Foreigners and Greeks on the Greek Language

“We must declare that there has never existed in the world a language that can be compared with Classical Greek.”
“The clarity, perfection, flexibility, and richness of the Greek language are such that it surpasses all other languages, and it was capable of creating and developing a civilization greater than that of all others, which are, in fact, indebted to it.”

“We bear great responsibility for the internationalization of the Greek language, as there exists no other language superior to it.”

“If your house library does not contain the works of the ancient Greek writers, then you live in a house without light.”

“A distant source of our civilization, Greece lives on within the words we speak.
It shapes our language every day.
The foundations and the tools of scientific vocabulary came from Greece, even in antiquity.
Borrowings continued, and not merely out of habit.
They continued because the Greek language offers, in an admirable way — much more than Latin — the possibility of creating words according to need.
Greek itself no longer provided enough words for the increasing number of new concepts.
The idea then arose to use the methods applied by the Greeks to expand their vocabulary.
The structure of their language allowed them to compose words in a simple and effective manner.
Others imitated them; they constructed new words and adapted them into their own languages (French, English, German, Italian).
Imitation is most often successful because the creators of Greek-derived words are excellent Hellenists.”

“To anyone wondering why so many millions of dollars were spent to preserve the words of Greek, we reply:
It is the language of our ancestors, and contact with them will improve our civilization.”

“If the gods converse, they use the language of the Greeks.”
(Deorum lingua est lingua Graecorum.)

“It is astonishing to see how much we still rely on Greek in order to speak about entities and events at the heart of modern life.”

“The Greek language has continuity and teaches you to be independent and to have your own opinion.
In this language there is no orthodoxy.
Even if the educational system wants people obedient and molded, the spirit of the ancient texts and the language teach you to be your own master.”

“Ancient Greece offers us a language which I would call universal.”
“Everyone should learn Greek, because the Greek language helps us first of all to understand our own language.”

Αυτό είναι το πρώτο μέρος της μετάφρασης.
Το κείμενο είναι ιδιαίτερα εκτενές και θα συνεχίσω με το επόμενο τμήμα.

“Our alphabet came from Greece by way of Cumae and Rome.
Our language is filled with Greek words.
Our science forged an international language through Greek terms.
Our grammar and rhetoric — even punctuation and paragraph division — are Greek inventions.
Our literary genres are Greek — the lyric, the ode, the idyll, the novel, the treatise, the oration, the biography, the history, and above all, the vision.
And almost all of these words are Greek.”

“Rome may have been an eternal city, but Athens is an entire world.”

“The Byzantines continued to possess the golden key that could unlock the treasures of antiquity:
the musical and rich Greek language, which gives soul to the objects of the senses and body to the abstract concepts of philosophy.”

“I heard the Gospel in Saint Peter’s in Rome in all languages.
Greek stood out, a bright star in the night.”
Dialogue with his students:
— “Master, what should we read to become wise like you?”
— “The Greek classics.”
— “And when we finish the Greek classics, what should we read?”
— “The Greek classics again.”
“Greece is the mind and the heart of the world.”

“The Greek language was exceptionally suited as a vehicle for scientific thought.
One of the main characteristics of Euclid’s language is its admirable precision.
The Greek language is also wonderfully concise.
In Archimedes, Hero, Ptolemy, and Pappus we find truly exemplary models of concise expression.”

“My training in Ancient Greek was the most important intellectual exercise of my life.
In this language there exists the fullest correspondence between the word and its conceptual content.”

“The Greek race was born blessed with a melodious language, full of musicality.”

“Where is the literature of the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians?
All humanity has inherited only the literature of the Greeks.”

“I am almost afraid to touch the Odyssey; so oppressively overwhelming is its beauty.”

“It is in the nature of the Greek language to be clear, precise, and complex.
The ambiguity and lack of immediate insight that sometimes characterize English and German are entirely foreign to Greek.
Along with clarity, creativity, and seriousness, we also find sensitivity and flawless elegance.”
“All branches of literature and science begin with the Greeks.
The Greek language is the purest and the richest in the world.”

“The Greek language is beautiful like a sky filled with stars.”

“People will always return to the springs of Greek classical antiquity to refresh themselves.”

“Ancient Greek does not constitute merely a language;
it is the language.”
“With regard to the possibilities it offers to thought, it is the most powerful and at the same time the most intellectual of all the languages of the world.”
“Whoever cannot perceive the gift of such a gift to humanity
will never understand the discourse concerning the destiny of Being —
just as one who is naturally blind cannot perceive light and color.”

“The greatest miracle is the Greek language.”
“The Greeks did not merely live;
they created existence itself.”
“The Greek language is the language of light.”
(Note: Nietzsche studied Ancient Greek deeply and referred to it as “the great bath of the mind.”)

“The values of Greek civilization remain unsurpassed models.”
(Note: Marx studied Ancient Greek in the original, considering it a form of intellectual recreation.)

“Only those who know the Greek language can think and act correctly.”

“I owe thanks to Divine Providence for having been allowed to learn Ancient Greek,
which helped me penetrate more deeply into the meaning of the natural sciences.”

