{"id":3753,"date":"2026-04-17T07:26:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/antonios-kounadis-akadimaikos\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T07:22:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T07:22:26","slug":"antonios-kounadis-akadimaikos","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/antonios-kounadis-akadimaikos\/","title":{"rendered":"Antonios Kounadis Academy"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-page\" data-elementor-id=\"3753\" class=\"elementor elementor-3753 elementor-1424\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-b25986b quote-section e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"b25986b\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\" data-settings=\"{&quot;background_background&quot;:&quot;classic&quot;}\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-4bf5695 e-con-full e-flex e-con e-child\" data-id=\"4bf5695\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\" data-settings=\"{&quot;background_background&quot;:&quot;classic&quot;}\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-a7625f2 elementor-widget elementor-widget-html\" data-id=\"a7625f2\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"html.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"greek-language-module\"><style>.greek-language-module {\r\n      margin: 0 auto;\r\n      color: #222;\r\n      line-height: 1.85;\r\n\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    .greek-language-module .gl-eyebrow {\r\n      font-size: 12px;\r\n      text-transform: uppercase;\r\n      letter-spacing: 2px;\r\n      color: #8a6a3d;\r\n      font-weight: bold;\r\n      margin-bottom: 14px;\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    .greek-language-module h1 {\r\n      font-size: 34px;\r\n      line-height: 1.2;\r\n      margin: 0 0 18px;\r\n      color: #1e1b18;\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    .greek-language-module .gl-subtitle {\r\n      font-size: 17px;\r\n      color: #6b6258;\r\n      margin-bottom: 24px;\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    .greek-language-module .gl-meta {\r\n      background: #f6efe3;\r\n      border-left: 4px solid #8a6a3d;\r\n      padding: 16px 18px;\r\n      border-radius: 10px;\r\n      margin-bottom: 30px;\r\n      font-size: 15px;\r\n      color: #3c342d;\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    .greek-language-module h2 {\r\n      font-size: 24px;\r\n      margin: 38px 0 18px;\r\n      color: #2c2116;\r\n      border-left: 4px solid #8a6a3d;\r\n      padding-left: 14px;\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    .greek-language-module p {\r\n      margin: 0 0 18px;\r\n      font-size: 18px;\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    .greek-language-module .gl-lead {\r\n      font-size: 19px;\r\n      color: #2c2722;\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    .greek-language-module blockquote {\r\n      margin: 24px 0;\r\n      padding: 18px 20px;\r\n      background: #f7f2ea;\r\n      border-left: 4px solid #8a6a3d;\r\n      font-style: italic;\r\n      color: #2b241d;\r\n      border-radius: 0 10px 10px 0;\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    .greek-language-module .gl-divider {\r\n      text-align: center;\r\n      margin: 34px 0;\r\n      color: #8a6a3d;\r\n      font-size: 18px;\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    .greek-language-module .gl-highlight-title {\r\n      margin: 28px 0 14px;\r\n      padding: 12px 16px;\r\n      background: linear-gradient(90deg, #f3e7d3, transparent);\r\n      border-left: 3px solid #8a6a3d;\r\n      border-radius: 8px;\r\n      font-size: 15px;\r\n      font-weight: bold;\r\n      text-transform: uppercase;\r\n      letter-spacing: 0.5px;\r\n      color: #3a2c1d;\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    @media (max-width: 767px) {\r\n      .greek-language-module {\r\n        padding: 28px 18px;\r\n      }\r\n      .greek-language-module h1 { font-size: 27px; }\r\n      .greek-language-module h2 { font-size: 21px; }\r\n      .greek-language-module p { font-size: 17px; }\r\n    }\r\n  <\/style><div class=\"gl-eyebrow\">\u0391\u03ba\u03b1\u03b4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03ca\u03ba\u03cc \u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf<\/div><h1>THE ORIGIN OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE: Oral and Written Traditio<\/h1><div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-6662ae2 elementor-widget elementor-widget-image\" data-id=\"6662ae2\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"image.default\" style=\" text-align: start;\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"366\" src=\"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/k2_items_src_fdf007f0cf6a2cb1c310774ad4dafacd-550x366-1.