Greek is spoken by the 10 million inhabitants of Greece and some 82% of the population of Cyprus, numbering a further half million. It is also spoken around the world in the diaspora of Greeks who have emigrated for political or, far more commonly, economic reasons to the USA, Australia, Britain and elsewhere. In terms of number of native speakers it ranks well down the list of world languages. However, culturally its importance is disproportionate. As the language of classical Greek philosophy and literature and, later, as the language of the Christian Gospels and the early Church it has profoundly shaped Western thought.

Like any other language Greek has evolved over the ages, but Modern Greek can justifiably trace its pedigree back through the Athens of Pericles to the Trojan wars and indeed to some of European man�s first attempts at recording his ideas in writing. This very history has been a deep influence on the way Greeks of today view their language and, incidentally, makes it very difficult to precis the history of Greek in the compass of a short essay such as this.

Indeed this is a very personal selection of topics related to Greek, largely chosen as having a bearing on aspects of translation of Modern Greek. It is not intended to be a set of working notes for translators of Greek; that would be a far more ambitious project. It is more a brief historical background and a pot-pourri of aspects of the Greek language which we hope may be of interest to the non specialist who occasionally has to deal with Greek, whether in a translation agency, an in-house translation department or as a business person dealing with Greece. We have tried to ensure our facts are correct but we do admit to being guilty of oversimplification at times - unavoidable when dealing with so complex and diverse a subject in such a short space.