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GREEK LANGUAGE Our language has the longest history among the European languages. Scriptures in Greek have been discovered that date back to the second millennium B.C. and literature works more than 2500 years old. Works that will never become outdated have been expressed through this language. All Arts and Sciences were born and developed using it. Written texts in Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, Law, Medicine, History, Politics, Ethics, Gastronomy, etc were written in this language thousands of years ago. All ancient literature, tragedies and comedies, Homer's epic works, the New Testament, the Byzantine and modern Greek literature. The first encyclopedia was written in Greek. Nevertheless, the most important thing to mention is the evolution that the Greeks brought to written expression; at 1000 AD, they were the first to invent a number of written signs-letters each of which represented only one sound (as opposed to the Phoenician writing). This one-to-one analogue influenced the course of history, as this was actually what we call the first alphabet. At first Greeks were writing only in capital letters, with no spaces in between words and starting from the right side to the left. However, this was soon to be abandoned (5th century AD) and the clockwise form of writing was adopted. This way of writing was also used by the Romans and finally by the whole world until today. All Europeans alphabets are variations of the Greek alphabet. The Hellenic language is one of the very few in the world with such a homogeneous evolution and has a continuity rare in the linguistic history of mankind as it has being spoken for thousands of years. Today's Greek language keeps the ancient alphabet and spelling and 75% of its vocabulary is based upon the ancient language. It is a language with unique virtues: it possesses the power of expression and flexibility and the ability of composition in order for the production of new words according to needs. All languages use words from other languages. The Hellenic language has influenced the development of many other languages. The English language, for example, has got about 50.000 words of Hellenic origin. Words like these are very often used in both oral and written English:
Angel Ethnic Fantasy Idol Jealous Kilometer Machine Mathematics
The first Christian hymns were written in Greek. All the books of the New Testament and the Gospels were written in Greek. The Apostle Paul wrote his 'Letters' in Greek. The first encyclopedia was written in Greek. The history of lexicography goes back over 2000 years to ancient Greece. In the 5th century BC Protagoras was the first to compose a glossary of unfamiliar words in Homer. The first philosophical writings about the origins of language were written in Greek by Plato (427-347 BC). The first grammar, it was the Greek grammar, was written in 100 BC by Dionysius Thrax. Homer wrote the 'Iliad' in Greek. Aristotle wrote all his philosophical works in Greek. The famous Pindaros wrote his poems in Greek. Euripides and Sophocles wrote their tragedies in Greek. Roman Emperors, like Marcus Aurilius, wrote in Greek. Roman orators in the 'Athenium' of Rome gave their speeches in Greek.
GREEK LANGUAGE COURSES http://www.word2word.com/course.html http://www.alphasoft.cc/store/greek.html http://www.transparent.com/languagepages http://www.almudo.com/Greece-Language.htm http://www.orbislingua.com/eb-10.htm http://www.eurotalk.co.uk/ETWebPages http://www.polyglotte.org/grec-moderne.html http://madeld.chez.tiscali.fr/appr_langues http://didymos.kypros.org/LearnGreek http://www.ienh.org/_GR/grecancien.htm |