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87-618: Nikolaos Galatis was born in either Anogi or Kioni in Ithaca , Greece, to a noble family of the Ionian Islands who had first received noble privileges in the late 14th and early 15th centuries under the Tocco family. He is described by one report as 'a young Ithacan, handsome, from a noble family'. The only information known about the direct family of Nikolaos comes from the archival records of his being questioned by Russian authorities in 1817. He had

174-498: A Neapolitan courtier. While Ithaca had until now merely followed the fate of Cephalonia, it is under the Tocco that more specific mentions of Ithaca begin to appear in the record. In the 15th century, there was one family, the Galati , with noble privileges and land interests on the island given by the Tocco family . In 1479, Ottoman forces reached the islands and many of the people fled from

261-570: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,

348-427: A brother, Eustathios, an archimandrite , who attempted to seek revenge for his brother after he was assassinated in 1819. He styled himself as a 'Count'. According to his own account, his father was a diplomat: I was born on the island of Ithaca. My parents, who are still alive, still live there today. My father holds property there and is a diplomat by profession. He was educated and cultivated, sufficiently so to join

435-482: A count and wore the uniform of the National Guard of the Ionian Islands . This led Capodistria to see him as 'nothing more than an adventurer', or as Capodistria later recalled his response to Galatis: Sir, if anyone were to consider this plan, he would have to be insane; and in order to speak to me about it in this place, where I have the honour to serve a great and sovereign Monarch, he would have to be, as you are,

522-546: A cousin of Capodistria's, asked him to take up the leadership of the secret society, which Capodistria resolutely refused. Capodistria as Foreign Minister was seeking to uphold Russia's peaceful engagement with its European neighbours (including with the Ottoman Empire), and the call to take part in the Greek revolutionary movement was untenable since it would threaten Russia's foreign policy. In St Petersburg, Galatis styled himself as

609-552: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in

696-508: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on

783-531: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near

870-470: A gesture of diplomatic friendship to Greece's new Anglophile king, George I . The United Kingdom kept its privileged use of the harbour at Corfu . The origins of the first people to inhabit the island, which occurred during the last years of the Neolithic period (4000–3000 BC), are not clear. The traces of buildings, walls and a road from this time period prove that life existed and continued to do so during

957-526: A pro-enosis political party. In September 1848, there were skirmishes with the British garrison in Argostoli and Lixouri on Kefalonia , which led to a certain level relaxation in the enforcement of the protectorates laws, and freedom of the press as well. The island's populace did not hide their growing demands for enosis, and newspapers on the islands frequently published articles criticising British policies in

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1044-612: A young man who has just abandoned the rocks of Ithaca and is being led astray by some blind passion. ... you must tell your command that, if they do not wish to be destroyed and to lead their innocent and unfortunate nation to ruin, they must give up their revolutionary activities, and to live as they did before, under whichever government happens to exist, until such a time that Divine Providence decides otherwise. Ithaca (island) Ithaca , Ithaki or Ithaka ( / ˈ ɪ θ ə k ə / ; Greek : Ιθάκη, Ithaki [iˈθaci] ; Ancient Greek : Ἰθάκη, Ithákē [i.tʰá.kɛː] )

1131-403: Is Stavros in the northern part. Lazaretto Islet (or Island of The Saviour ) guards the harbor. The church of The Saviour and the remains of an old gaol are located on the islet. The capes in the island include Exogi, the westernmost, Melissa to the north, Mavronos, Agios Ilias, Schinous, Sarakiniko and Agios Ioannis, to the east, and Agiou Andreou, to the south. Bays include Afales Bay to

1218-475: Is a Greek island located in the Ionian Sea , off the northeast coast of Kefalonia and to the west of continental Greece . Ithaca's main island has an area of 96 square kilometres (37 sq mi) and in 2021 had a population of 2,862. It is the second-smallest of the seven main Ionian Islands , after Paxi . Ithaca is a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of

1305-455: Is a mountain, Neriton, covered with waving forests, conspicuous from afar; and round it lie many isles hard by one another, Dulichium, and Same, and wooded Zacynthus. Ithaca itself lies close in to the mainland the furthest toward the gloom, but the others lie apart toward the Dawn and the sun—a rugged isle, but a good nurse of young men It has sometimes been argued that this description does not match

1392-766: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout

1479-742: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , 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

1566-474: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During

1653-496: Is most likely that Ithaca was among the territory he conquered. Later, Ithaca changed ownership together with Cephalonia, first to the Orsini family after Margaritone's death, and then to John of Gravina , prince of Achaia , who conquered them from the Orsini in 1324. From 1333 until 1357 the islands were transferred to Robert of Taranto , who in 1357, bestowed them upon Leonardo Tocco ,

1740-510: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to

1827-518: 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 . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around

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1914-758: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,

2001-630: 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 . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with