“My training in Ancient Greek was the most important intellectual exercise of my life.
In this language there exists the fullest correspondence between word and conceptual content.”

“Ancient Greek possessed superiority — and continues to possess it —
over all modern languages, and even over the Latin, Germanic, or Slavic ones.
This instrument is the most perfect intellectual tool
ever forged by the human mind.”

“May the Greek language become common to all peoples.”

“The Greek race, superior to all others,
is also the mother of all civilization.”

“The Greek language possesses a perfection
that no other people even dreamed of.”
“It remains the supreme and richest of all languages.”

“The Greek language is the richest, the most flexible, and the most precise language in the world.”

“The Greek language is the most complex and the most complete language.
Its power is unsurpassed.”

“Without the Greek language,
science as we know it would not exist.”

“The Greeks made words shine like metals.”

________________________________________
Mark Pagel
Linguist – University of Reading
“Greek is one of the few languages that does not simply ‘follow’ evolution.
It shapes it.”

“The Greek language is a living musical pathway
that passes through the lips and creates meaning before it reaches the mind.”

“Greece bequeathed to us the most complete and most beautiful form of human expression ever known to humanity.”

“No other language mapped so deeply
thought, logic, and emotion together.”

“Foreign languages borrow;
Greek provides.”

The Greek language:
• possesses syllabic musicality
• forms semantic families with mathematical precision
• generates roots rather than borrowing them
• functions as architectural thought
• expresses concepts that other languages require entire sentences to explain
• and above all:
expresses the very structure of the world.

Greek is not merely a tool —
it is light, like the Aegean:
a light containing emptiness, shadow, depth, darkness, and clarity —
and therefore capable of describing everything,
from the depth of music to the precision of mathematics.

“They gave me the Greek language.
A humble house on the shores of Homer.
My only care, my language, on the shores of Homer.”
“For me, Greece does not represent patriotism or landscape,
but a kind of ecstasy and radiance.
Greek light contains not only brilliance,
but also emptiness, shadow, and blackness.”

“Wherever I travel, Greece wounds me.
But its language always heals me.”

“If I meet angels among the blue corridors,
I will speak to them in Greek,
for they do not know languages —
they speak among themselves in music.”

“If the gods converse, they use the language of the Greeks.”
(Deorum lingua est lingua Graecorum.)
In Cicero’s formulation, Greek is elevated not merely as prestigious but as ontologically appropriate for divine discourse — an acknowledgment from Rome’s most refined orator that intellectual articulation had already found its most complete instrument.

“The Greek race was born blessed with a melodious language, full of musicality.”
Here language is not viewed as a neutral vehicle but as a natural endowment of rhythm and proportion.

“Where is the literature of the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians? All humanity has inherited only the literature of the Greeks.”
This observation underscores a civilizational phenomenon: preservation through intellectual transmissibility.

“Greek stood out, a bright star in the night.”
Goethe’s metaphor suggests luminosity — not dominance, but clarity. In his dialogue with students, he recommended reading the Greek classics repeatedly, implying inexhaustibility.

“The musical and rich Greek language gives soul to the objects of the senses and body to the abstract concepts of philosophy.”
This dual capacity — animating the concrete and embodying abstraction — remains central to Greek’s structural uniqueness.

Durant’s historical summary is almost architectural in scope:
• Our alphabet derives from Greece.
• Scientific terminology is largely Greek.
• Grammar, rhetoric, and literary genres are Greek in origin.
Here Greek appears less as influence and more as foundational framework.

“Ancient Greek does not constitute merely a language; it is the language.”
For Heidegger, Greek provided the primordial unveiling of Being. The language’s structure, in his view, permitted an ontological disclosure unmatched in subsequent linguistic systems.

“The greatest miracle is the Greek language.”
Nietzsche perceived Greek as the “great bath of the mind” — a cleansing rigor of thought achieved through grammatical precision.

“In this language there exists the fullest correspondence between word and conceptual content.”
A Nobel laureate in physics acknowledging structural alignment between lexeme and idea suggests a rare linguistic congruence.

Learning Ancient Greek allowed deeper penetration into the meaning of the natural sciences.
This is not nostalgia but epistemological testimony.

“Greek is one of the few languages that does not merely follow evolution; it shapes it.”
Stephen Daitz
“Greek creates meaning before it reaches the mind.”
This statement is linguistically profound: phonology and semantic structure are tightly interwoven.
James Oberlin
“No other language mapped so deeply thought, logic, and emotion together.”
The recurrence of the same triad — precision, abstraction, music — across centuries suggests continuity rather than nostalgia.
Odysseas Elytis
“They gave me the Greek language…
My only care, my language, on the shores of Homer.”
Elytis describes Greek not as heritage but as illumination.
George Seferis
“Wherever I travel, Greece wounds me.
But its language heals me.”
Language here functions as existential restoration.
Nikiforos Vrettakos
“If I meet angels, I will speak to them in Greek;
they speak among themselves in music.”
The metaphor returns to musicality — a recurring theme from Horace to Xenakis.