Hellenic is the branch of the Indo-European language family consisting of Greek and its historical predecessors and dialects, including Mycenaean Greek, Ancient Greek and Koine Greek. Modern Greek, its sole surviving major member, is spoken by roughly 13 million people, chiefly in Greece and Cyprus, giving Hellenic one of the longest continuously attested written records of any Indo-European branch, spanning more than three thousand years.
Facts
RegionGreece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, and Turkey, plus other countries of the Greek diaspora 1 Speaker Count Proto-Language StatusReconstructed as Proto-Greek, the unrecorded assumed last common ancestor of all known Greek varieties, its unity ending as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula in the Neolithic era or Bronze Age 1 Connections
Descends From
Hellenic (Greek and its ancient relatives) is a primary branch of Indo-European.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Greek Language
Wikimedia FoundationLead section: speaker distribution sentence
It is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora.
Lead section: speaker total sentence
It is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora.
Proto-Greek section: definition sentence
The unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age.
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