2088-469: Is the only populated island in this municipality, which contains several other islets. Aetos, Afales, Agios Ioannis, Agia Saranta, Anogi, Exogi, Frikes, Kalivia, Kathara, Kioni, Kolieri, Lachos, Lefki, Marmaka, Perachori, Piso Aetos, Platrithia, Rachi, Stavros, and Vathy. Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ )

2175-418: Is unclear which modern islands correspond to Homer's Doulichion and Same . The Greek geographer Strabo , writing in the 1st century AD, identified Homer's Ithaca with modern Ithaca. Following earlier commentators, he interpreted the word translated above as "low-lying" to mean "close to the mainland", and the phrase translated as "farthest out to sea, towards the sunset" as meaning "farthest of all towards

2262-486: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It

2349-511: The Galatis family, who laid claim to it as their property, having received rights over Ithaca under the Tocco regime. However, according to historians, the island received a great population revival in the period before and after the fall of Candia when numerous people from Crete arrived there as well as the noble Karavia family (Latin: Caravia), a branch of the ancient byzantine Kallergi family . This family and its followers inhabited settlements on

2436-480: The Greek revolutionary cause . Galatis wrote to Ioannis Capodistria , Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire under Tsar Alexander I , whom he asked to allow him to come to St Petersburg in order 'to make an announcement of great significance'. The Tsar consented: Write to tell him to come. It would be a good thing for us to see what kind of person he is from up close. In St Petersburg, Galatis, who claimed to be

2523-510: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as

2610-573: The Philomuse Society at Athens. He claimed to have been educated at the prestigious school at Kydonies (today Ayvalik , Turkey), and spoke Italian and French with sufficient fluency that he would use both of these languages professionally. He spoke French with Capodistria when the two met in Russia. After studying for an uncertain amount of time at Kydonies, he served as a scrivano (secretary) for Ali Pasha at Janina , for approximately 18 months. He

2697-666: The United States of the Ionian Islands and decreed that it become a British protectorate. Colonel Charles Philippe de Bosset became provisional governor between 1810 and 1814. A few years later Greek nationalist groups started to form. Although their energy in the early years was directed to supporting their fellow Greek revolutionaries in the revolution against the Ottoman Empire , they switched their focus to enosis with Greece following their independence. The Party of Radicals (Greek: Κόμμα των Ριζοσπαστών) founded in 1848 as

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2784-413: The ancient Hellenic prime (800–180 BC), independent organized life continued in the northern and southern part of the island. In the southern part, in the area of Aetos, the town Alalcomenae was founded. From this period, many objects of important historical value have been found during excavations. Among these objects are coins imprinted with the name Ithaca and the image of Odysseus which suggest that

2871-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in

2958-570: The 3rd century BC refers to a local hero-shrine of Odysseus and games called the Odysseia . The Archaeological site of "School of Homer" on modern Ithaca is the only place in the Lefkas–Kefalonia–Ithaca Triangle where Linear B inscriptions may have been found, near royal remains. In 2010, Greek archaeologists discovered the remains of an 8th-century BC palace in the area of Agios Athanasios, leading to reports that this might have been

3045-465: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into

3132-487: The 4th millennium BC. It may have been the capital of Cephalonia during the Mycenaean period and the capital-state of the small kingdom ruled by Odysseus . The Romans occupied the island in the 2nd century BC, and later it became part of the Byzantine Empire . The Normans ruled Ithaca in the 13th century, and after a short Turkish rule it fell into Venetian hands ( Ionian Islands under Venetian rule ). Ithaca

3219-482: The 9th or 8th centuries BC, but may have made use of older mythological and poetic traditions; their depiction of the hero Odysseus and his rule over Ithaca and the surrounding islands and mainland preserves some memories of the political geography, customs, and society of the time. After the end of the Mycenaean period Ithaca's influence diminished, and it came under the jurisdiction of the nearest large island. During

3306-555: The British fleet, which had become very powerful, by building a fort in Vathy. In 1809 Great Britain mounted a blockade on the Ionian Islands as part of the war against Napoleon , and in September of that year they hoisted the British flag above the castle of Zakynthos. Cephalonia and Ithaca soon surrendered, and the British installed provisional governments. The Treaty of Paris (1815) recognised

3393-510: The Early Hellenic era (3000–2000 BC). In the years (2000–1500 BC), some of the population migrated to part of the island. The buildings and walls that were excavated showed the lifestyle of this period had remained primitive. During the Mycenaean period (1600–1100 BC), Ithaca rose to the highest level of its ancient history. Mostly based on the Odyssey and oral traditions, it is believed that

3480-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit

3567-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than

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3654-491: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in

