Greece

Language of Greece

Greece flag

The Hellenic Republic (Greece) is a country belonging to Europe, whose capital is Athens. It has a population of 11 million inhabitants (80º) and an extension of 131,957 km 2 (95º). It has a very high human development index (31st) and its official currency is the euro. But what language is spoken in Greece?

What language do they speak in Greece?

Greece has only one official language, Greek. In this matter, Greece is a homogeneous country.

There are, however, minority languages ​​throughout the country. The most notorious are Albanian (nearly half a million speakers), Macedonian and Bulgarian, Aromanian and Meglenite, and Turkish.

minority languages ​​spoken in greece

The languages ​​most learned by Greek citizens are English (51%), German (9%), French (8.5%) and Italian (8%).

The Greek language

Greek (ελληνική γλώσσα) is the official language of the country, spoken by virtually the entire population. It is one of the oldest languages ​​in the world, the first writings that have been found date back to the fifteenth century BC. C. It was used as the lingua franca in the Mediterranean in classical antiquity. In today’s Greece, several dialects of Greek are spoken, divided between northern and southern.

map greek dialects in greece

During the 19th and 20th centuries, there was a constant debate as to whether the language of Greece should be Katharévousa (created in the 19th century as an academic and governmental language) or Demotic (Greek that had evolved from Byzantine Greek). This issue was resolved in 1976, when Demotic was declared the only official variant of Greek, causing the former to fall into disuse.

Is English spoken in Greece?

According to the European barometer, 33% of Greeks have a sufficient level to strike up a conversation. This figure increases in the case of young people between 15 and 34 years old (50% of them speak it).

Is Spanish spoken in Greece?

Spanish is barely represented in the Hellenic country, since only 1% of Greeks speak Spanish.

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