Language
The Greek language is the official language of the Hellenic Republic and has a total of 15 million speakers worldwide; it is an Indo-European language. It is particularly remarkable in the depth of its continuity, beginning with the pre-historic Mycenaean Greek and the Linear B script, and maybe the Linear A script associated with Minoan civilization, though Linear A is still undeciphered. Greek language is clearly detected in the Mycenaean language and the Cypriot syllabary, and eventually the dialects of Ancient Greek, of which Attic Greek bears the most resemblance to Modern Greek. The history of the language spans over 3400 years of written records.
Greek has had enormous impact on other languages both directly on the Romance languages, and indirectly through its influence on the emerging Latin language during the early days of Rome. Signs of this influence, and its many developments, can be seen throughout the family of Western European languages.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Greece
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)
“It is silly to call fat people “gravitationally challenged”Ma self-righteous fetishism of language which is no more than a symptom of political frustration.”
—Terry Eagleton (b. 1943)
“Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man?... We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)