3741-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow

3828-661: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community

3915-476: The Venetians , and Lefkada by the Ottoman Empire. By then Ithaca was almost uninhabited, and the Venetians had to grant incentives to settlers from neighbouring islands and the mainland to repopulate it. 1504, the Venetians ordered official the repopulation of Ithaca with tax incentives to attract settlers from neighbouring islands. The Venetian authorities found the island was already being repopulated by members of

4002-602: The Venetians had strengthened into a major power with an organized fleet. The Venetians pursued their interest in the Ionian Islands, and in 1499 a war between the Venetians and the Turks began. The allied fleets of the Venetians and the Spanish besieged Ithaca, and the other islands. The fleets prevailed, and from 1500 onwards the Venetians controlled the islands. According to a treaty of 1503, Ithaca, Cephalonia and Zakynthos would be ruled by

4089-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),

4176-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of

4263-593: The capital of the Septinsular Republic , and the form of government was democratic, with a fourteen-member senate in which Ithaca had one representative. The Ithacan fleet flourished when it was allowed to carry cargo up to the ports of the Black Sea . In 1807, according to the Tilsit Treaty with Turkey, the Ionian Islands once again came under the French rule (1807–1809 AD). The French quickly began preparing to face

4350-405: The control of the administrative and judicial systems, but later the heavy taxation they demanded caused a feeling of indignation among the people. During this short historical period, the new ideas of system and social structure greatly influenced the inhabitants of the island. At the end of 1798, the French were succeeded by Russia and Turkey (1798–1807), which were allies at that time. Corfu became

4437-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of

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4524-602: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute

4611-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in

4698-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn

4785-689: The island became the capital of the Ionian Kingdom-State, which included the surrounding lands, and was referred to as one of the most powerful states of that time. The Ithacans were characterized as great navigators and explorers with daring expeditions reaching further than the Mediterranean Sea . The epic poems of Homer , the Iliad and the Odyssey , shed some light on Bronze-Age Ithaca. Those poems are generally thought to have been composed sometime in

4872-411: The island out of fear of the new Turkish settlers. Those who remained hid in the mountains to avoid the pirates who controlled the channel between Cephalonia and Ithaca and the bays of the island. In the following five years, the Turks , Tocco and Venetians laid claim to the islands diplomatically. Possession of the islands was finally taken by the Ottoman Empire from 1484 to 1499. During this period,

4959-638: The island remained under Venetian control. A few years after the French Revolution , the Ionian area came under the rule of the First French Republic (1797–1798), and the island became the honorary capital of the French département of Ithaque , comprising Cephalonia, Lefkada, and part of the mainland (the prefecture was at Argostoli on Kefalonia). The population welcomed the French, who took care in

5046-505: The island was self-governed. Across time, the island fell to various conquerors and experienced changed circumstances, meaning the population of the island kept changing through history. Although there is no definite numerical information until the Venetian period, it is believed that from the Mycenaean to the Byzantine period , the number of inhabitants was several thousand, who lived mainly in

5133-612: The island, received fiefs from the Venetian Senate and indulged in a tremendously profitable maritime trade as well as piracy against the Ottomans . According to the French traveler Leake during the 18th century the families of Karavias, Petalas and the Dendrinos constituted the three main factions of the island, with the Karavias controlling its most productive part. During the next centuries

5220-489: The last few centuries, some scholars have argued that Homer's Ithaca was not modern Ithaca, but a different island. Perhaps the best known proposal is that of Wilhelm Dörpfeld , who believed that the nearby island of Lefkada was Homer's Ithaca, whereas Same was the present-day Ithaca. It has also been suggested that Paliki , the western peninsula of Kefalonia, is Homer's Ithaca. It has been argued that in Homeric times Paliki

5307-463: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write

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5394-621: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek

5481-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and

5568-400: The north-south direction, in length of 23 km (14 miles) and maximum width of 6 km (4 miles). It consists of two parts, of about equal size, connected by the narrow isthmus of Aetos (Eagle), just 600 metres (1,969 feet) wide. The two parts enclose the bay of Molos, whose southern branch is the harbor of Vathy, the capital and largest settlement of the island. The second largest village

5655-453: The north." Strabo identified Same as modern Kefalonia, and believed that Homer's Doulichion was one of the islands now known as the Echinades . Ithaca lies farther north than Kefalonia, Zacynthos, and the island that Strabo identified as Doulichion, consistent with the interpretation of Ithaca as being "farthest of all towards the north." Strabo's explanation has not won universal acceptance. In

5742-561: The northern part of Ithaca. During the Middle Ages , the population decreased due to the continuous invasions of pirates, forcing the people to establish settlements and live in the mountains. The island, often referred to with the name 'Val di Compare', followed the fortunes of its bigger neighbor Cephalonia throughout the 12th and 13th centuries, when it formed part of the holdings of various Latin rulers. In 1185, when Cephalonia and Zakynthos were captured by Margaritone of Brindisi , it

