Greek Language

Greek is an Indo-European language that forms its own Hellenic branch of the family. It is native to the territories that have had Greek populations since antiquity, among them Greece, Cyprus, southern Albania and other regions of the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Black Sea coast and the eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, with at least 3,400 years of written records, and the Greek alphabet has been in use for about 2,800 years. Ancient Greek literature, many foundational texts of science and philosophy, and the New Testament were originally written in Greek, which later became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek. In this atlas the general Greek entry stands for records that name Greek without a period, while Ancient, Koine, Byzantine and Modern Greek have their own entries.