International Greek Language Day Date in the current year: February 9, 2025

Greek belongs to the Indo-European language family, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the family. All languages thought to be closely related to it are now extinct. Among modern languages, Greek is thought to share a common ancestor with Armenian and Indo-Iranian languages.

Greek has been spoken in the Balkans for at least 5 millennia, probably longer. It has the longest documented history among the Indo-European languages, with at least 3,400 years of written records. The Greek alphabet has been in use for about 2,800 years. Derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, it is the ancestor of several other scripts, including Latin and Cyrillic. Greek letters are also widely used in science, mathematics, engineering, and other related fields as symbols for constants, special functions, and variables.

Ancient Greek (the historical form of the Greek language spoken from about 1500 BC to 300 BC) was a lingua franca in the Mediterranean world during antiquity. It was the language of ancient Greek philosophers, historians, playwrights, and poets whose works had a significant influence on the development of Western culture.

Beginning with the epics of Homer, ancient Greek literature produced numerous works that remain central to the European canon. Many foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally written in Greek, as was the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Along with Latin literature and Roman traditions, Greek texts and societies of antiquity are the main focus of Classical studies.

After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Greek fell into disuse in Western Europe, but remained in use alongside Latin in the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire). After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, it was reintroduced to the rest of Europe due to the migration of Greeks. Modern Greek has at least 13.5 million native speakers. It is the official language of Greece and Cyprus, and is also spoken in Albania, Italy, Turkey, and other countries of the Greek diaspora.

Greek roots and other morphemes have been used extensively for centuries and remain a widely used source for coining new words in various languages. Together with Latin words, Greek words form the basic of the international scientific vocabulary.

International Greek Language Day was first proposed by Italian Greeks and officially established in by the Greek Parliament in 2017 to celebrate the rich history of the Greek language and its contribution to the development of Western civilization, and to honor the memory of Greece’s national poet, Dionysios Solomos. Solomos is best known for writing “Hymn to Liberty”, which was set to music by Nikolaos Mantzaros and became the national anthem of Greece in 1864.