5829-407: The northwest, Frikes and Kioni Bays to the northeast, Molos Gulf to the east, and Ormos Gulf and Sarakiniko Bay to the southeast. The tallest mountain is Nirito in the northern part (806 m), followed by Merovigli (669 m) in the south. The island Ithaca is part of the regional unit Ithaca, which is part of the Ionian Islands region. The only municipality of this regional unit is Ithaca. Ithaca

5916-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks

6003-463: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It

6090-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as

6177-591: The participation of Ithacans during the siege of Messolongi and the naval battles against Ottoman ships on the Black Sea and the Danube was significant. Ithaca was annexed to the Greek Kingdom with the rest of the Ionian islands in 1864. Since antiquity, Ithaca has been identified as the home of the mythological hero Odysseus . In the Odyssey of Homer, Ithaca is described thus ...dwell in clear-seen Ithaca, wherein

6264-487: The protectorate. On the 15th of August in 1849, another rebellion broke out, which was quashed by Henry George Ward , who proceeded to temporarily impose martial law . During the British protectorate period prominent citizens of Ithaki participated in the secret " Philiki Etairia " which was instrumental in organizing the Greek Revolution of 1821 against Turkish rule, and Greek fighters found refuge there. In addition,

6351-429: The regional unit. The capital is Vathy (or Vathi). Modern Ithaca is generally identified with Homer's Ithaca , the home of Odysseus , whose delayed return to the island is the plot of the epic poem Odyssey . Although the name Ithaca or Ithaka has remained unchanged since ancient times, written documents of different periods also refer to the island by other names, such as: The island has been inhabited since

6438-638: The site of Odysseus's palace. Modern scholars generally accept the identification of modern Ithaca with Homeric Ithaca, and explain discrepancies between the Odyssey ' s description and the actual topography as the product of lack of first-hand knowledge of the island, or as poetic licence. Ithaca lies east of the northeast coast of Cephalonia, from which it is separated by the Strait of Ithaca . The regional unit covers an area of 117.812 square kilometres (45.5 sq mi) and has approximately 100 kilometres (62 miles) of coastline. The main island stretches in

6525-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of

6612-429: The topography of modern Ithaca. Three features of the description have been seen as especially problematic. First, Ithaca is described as "low-lying" ( χθαμαλή ), but Ithaca is mountainous. Second, the words "farthest out to sea, towards the sunset" ( πανυπερτάτη εἰν ἁλὶ ... πρὸς ζόφον ) are usually interpreted to mean that Ithaca must be the island furthest to the west, but Kefalonia lies to the west of Ithaca. Lastly, it

6699-424: The young revolutionary movement. In Odessa, he met members of the secret Filiki Eteria including Nikolaos Skoufas , Emmanouil Xanthos and Athanasios Tsakalov . He was soon initiated into the secret society by Skoufas , one of its founding members. He was either the third or fifth member of the society in sequence of initiation. After joining, in 1817, Galatis headed for Russia with the aim of seeking support for

6786-568: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or

6873-549: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of

6960-546: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe

7047-545: Was arrested by officials in British-ruled Corfu in February 1816, for reasons which remain unclear, and upon being asked why he believed he was being questioned, he responded: 'I do not know, I cannot think of anything other than because I worked in the service of Ali Pasha'. Toward the end of 1816, Nikolaos Galatis set off for Odessa (now Ukraine ), where he met with members of the Greek community who were involved in

7134-417: Was separated from Kefalonia by a sea channel since closed up by earthquake-induced rockfalls. However, no scientific review publications are available in support of this theory. Indeed, scholars have found that "all the geological and geomorphological evidence refutes this hypothesis". Despite any difficulties with Homer's description of the island, in classical and Roman times the island now called "Ithaca"

7221-406: Was subsequently occupied by France under the 1797 Treaty of Campo Formio . It was liberated by a joint Russo - Turkish force commanded by admirals Fyodor Ushakov and Kadir Bey in 1798 and subsequently became a part of the Septinsular Republic , which was originally established as a protectorate of the Russian Empire and Ottoman Empire . It became a French possession again in 1807, until it

7308-462: Was taken over by the United Kingdom in 1809. Under the 1815 Treaty of Paris , Ithaca became a state of the United States of the Ionian Islands , a protectorate of the British Empire. In 1830, the local community requested to join with the rest of the newly restored nation-state of Greece. Under the 1864 Treaty of London , Ithaca, along with the remaining six Ionian islands, was ceded to Greece as

7395-566: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect

7482-411: Was universally held to be the home of Odysseus; the Hellenistic identifications of Homeric sites, such as the identifications of Lipari as the island of Aeolus , are usually taken with a grain of salt, and attributed to the ancient tourist trade. The island has been known as Ithaca from an early date, as coins and inscriptions show. Coins from Ithaca frequently portray Odysseus, and an inscription from

7569-653: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage

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