Roots Hidden in the Depths of Centuries

"I heard in Rome's St. Peter's the Gospel

in all languages. The Greek resonated star

glowing in the night."  

John Goethe, Germany greatest poet

-Teacher 

what to read to become wise as thou?

-Greek classics.

-And when we finish the Greek classics 

what to read?

-Again the Greek classics. 

Goethe's dialogue with his disciples

The language which the deaf can hear 
and the blind can see.

        Greek Language is very old, the oldest in Europe and perhaps in the whole World. Its existence is referred in the 7th Century BC, as historical written monuments have shown (Dipylo inscription), but its roots are hidden in the depths of centuries as the Homeric epics and the Linear writings A and B have witnessed. It is merely not found in each time possessing the same vocabulary, the same morphology, etc.,

   Roughly, the Greek language is divided in three long periods: The ancient (up to 300 A.D.), the Medieval (300 – 1453 A.D.) and the modern (recent) period (1453 A.D. – today). Analytically in the following:
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   MINOAN TIMES, from 1500 BC until 1200 BC
(According to Thucydides (A, 3-6), Minoas was the first king that turned away the barbarians from Greek sea and from Greek islands and he was the cause to create after the Greece. According to Homer and Herodotus Minoas was king of island Crete and of most Greek islands three generations before Trojan war.) 

   MYCENAEAN TIMES from 1200 BC until 500 BC
From Trojan War until the Persian wars
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    The period from the Persian wars to the end of 4th century BC (490 – 300 BC), which is called Classical. Sparta and Athens was the most power full towns but Athens was the centre of the letters and arts.
   A precise indication for the condition of the language in that period can be found in the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, Lyssias, Aeschinis, Aristotle and other prose and rhyme writers of that time.
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   In the 4th century BC, after the victories (and the splendour) against Persians, common alphabet and writing are established for all Greeks as well as a common name (the name “Hellenes”).
   By the victories of Alexander the Great the Greek language of that period become the international language of the era especially in the Hellenized areas of the east (Syria, Persia, Egypt, etc).
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   In the beginning of the 4th century AD Constantinople becomes the center of the Greek language. The year 527 AD is the official language  in the eastern Roman Empire.
   From the Greek revolution of 1821 until nowadays. This is the period of the New Greek, the pure (“Katharevussa”) and the popular (“demotic”) Greek language.

ps.
       During the Roman Era, when the Greek language was still international (circa the end of the 1st Century AD), some Greek writers, bookish mans, literary mans etc, appeared, who did not write in their contemporary language, but in the Attic authors’ language of the Classical Era. 
   They were urged in this activity not only by their trust to the superiority (the high standards) of the Attic dialect but also by their perception whey realized that the Greek Language of their times had been invaded occupied by barbarisms (foreign words, idiom etc.) because of ignorance or degeneration, 50 it should not be immortalized.  
   This movement was called Atticism and the authors, who estimated the Attic dialect as their ideal language, Atticists, As a right usage criterion was estimated the localization of a word or a type in the texts of the Attic writers of the 5th and the 4th Century BC, not the fact that this word or this type were useless in the language of their times.    
   As a result of Atticism was the creation of bilinguality which means the usage of two different linguistic forms: The one (the old – fashioned) mainly in the written speech and the other (the popular) mainly in the oral speech. The bilinguality occurred till 1976 when Demotic (the popular) was established.
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   - "My greatest intellectual exercise was my term in ancient Greek"     
B. Heisenberg, Nobel Prize in Physics

   - "There's a Vertigo In Greek words, because only she explored, recorded and analysed their innermost processes of speech and language, as no other language."   The great French writer Jacques Lakarrier 

   - "Μay the Greek language to become common all peoples."  

    Great French rationalists Voltaire 

   - "The Greek has uniformity like the German, but it is richer than this. Has the clarity of the French, but more precise. It is slimmer than the Italian and much more harmonious than the Spanish. Has that need to be considered the prettiest language of Europe. "  French University of Sorbonne Professor Charles Fwriel 

   - "The knowledge of Greek is necessary foundation of high cultural cultivation."  Marianna Mcdonald, Professor at the University of California and head of the TLG

    - "If the violin is the most perfect musical instrument, then the Greek language is the human violin reflection."  Blind American author Helen Keller had said


   - "If the gods speak, then definitely use the language of the Greeks." 
     Marcus Tillios Cicero (the most conspicuous female of ancient Rome, 106-43 BC)

   - "It is in the nature of the Greek language to be clean, precise and complicated. The ambiguity and lack of direct enorasews featuring sometimes English and German, is completely foreign to the Greek. " 
Humphrey Kitto (an English professor at the University of Bristol, 1968)

   - "The Greek language is beautiful like the sky with the stars." 
Irina Kobaleba (Modern Russian Professor Lomonoswf University, 1995) 

   - "Of course it's not only in Linguistics where Greeks were pioneers for Europe. In its entirety the intellectual life of Europe dates back to the work of the Greek thinkers. Even today we incessantly in Greek heritage to find stimulation and encouragement. " 
R. h. Robins (Modern English linguist, Professor at the University of London)

   - "The Greek language is the best legacy that has at its disposal man for the development of the brain. Towards all Greek, and insist all languages are inadequate. "

   - "The ancient Greek language should become the second language of all Europeans, especially the cultivated people."

   - "The Greek language is by essence divine." Frederick Sagkredo (Basque linguistics professor – President of the Greek Academy of Baskwnias)

   - "Like always with passion to learn Greek. I didn't do it because I was afraid that the deep charm of this wonderful language would absorb so much that I removed from my other activities. " (The Schliemann Guest House talked only flawlessly 18 languages. For 2 years did nothing other than studying the 2 epics of Homer) 
Heinrich Schliemann (Famous amateur archeologist, 1822-1890)


   - "If in the library of your home does not have the works of ancient Greek authors, then you live in a house without light." 
George Bernard College (Great Irish playwright, 1856-1950) 

   - "Almost afraid to touch the Odyssey, so oppressive unbearable is the beauty." 
James Joyce (Famous Irish author, 1882-1941)

   - "That is the Secretariat of the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, Egyptians? All of humanity has inherited the Secretariat of Greeks only. " 
Impn Khaldun (the greatest Arab historian) 

   - "The US came on Greece alfabiton by Kimi and Rome. Our language is full of English words. Our science esfyrilatise Mian international language by the English terms. Our grammar and rhetoric, even the punctuation and the Division concerned paragraphs of ... are Greek inventions. Our literary genres is English – the lyrikon, the ODE, the eidyllion, the novel, the treatise, the prosfwnisis, the biography, history and above all a vision. And almost all of these words is Greek. " 
Will Durant (American historian and philosopher, Professor at the University of Columbia)


   - "Our ancient Greece offers a language that will say that it's universal." 

   - "The whole world needs to learn Greek because the Greek language helps us first of all understand our own language."

 Jacqueline De Romigy (Modern French Academic and author)

___________________     No 18

sources:

http://melitainsula.blogspot.gr/2010/08/history-of-greek-language.html
https://www.facebook.com/notes/402327977416/

http://palio.antibaro.gr/culture/aggelhs_ellhnikh.php

isos...