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-image-1767\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/k2_items_src_fdf007f0cf6a2cb1c310774ad4dafacd-550x366-1.jpg 550w, https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/k2_items_src_fdf007f0cf6a2cb1c310774ad4dafacd-550x366-1-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" style=\" border-radius: 10px 10px 10px 10px;\">\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><div class=\"gl-subtitle\">Lecture by Antonios Kounadis. Former President of the Academy of Athens\r\nDelivered at the Academy of Athens, January 14, 2019\r\n\r\n  <\/div><div class=\"gl-meta\"><strong>THE GREEK LANGUAGE AS A SUPREME CULTURAL GOOD<\/strong><\/div><p class=\"gl-lead\">The view advanced in the 18th century that the Greek language belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, as well as the view that the Greek alphabet is of Phoenician\u2013Semitic origin, have constituted subjects of intense and continuing debate and dispute up to the present day.\r\n  <\/p><p>These are two issues that should not leave any Greek indifferent, for the language of our cultural heritage \u2014 the Greek language, both oral and written \u2014 is inextricably linked with the identity, continuity, survival, and future of Hellenism. It is therefore a matter that concerns us all.\r\n  <\/p><p>Certainly, it concerns the present speaker as well, given my long-standing involvement in education and my related writings, through which I have criticized legislative interventions in our language \u2014 interventions presented under the misleading title of \u201cEducational Reforms.\u201d\r\n  <\/p><p>Given that these two issues are interdisciplinary in nature, involving multiple scientific fields, my present effort is to present authoritative views from linguists, archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, and paleontologists, in order to shed more light on these two complex and still insufficiently clarified matters, also taking into account recent findings and developments in archaeogenetics (DNA) and population genetics \u2014 developments that have overturned or confirmed earlier hypotheses.\r\n  <\/p><div class=\"gl-divider\">\u2726<\/div><h2>\u0391ARISTOTLE: \u201cTO HELLENIZEIN ESTIN TO ORTH\u014cS ONOMAZEIN\u201d<\/h2><p>(\u201cTo speak Greek is to name things correctly\u201d)\r\nIn Plato\u2019s Cratylus, a dialogue on the correctness of names, with interlocutors Hermogenes, the philosopher-mathematician Cratylus (founder of a philosophical school in the 5th century BC), and Socrates, we find the beginnings of Comparative Linguistics \u2014 with regard to foreign names \u2014 as well as the beginnings of the comparative method in relation to Greek dialects (Aeolic, Doric, Ionic, Attic, etc.). There we also find the foundations of Etymology, concerning how the correct naming of things is determined \u2014 whether by nature (ph\u00fdsei) or by convention (n\u00f3m\u014di).\r\n\r\n \r\n  <\/blockquote><p>According to the view of natural correctness (as expressed by Cratylus), there exists an intrinsic correspondence between the name (word) and its conceptual content \u2014 that is, between signifier and signified. According to the conventional view, naming is arbitrary and based on agreement. Plato states (Cratylus 435\u2013436):\r\n  <\/p><blockquote>Plato states (Cratylus 435\u2013436):\r\n  <\/blockquote><p>Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1st century BC), in his work On the Arrangement of Words, considers Plato the founder of Etymology, writing:\r\n\u201cThe discourse on etymology was first introduced by Plato, in many places, but especially in the Cratylus.\u201d\r\nAristotle emphasizes the semantic function of language:\r\n\u201cSpeech, if it does not make something clear, will not accomplish its function.\u201d (Rhetoric, Book III)\r\nHe then extols the Greek language with the phrase:\r\n<\/p>\r\n<blockquote>\u201cTo speak Greek is to name correctly.\u201d (Rhetoric, III, 4, 1407)\r\n  <\/blockquote>\r\n<div class=\"gl-divider\">\u2726<\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2>NOBEL LAUREATE HEISENBERG ON ANCIENT GREEK<\/h2>\r\n<p>In modern times, the German philosopher and physicist Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Prize 1932) stated:<\/p>\r\n<blockquote>\u201cMy 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.