Greek voice overs: what you need to know

Greek is one of the oldest Indo-European languages and it’s mostly spoken in Greece and Cyprus where it’s the official language.

Greek is also used in other countries by the Greek diaspora. Italy, Albania, Armenia, The United States, and Romania have significant Greek communities that continue to use their native tongue. Additionally, Greek is one of the official languages of the European Union.

Around 13.4 million people in the world speak Greek. The majority of them are native speakers.

Language History

It’s considered that Greek originated from Proto-Greek between 3000 BC and 1700 BC in the Greek Peninsula. The rich history of this language is divided into 6 main periods: Proto, Mycenaean, Ancient, Koine, Medieval, and Modern.

The first written texts in Ancient Greek date back to the Mycenaean Greek period (between 1450 and 1350 BC). Interestingly, Greek is one of the oldest written languages in the world.

Even to this day, Greek is one of the most important languages in the Western world. Many fundamental scientific texts in the fields of astronomy, Western philosophy, mathematics, and logic were written in Greek. To this day, Latin and Greek languages and literary works serve as a window to the Western ancient world.

Modern Greek — the variety that’s spoken today — emerged after the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453. However, during the 19th and 20th centuries, the government struggled to establish a standard Modern Greek language.

In today’s Greece, Greek was verified as the official language in 1829.

Close Relations

Greek is the only language in its language branch (Hellenic) so it doesn’t have close living language relatives. Greek’s closest relations are Indo-Iranian languages and Armenian. Albanian is also considered to be somewhat related to Greek. However, neither of these languages are mutually intelligible with Greek.

The core of Greek vocabulary is inherited from Ancient Greek. However, Greek has many loanwords from other languages — Latin, Turkish, and more recently English and French words were borrowed into Greek.

Accents and Voice Over Tips

Greek has a huge number of regional varieties across Greece and other countries. However, linguists classify modern Greek into 3 major groups: Demotic, Katharévusa, and Koine.

Today’s standard Modern Greek originated in the 20th century and is based on Demotic Greek – an informal spoken variant of Greek. While Greek has no shortage of dialects and regional varieties, standard Modern Greek is considered an official variant of the language.

When it comes to spoken Greek, some components make it rather hard to learn. Greek is highly inflected, has three grammatical genders, and a number of cases. However, most Greek sounds also exist in English.

Keep in mind that Greek is one of the languages that have the formal you (‘εσείς’) and informal you (‘εσύ’). So in order to be polite, know who your listeners are!