Is Greek still spoken today?
Chanel Morar
2025-06-14 22:25:34
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Greek is the oldest recorded language continuously spoken to the present day - how much has it changed since then? Greek is the oldest recorded language continuously spoken to the present day.
Dwight Flatley
2025-06-10 06:37:33
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Greek is one of the oldest languages still spoken, dating back over 3000 years. It is the official language in Greece and the Greek part of Cyprus. In other countries, its use is limited to a few, mostly very small communities of Greek descent. The largest of these are in Germany, Australia and Albania. Greek originally developed on the Balkan Peninsula, particularly in Greece and later in areas of the Byzantine Empire and along the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Today, Greek remains a key language for the study of classical literature, philosophy and the history of science.
Albina Heaney
2025-05-31 13:40:18
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An isolated community near the Black Sea coast in a remote part of north-eastern Turkey has been found to speak a Greek dialect that is remarkably close to the extinct language of ancient Greece. As few as 5,000 people speak the dialect but linguists believe that it is the closest, living language to ancient Greek and could provide an unprecedented insight into the language of Socrates and Plato and how it evolved. Romeyka, a variety of Pontic Greek, has structural similarities to ancient Greek that are not observed in other forms of the language spoken today. Romeyka’s vocabulary also has parallels with the ancient language. Ioanna Sitaridou, a lecturer in romance philology at the University of Cambridge, said: “Romeyka preserves an impressive number of grammatical traits that add an ancient Greek flavour to the dialect’s structure, traits that have been completely lost from other modern Greek varieties. Studies of the grammar of Romeyka show that it shares a startling number of similarities with Koine Greek of Hellenistic and Roman times, which was spoken at the height of Greek influence across Asia Minor between the 4th century BC to the 4th century AD. Modern Greek, meanwhile, has undergone considerable changes from its ancient counterpart, and is thought to have emerged from the later Medieval Greek spoken between the 7th and 13th Centuries AD – so-called Byzantine Greek. We know that Greek has been continuously spoken in Pontus since ancient times and can surmise that its geographic isolation from the rest of the Greek-speaking world is an important factor in why the language is as it is today.
Kris Kozey
2025-05-25 18:07:01
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Greek is an Indo-European language that has been spoken and written for four thousand years in a small area of southeastern Europe. Today, Modern Greek is the official language of Greece, a small country with a population of eleven million people. Ancient Greek and Modern Greek are not two different languages. The language has maintained such cohesion of structure and vocabulary that it is recognized by both scholars and native speakers as one language. The learner of Modern Greek seeks not only to speak a contemporary European language with an important presence in literature and art, but also to understand the deeper ideas and conventions that were exported through the Greek language into Western thought and civilization.
Jillian Schneider
2025-05-13 12:25:42
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The precise number of speakers of Romeyka is hard to quantify. It has no written form, but has survived orally in the mountain villages around Trabzon, near the Black Sea coast. With its remaining speakers ageing, the dialect is now threatened with extinction. Modern Greek and Romeyka are not mutually intelligible. A high proportion of native speakers in the region are over 65, and fewer young people learn the language. There is a very significant diaspora which is separated by religion and national identity [from the communities in Turkey], but still shares so much. When speakers can speak their home languages they feel seen and thus they feel more connected to the rest of society. Conversion to Islam across Asia Minor was usually accompanied by a linguistic shift to Turkish, but communities in the valleys retained Romeyka.
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