\u201d\r\n  <\/blockquote><p>Whether the first alphabet (more precisely, writing system) was Semitic-Phoenician in origin, and whether the Phoenicians \u2014 a branch of the Semitic peoples distinguished in navigation and trade \u2014 received it from the Hebrews and transmitted it to the Greeks, has been the subject of extensive debate and dispute.\r\n  <\/p><p>Related questions requiring examination include:\r\nWhen did Phoenician migrants settle in Phoenicia?\r\nWhat are the earliest inscriptions or written texts of Phoenician civilization?\r\n\r\n  <\/p><div class=\"gl-highlight-title\">HERODOTUS: \u201cIt seems to me\u2026\u201d<\/div><p>Regarding the prevailing view that the Greek alphabet derives from \u201cPhoenician letters\u201d \u2014 essentially from a Phoenician syllabary \u2014 it is worth noting that supporters of this position have relied primarily on the well-known statement of Herodotus:<\/p>\r\n  <p>\r\n  \u201cThe Phoenicians \u2026 brought to the Greeks various teachings and indeed letters, which, as it seems to me, the Greeks did not previously possess.\u201d\r\nHerodotus thus expresses himself with reservation (\u201cas it seems to me\u201d) and refers generally to \u201cletters,\u201d not to the letters of a specific writing system.\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <\/p><div class=\"gl-highlight-title\">DIODORUS SICULUS<\/div><p>DIODORUS SICULUS: \u201cThe Phoenicians took them from others\u201d<br\/>Diodorus Siculus (Book V, 74), however, does not agree with Herodotus\u2019 view. He clarifies that the so-called \u201cPhoenician letters\u201d were not an invention of the Phoenicians but rather an adaptation of other letters \u2014 namely Greek-Cretan ones \u2014 stating:\r\n<\/p><blockquote>\u201cThey say that the Phoenicians did not invent them from the beginning, but merely altered the forms of the letters.\u201d\r\n  <\/blockquote><div class=\"gl-divider\">\u2726<\/div><h2>WERE THERE PHOENICIAN INSCRIPTIONS?<\/h2><p>It has been noted that the Phoenicians, according to various historical sources, settled in Phoenicia (modern Lebanon and parts of Syria), mingling with the indigenous Canaanites between 1200 and 1100 BC.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n \r\n  <div class=\"gl-divider\">\u2726<\/div><h2>WAS THERE GREEK WRITING DURING THE TROJAN WAR?<\/h2>\r\n  <p>Based on historical data, inscriptions, and numerous references in known ancient Greek texts, it has been accepted by the international scholarly community that Greek (alphabetic) writing may have existed prior to the time of the Trojan War.\r\n(Not referring here to Linear A or Linear B, nor to the earlier Cretan hieroglyphic writing system.)\r\n\r\n  <\/p>\r\n  \r\n    <p>\r\n        In the Iliad, Homer refers to Bellerophon:\r\n\u201chaving written baneful signs on a folded tablet.\u201d\r\nSimilarly, later sources (Porphyry, Suda) attribute written composition to Homer himself.\r\n\r\n  <\/p>\r\n  \r\n    <p>\r\n        Apollodorus (as cited by Mistriotis) recounts that during the Trojan War, Oeax wrote news of his brother Palamedes\u2019 death upon a rudder.\r\nFurthermore, the scientific announcement by Greek researchers Stavros Papamarinopoulos and collaborators (Academy Proceedings, 2017) dated the end of the Trojan War prior to 1200 BC.\r\nIf writing indeed existed before 1200 BC, then the assertion that the Greeks received their writing system from the Phoenicians becomes subject to serious reconsideration.\r\n\r\n  <\/p>\r\n  <\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-729f62e e-con-full e-flex e-con e-child\" data-id=\"729f62e\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-d4beb00 elementor-widget elementor-widget-html\" data-id=\"d4beb00\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"html.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"greek-language-module\"> \n <h2>EVANS: \u201cTHE PHOENICIANS RECEIVED THE LETTERS FROM THE GREEKS\u201d\n<\/h2>\n <\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-721c0d9 elementor-widget elementor-widget-html\" data-id=\"721c0d9\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"html.