roman Empire). As time passed by, several dialects evolved and the most influential of them was Attic, the language of Athens. At that time the Greeks considered themselves as people being split into three divisions: Dorians, Aeolians and Ionians. In the 4-th century B.C.E. Alexander the Great carried the language far into the Near East. The language was then adopted by all those areas as commerce and government language. The newly influenced language dominated the Byzantine era, until Constantinople was defeated by the Turks, in 1453.In 1830 the released regions became a whole kingdom, and its core was Athens and Peloponnese. The dialects spoken in these areas became the standard language.
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Articles in category "Greek"
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