I don't speak Greek. It's on my bucket list but yeah, languages are hard to learn. I came across the following article yesterday and well, it made me happy so I'm sharing.
"Whenever Greece faces challenges with its public image, such as the unfair comments made against Greeks during last decade’s devastating financial crisis, its greatest ambassador is always there to remind people of the importance of Hellenism for the whole world.
The greatest ambassador for Greece is no other than the Greek language itself.
With over 3,400 years of documented history, the Greek language has heavily influenced all western languages. English is no exception, as to this day it still uses the roots of Greek words to coin new terms.
Greeks were one of the first people to describe complex medical, mathematical and philosophical concepts, gifting in this way a plethora of words that are still used in these fields today.
The Greek language didn’t stop, however, with the scientific and natural world. It conquered many other fields, including the arts, and lent words to many languages to help them describe concepts in literature, music, architecture, and the fine arts.
Whether you work in an orchestra or a supermarket, whether you study business or sing opera arias, whether you are a doctor or a university professor, you use Greek words every single day.
Surely you must have heard all these impressive facts about the Greek language before. You know that about 12% of all English words derive from Greek, the fact that the Greek alphabet was the first one to use vowels, and that the longest word to ever appear in literature was Greek.
Written by the ancient Greek playwright Aristofanis in a hilarious effort to describe the fictional dish full of different kinds of meat, the word is: “λοπαδοτεμαχοσελαχογαλεοκρανιολειψανοδριμυποτριμματοσιλφιοκαραβομελιτοκατακεχυμενοκιχλεπικοσσυφοφαττοπεριστεραλεκτρυονοπτοκεφαλλιοκιγκλοπελειολαγῳοσιραιοβαφητραγανοπτερύγων.”
The list of the Greek language’s gifts to the world is endless. And while it is true that this language invented and described for the first time many meaningful concepts in science, medicine, and art, its beauty does not stop there.
Greek is the perfect language by which to understand the human soul, to describe conflicting yet familiar feelings and different facets of human behavior. Many of these are even used in English as is, since there is no appropriate translation capturing their true meaning.
The word “Nostalgia,” for instance, describing the happy reminiscences we all have of another time, especially when we are far away or after the passage of many years. Ancient Greece was truly a cultural hotbed; it was the mother of the sciences, arts, democracy, and the Olympic Games.
While in modern times our country is not the world’s cultural center that it once was, the direct relation of modern to ancient Greek is the factor that still renders Greece one of the most important countries of the western world.
Everything starts and ends with the Greek language — the true ambassador of Greek culture. And despite the fact that it has only about 12 million speakers worldwide, the passion of the Greek diaspora to speak the language and teach it to younger generations is what helps the language to not only survive but grow."
"Whenever Greece faces challenges with its public image, such as the unfair comments made against Greeks during last decade’s devastating financial crisis, its greatest ambassador is always there to remind people of the importance of Hellenism for the whole world.
The greatest ambassador for Greece is no other than the Greek language itself.
With over 3,400 years of documented history, the Greek language has heavily influenced all western languages. English is no exception, as to this day it still uses the roots of Greek words to coin new terms.
Greeks were one of the first people to describe complex medical, mathematical and philosophical concepts, gifting in this way a plethora of words that are still used in these fields today.
The Greek language didn’t stop, however, with the scientific and natural world. It conquered many other fields, including the arts, and lent words to many languages to help them describe concepts in literature, music, architecture, and the fine arts.
Whether you work in an orchestra or a supermarket, whether you study business or sing opera arias, whether you are a doctor or a university professor, you use Greek words every single day.
Surely you must have heard all these impressive facts about the Greek language before. You know that about 12% of all English words derive from Greek, the fact that the Greek alphabet was the first one to use vowels, and that the longest word to ever appear in literature was Greek.
Written by the ancient Greek playwright Aristofanis in a hilarious effort to describe the fictional dish full of different kinds of meat, the word is: “λοπαδοτεμαχοσελαχογαλεοκρανιολειψανοδριμυποτριμματοσιλφιοκαραβομελιτοκατακεχυμενοκιχλεπικοσσυφοφαττοπεριστεραλεκτρυονοπτοκεφαλλιοκιγκλοπελειολαγῳοσιραιοβαφητραγανοπτερύγων.”
The list of the Greek language’s gifts to the world is endless. And while it is true that this language invented and described for the first time many meaningful concepts in science, medicine, and art, its beauty does not stop there.
Greek is the perfect language by which to understand the human soul, to describe conflicting yet familiar feelings and different facets of human behavior. Many of these are even used in English as is, since there is no appropriate translation capturing their true meaning.
The word “Nostalgia,” for instance, describing the happy reminiscences we all have of another time, especially when we are far away or after the passage of many years. Ancient Greece was truly a cultural hotbed; it was the mother of the sciences, arts, democracy, and the Olympic Games.
While in modern times our country is not the world’s cultural center that it once was, the direct relation of modern to ancient Greek is the factor that still renders Greece one of the most important countries of the western world.
Everything starts and ends with the Greek language — the true ambassador of Greek culture. And despite the fact that it has only about 12 million speakers worldwide, the passion of the Greek diaspora to speak the language and teach it to younger generations is what helps the language to not only survive but grow."
