Greek, the language of one of the major civilizations and one of the greatest literatures of the world, forms its own independent branch of the Indo-European language family and has no close living relatives. Of all the living Indo-European languages, it is most closely related to Armenian. It has been spoken in the southern Balkans since the early part of the second millennium BC and has a documented history that goes back 3,500 years, the longest in the Indo-European family. The earliest written evidence of Greek is found in Mycenaean Greek documents found on Crete and later on the Greek mainland which were written in the Linear B syllabary.

Modern Greek is a descendant of Proto-Greek, the ancestor of the ancient Greek dialects that were spoken in different areas of Greece before the 4th century BC and which were gradually superseded a variety of Greek called Common Greek or Koine (), based on the Attic dialect spoken around Athens.

The history of the Greek language is usually divided into the following periods characterized by political and linguistic factors:

• Mycenaean Greek, was the language of the Mycenaean civilization (16th century BC onward).
• Classical (or Ancient) Greek, known throughout the Roman empire, was the language of the Classical period of Greek civilization. Classical Greek fell into disuse in western Europe in the Middle Ages, but remained known in the Byzantine Empire, and was reintroduced to the rest of Europe with the Fall of Constantinople and Greek migration to Italy.
• Hellenistic (Koine) Greek, a fusion of of various Greek dialects with the dialect of Athens, was a common Greek dialect that became one of the world's first lingua francas.
• Medieval (Byzantine) Greek was the literary language of the Byzantine Empire that was used until its fall in the 15th century AD.
• Modern Greek developed from Koine Greek.

Greek is spoken by about 12 million people worldwide, principally in Greece and Cyprus, but also in many other countries where there are Greek immigrants. Greek is the official language of the Greek Republic where it is spoken by about 10 million people (Ethnologue). It is also the co-official language of Cyprus along with Turkish. Greek is one of the 20 official languages of the European Union.

Click on the MLA Interactive Language Map to find out where Greek is spoken in the U.S.

There are several forms of Greek:

• Dhimotikí (), the Demotic (vernacular) language which which was declared the official language of Greece in 1976.
• Katharévusa (), an imitation of classical Greek, that was used for literary, juridic, administrative, and scientific purposes during the 19th and and first part of the 20th centuries.

Dhimotikí and Katharévusa have converged, producing (Koine, Common Modern Greek), which is used for all official purposes and which serves as the medium of education in Greece today.

The first known script for writing Greek was the Linear B syllabary, deciphered in 1953 by Michael Ventris. It was used for writing Mycenaean, an early form of Greek. After the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, there is no surviving evidence that writing was used until the Greek alphabet came into existence. It is not related to Linear B. It was probably derived from a Semitic script, but there is controversy as to exactly which one. The Phoenician alphabet is one possibility. Today, the Greek alphabet consists of the following letters.

For historical reasons, three vowel phonemes of modern Greek have multiple orthographic representations:

Greek letters are used today in mathematics and science, as well as for many other purposes.

Click here for a lesson on the Greek alphabet.

Take a look at Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek.

Greek influence on English vocabulary
Many modern scientific and technical words in English and other Western languages are derived from Greek. It has been estimated that over 10% of English vocabulary is of Greek origin. Greek borrowings are too numerous to list here. Below are just a few examples of English words and roots borrowed from Greek.

Click here to find out where Greek is taught in the United States.
Click here to find learning materials for studying Greek.

Online resources for the study of Greek language and culture
Ethnologue report on Greek
Wikipedia article on Greek
Greek language and linguistics
Philoglossia: Learning Greek as a foreign language
Yamada Language Center guide for Greek
Library of Congress portals to the world: Greece
Omniglot guide to the Greek alphabet
Languages-on-the-web: Greek
BBC Country Profile: Greece