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Information about Greek language

The Greek language is one of the Indo-European languages, brought
to Greece by the Achaeans around 1700 BC. Originally there were a variety of
spoken dialects, most notably Ionic, Doric, and Attic.

Strictly we need to speak about two separate languages, Ancient Greek and
its descendant Modern Greek. They are different enough (like Latin and its
descendant Italian) that the phonetics and grammar of each need to be
described separately. But it is common to talk about 'Greek' and let the
context decide which form is meant.

The first known script for writing the language was the Linear B syllabary,
used for the archaic Mycenaean dialect deciphered in 1953. After the fall of
that civilization there was a period of about five hundred years when
writing was not used. Since early classical times, it has been written in
the Greek alphabet, derived from Phoenician. This happened about the time of
Homer, and there is one obscure, fleeting reference in Homer's poetry
suggesting that he might have been aware of writing.

Attic Greek was the language of Athens; most of the surviving classical
Greek literature is in Attic Greek. Alexander the Great, besides being a
great military leader, was instrumental in combining these dialects to form
Koine Greek (from the Greek word for "common") (sometimes called New
Testament Greek after its most famous work of literature). This allowed his
combined army to communicate and was also taught to the inhabitants of the
regions that he conquered, turning it into a "world language". The language
evolved during the Hellenistic period, and for many centuries was the
"Lingua Franca" of the Roman Empire. From this descended the Greek that was
the official language of the Eastern Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire) and
finally the modern Greek of today. Modern Greek has a more conservative form
called Katharevousa, which includes numerous Ancient Greek words pronounced
in a modern way, and the spoken form Dhimotiki, which in recent years has
become the official language of Greece, instead of Katharevousa.

Greek, like many other Indo-European languages, is highly inflected -- for
example, nouns have 4 cases, 3 genders, and 3 numbers, verbs have 3 moods, 3
voices, as well as 3 persons and 3 numbers and various other forms. Here is
the definite article declined:

                                SINGULAR          PLURAL
                           Masc. Fem. Neuter Masc.Fem. Neuter
    Nominative (subject)   ho    h�   to     hoi  hai  ta
   Genitive (possessive)   tou   t�s  tou    t�n  t�n  t�n
 Dative (indirect object+) t�    t�   t�     tois tais tois
 Accusative (direct object)ton   t�n  to     tous tas  ta

Modern Greek has lost the dative (except in a few expressions like en taxei
OK), and some of the other forms have changed phonetically. In the following
table the left-hand side uses a phonetic form suitable for Modern Greek
only, while the right-hand side is the same thing written in the
transcription for Ancient Greek, for easier comparison with the table above:

              SINGULAR      PLURAL   |    SINGULAR       PLURAL
             M     F   N   M  F   N  |   M    F    N   M    F  N
 Nominativeo     i     to i  i   ta  | o    �     to  oi   oi ta
  Genitive tu    tis   tu tonton ton | tou  t�s   tou t�n  t�nt�n
 Accusativeto(n) ti(n) to tustis ta  | to(n)t�(n) to  tous tista

The main phonetic changes between Ancient and Modern Greek are a
simplification in the vowel system and a change of some consonants to
fricative values. Ancient Greek had five short vowels, seven long vowels,
and numerous diphthongs. This has been reduced to a simple five-vowel
system. Most noticeably, the sounds i, �, y, ei, oi have all become i.

The consonants b, d, g became v, dh, gh (dh as in English this). The
aspirated consonants ph, th, kh became f, th, h - where the new
pronunciation of th is /T/ as in English thin.

Greek has sandhi rules, some written, some not. ν before bilabials and
velars is pronounced "m" and "ng" respectively, and is written μ
(συμπαθεια) and γ
(συγχρονιζω) when
this happens within a word. The word εστι "is" in
Ancient Greek gains ν, and the accusative articles τον and
την in Modern Greek lose it, depending on the start of the next
word; this is called "movable nu". In τον
πατερα "the father" the first word is
pronounced "tom", and in Modern Greek (but not Ancient Greek, which had an
independent "b" sound) the second word is pronounced "batera" because "mp"
-> "mb".

A large of number of words in English, Latin, and so forth, come from Greek.

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