Greek

Greek is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to the territories that have had populations of Greeks since antiquity: Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, Turkey, Italy, southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, Caucasus, the Black Sea coast, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary.

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13.5 million (2015)

Native to Greece, Cyprus, Albania (Gjirokastér County and Vlorë County), Italy (Calabria, Salento and Messina) and other regions of the Balkans, Caucasus, Black Sea coast, Asia Minor and Eastern Mediterranean