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History of Greek. Greek is an Indo-European language, the sole surviving descendant of the Hellenic sub-family. Although it split off from other Indo-European languages before 2000 BC, it is first attested in the Bronze Age as Mycenaean Greek.
The Greek language is first attested written in an awkward syllabic script on clay tablets dating to the 14th–13th centuries BCE. After a gap of around four centuries, it is found again written in the familiar Greek alphabet, and there is a continuous written record of the language from that period until the present.
Feb 9, 2024 · It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. The Greek language is thus an independent branch of the Indo-European family, i.e. a “subgroup” of its own.
Greek language, Indo-European language spoken mostly in Greece. Its history can be divided into four phases: Ancient Greek, Koine, Byzantine Greek, and Modern Greek. Ancient Greek is subdivided into Mycenaean Greek (14th–13th centuries bc) and Archaic and Classical Greek (8th–4th centuries bc ).
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c. 1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c. 1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c. 800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c. 500–300 BC ). [1]
In regard to the dialects, two very different situations must be distinguished: that established for the period between the 14th and the 12th century bce and that for the period between the 8th and the 4th century bce.
The history of the Greek Language begins, as far as the surviving texts are concerned, with the Mycenaean civilization at least as early as the thirteenth century BCE. The earliest texts are written in a script called Linear B.
