Greek language

The Greek language is an Indo-European language. It is the official language of Greece (Hellas) and Cyprus. It was first spoken in Greece and was also once spoken along the coast of Asia Minor (now a part of Turkey) and in southern Italy. It was also widely used in Western Asia and Northern Africa at one time. In Greek, the language is called Ελληνικά (elliniká).

Greeks write their language using the Greek alphabet. The Latin alphabet (used to write English and many other languages) came from the Greek alphabet. Many other alphabets around the world also came from the Greek one, such as the Cyrillic alphabet. The Greeks got the idea of using an alphabet from the Phoenicians.

Greek has an unbroken history of being a written language for over 3,000 years. This is longer than any other Indo-European language spoken today. Over 15 million people in the world speak Greek now. These speakers mostly live in Greece and Cyprus, but there are also people in other countries around the world who speak the language. This is largely because people left Greece and emigrated, meaning they moved to other countries. Countries like the United States and Argentina have small Greek populations.

Other pages

• Greek numbers
• Ancient Greek language

Other websites

This language has its own Wikipedia Project.

See the Greek language edition

Wikibooks has more about this subject:

Modern Greek

• Greek Dictionary, from Webster's Dictionary.
• Ancient Greek Dictionaries, descriptions of both online dictionaries (with appropriate links) and Greek.