Greek language

==Classification==
Greek is an independent branch of the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be [[Ancient Macedonian language|ancient Macedonian]], which, by most accounts, was a distinct [[Ancient Greek dialects|dialect of Greek]] itself.<ref name="Olander-van Beek-2022">{{harvnb|Olander|2022|pp=12, 14}}; {{harvnb|van Beek|2022|pp=190–191, 193}}</ref><ref name= Crespo2018>{{cite book | last = Crespo | first = Emilio | chapter = The Softening of Obstruent Consonants in the Macedonian Dialect | title = Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea | editor1-last = Giannakis | editor1-first = Georgios K. | editor2-last = Crespo | editor2-first = Emilio | editor3-last = Filos | editor3-first = Panagiotis | date = 2018 | publisher = Walter de Gruyter | page = 329 | isbn = 978-3-11-053081-0 }}</ref><ref name= Hatzopoulos2018>{{cite book | last = Hatzopoulos | first = Miltiades B. | chapter = Recent Research in the Ancient Macedonian Dialect: Consolidation and New Perspectives | title = Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea | editor1-last = Giannakis | editor1-first = Georgios K. | editor2-last = Crespo | editor2-first = Emilio | editor3-last = Filos | editor3-first = Panagiotis | date = 2018 | publisher=Walter de Gruyter | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=XXFLDwAAQBAJ&q=ancient+macedonian+speech&pg=PT301 | page=299 | isbn = 978-3-11-053081-0 }}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Babiniotis|1992|pp=29–40}}; {{harvnb|Dosuna|2012|pp=65–78}}</ref> Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards [[Phrygian language|Phrygian]] as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical [[isogloss]]es, with some being exclusive between them.<ref name="Olander-van Beek-2022" /><ref>{{harvnb|Woodhouse|2009|p=171}}: "This question is of course only just separable from the question of which languages within Indo-European are most closely related to Phrygian, which has also been hotly debated. A turning point in this debate was Kortlandt's (1988) demonstration on the basis of shared sound changes that Thraco-Armenian had separated from Phrygian and other originally Balkan languages at an early stage. The consensus has now returned to regarding Greek as the closest relative."</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Obrador-Cursach|2020|pp=238–239}}: "To the best of our current knowledge, Phrygian was closely related to Greek. This affirmation is consistent with the vision offered by Neumann (1988: 23), Brixhe (2006) and Ligorio and Lubotsky (2018: 1816) and with many observations given by ancient authors. Both languages share 34 of the 36 features considered in this paper, some of them of great significance:{{nbsp}}... The available data suggest that Phrygian and Greek coexisted broadly from pre-historic to historic times, and both belong to a common linguistic area (Brixhe 2006: 39–44)."</ref> Scholars have proposed a [[Graeco-Phrygian]] subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated.<ref name="Olander-van Beek-2022" /><ref>{{harvnb|Obrador-Cursach|2020|p=243}}: "With the current state of our knowledge, we can affirm that Phrygian is closely related to Greek. This is not a surprising conclusion: ancient sources and modern scholars agree that Phrygians did not live far from Greece in pre-historic times. Moreover, the last half century of scientific study of Phrygian has approached both languages and developed the hypothesis of a Proto-Greco-Phrygian language, to the detriment to other theories like Phrygio-Armenian or Thraco-Phrygian."</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Ligorio|Lubotsky|2018|pp=1816–1817}}: "Phrygian is most closely related to Greek. The two languages share a few unique innovations,{{nbsp}}... It is therefore very likely that both languages emerged from a single language, which was spoken in the Balkans at the end of the third millennium BCE."</ref><ref>{{Glottolog|grae1234|Graeco-Phrygian}}</ref>

Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to [[Armenian language|Armenian]] (see [[Graeco-Armenian]]) or the [[Indo-Iranian languages]] (see [[Graeco-Aryan]]), but little definitive evidence has been found.<ref>{{harvnb|van Beek|2022|pp=193–197}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Renfrew|1990}}; {{harvnb|Gamkrelidze|Ivanov|1990|pp=110–116}}; {{harvnb|Renfrew|2003|pp=17–48}}; {{harvnb|Gray|Atkinson|2003|pp=435–439}}</ref> In addition, [[Albanian language|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 language]]s of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed [[Paleo-Balkan languages|Palaeo-Balkan]], and Greek has a central position in it.<ref>{{harvnb|Olsen|Thorsø|2022|pp=209–217}}; {{harvnb|Hyllested|Joseph|2022|pp=225–226, 228–229, 231–241}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Holm|2008|pp=634–635}}</ref>