Later documents, including inscriptions and literary works, are written in the Greek alphabet, which was derived from the script of the Phoenicians c.9th cent. Ventris was a student of architecture, but he became interested in the untranslated Mycenaean scripts, particularly Linear B, which was found at Knossos, Pylos, and other sites.
and are written in a script known as Linear B, which was deciphered in 1953 by Michael Ventris Ventris, Michael George Francis,ġ922–56, English linguist. The earliest surviving texts in Ancient Greek are of the 15th cent. 395 until it was crushed by the Turks in 1453. Byzantine Greek, based on the koinē, was the language of the Byzantine or East Roman Empire, which lasted from A.D. Most of the New Testament was written in the koinē, which helped to gain a wide audience for Christianity. From Attic there developed an idiom called the koinē, which means "common" or "common to all the people" and which became a standard form of Ancient Greek.Īfter Alexander the Great the koinē developed into an international language that remained current in the central and E Mediterranean regions and in parts of Asia Minor and Africa for many centuries. Because of the political and cultural importance of Athens in the classical period of Greek history, the Athenian dialect, Attic, became dominant. Ancient Greek was prevalent in the Balkan peninsula, the Greek islands, W Asia Minor, S Italy, and Sicily. In antiquity there were a number of dialects of the Greek language, the most important of which were Aeolic, Arcadian, Attic, Cyprian, Doric, and Ionic. B.C., Greek-speaking people were established in Greece, probably having come as invaders from the north. Many modern scientific and technical words in English and other Western languages are derived from Greek, and it has been estimated that 12% of the English vocabulary is of Greek origin. It is the language of one of the major civilizations of the world and of one of the greatest literatures of all time. It is estimated that approximately half the world's population speaks an Indo-European tongue as a first language. Category:User el: Wiktionary users categorized by fluency levels in Greek.Greek language, member of the Indo-European family of languages (see Indo-European Indo-European,įamily of languages having more speakers than any other language family.Category:Terms derived from Greek: Categories with terms that originate from Greek.Category:Greek terms by usage: Greek terms categorized by the manner and context in which they are used by speakers.Category:Greek terms by etymology: Greek terms categorized by their etymologies.
Category:Greek templates: Greek templates, containing reusable wiki code that help with creating and managing entries.Category:Greek symbols: Greek written signs.Category:Rhymes:Greek: Lists of Greek words by their rhymes.Category:Greek rhymes: List of indexes of Greek words by their rhymes.Category:Requests concerning Greek: Categories with Greek entries that need the attention of experienced editors.Category:Regional Greek: Categories containing terms in regional varieties or dialects of Greek.Category:Greek phrases: Greek groups of words elaborated to express ideas, not necessarily phrases in the grammatical sense.