Greek in a Nutshell

If you spend a few days with Greeks, it is very likely you’ll hear from them how old and rich the Greek language is.

Someone has been writing or reading in it since almost 3 000 years without any interruption.

May be some national pride is involved here or they just like history very much?

Despite that the Greek language has its distinct historical periods such as Classical Ancient Greek, the language of the Byzantine era and the Modern Greek, the Greeks themselves see it as a single language in constant development.

Undoubtedly, this is one of the richest and most influential European languages.

Enormous number of texts and literature has been written in it. Many of its best works have been translated into other languages.

So far, two Greek authors have received the Nobel prize for literature.

Some facts about the Greek language you might be interested to know

As a Mediterranean nation the Greeks don’t like to start the day too early.
That could be the reason why they don’t have any particular greeting for “Good morning”.
They say straight “Hello” (Kalimera) from the beginning of the day until approximately 2.00 – 3.00 p.m.

If you think the Bible was originally written in Ancient Greek, you are wrong.
But if you think it was written in Hebrew, you are wrong again.
It was translated into these languages later and its original language was… the Aramaic.

You can create a well-structured speech of one page in English using only… Greek words adopted in the English.

Until the WW2 and, in some parts of the social and political life, even until the 70s of the past century, the official Greek language (Katharevousa) was so archaic and different from the spoken language (Dimotiki) that the poorly educated Greeks often couldn’t understand the official documents and public speeches produced in their own language.

The Greek “diasporas” (the expats) in other countries have the tendency to preserve their connection with the Greek culture and language across generations and centuries.

 

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