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"image-caption-module\">\r\n  <style>\r\n    .image-caption-module {\r\n      max-width: 500px;\r\n\r\n      font-family: Georgia, \"Times New Roman\", serif;\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    .image-caption-module img {\r\n      width: 100%;\r\n      border-radius: 10px;\r\n      display: block;\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    .image-caption-module .caption {\r\n      margin-top: 10px;\r\n      font-size: 14px;\r\n      color: #6b6258;\r\n      font-style: italic;\r\n    }\r\n  <\/style>\r\n\r\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Untitled-design.jpg\" alt=\"\u0391\u03ba\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9 \u0398\u03ae\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u0391\u03bd\u03ac\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf \u0396\u03ac\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\">\r\n\r\n  <div class=\"caption\">\r\n \r\n  <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-949684f elementor-widget elementor-widget-html\" data-id=\"949684f\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"html.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"greek-language-module\">\r\n\r\n  <p>Reference is made to the position of Sir Arthur Evans, the excavator of Knossos, who maintained that the Phoenicians did not invent writing but adopted and adapted earlier Aegean scripts.\r\nEvans\u2019 research into Cretan scripts \u2014 including Cretan hieroglyphic writing and Linear A \u2014 demonstrated the existence of advanced writing systems in the Aegean long before the traditionally accepted date of the appearance of the Phoenician alphabet.\r\nThe Cretan script, according to Evans, constitutes an indigenous development of the Aegean world and not a derivative of Semitic systems.\r\n <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <h2>LINEAR A AND LINEAR B<\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p>The discovery and decipherment of Linear B by Michael Ventris proved conclusively that the Mycenaean civilization (14th\u201313th century BC) used a written form of the Greek language.\r\nThis fact is of decisive importance, as it demonstrates that the Greek language was written several centuries before the conventional dating of the so-called \u201cPhoenician transmission\u201d of the alphabet to Greece.\r\nIf Greek was already written in the Mycenaean era, the question arises:\r\nDid the Greeks truly lack writing prior to contact with the Phoenicians?\r\nOr did they possess earlier writing systems that later evolved or were replaced?\r\nLinear A, though not yet deciphered, is generally considered pre-Greek (Minoan). However, its structural complexity and chronological priority in the Aegean world indicate that writing traditions in the Greek sphere were ancient and highly developed.\r\n <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <h2>THE QUESTION OF PRIORITY<\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p>If writing existed in the Aegean prior to 1200 BC, and if the Mycenaean Greeks used Linear B to record their language centuries before the 8th century BC (the conventional date for the adoption of the Phoenician alphabet), then the theory that the Greeks \u201creceived\u201d writing wholesale from the Phoenicians becomes problematic.\r\nThe issue is not whether there was contact between Greeks and Phoenicians \u2014 such contact is historically well attested.\r\nThe issue concerns:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>priority,<\/li>\r\n<li>originality,<\/li>\r\n<li>and the direction of influence.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>Was there simple borrowing?\r\nOr was there adaptation of pre-existing Greek writing traditions into a new alphabetic system?\r\n <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <h2>THE BROADER CONTEXT<\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p>The question of the origin of the Greek language \u2014 oral and written \u2014 cannot be examined in isolation.\r\nIt must take into account:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>\r\n<li>archaeological findings,<\/li>\r\n<li>comparative linguistics,<\/li>\r\n<li>historical testimonies,<\/li>\r\n<li>genetic research,<\/li>\r\n<li>and cultural continuity.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>Recent developments in archaeogenetics and population genetics have reopened discussions concerning ancient population movements and cultural transmissions, overturning or confirming earlier hypotheses.\r\nThe debate remains open.\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2>THE ORIGIN OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE: ORAL AND WRITTEN TRADITION<\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p>(Continuation of Antonios Kounadis\u2019 lecture)\r\nAccording to Sir Arthur Evans, \u201cthe script of Crete is the mother of the Phoenician [script],\u201d while Ren\u00e9 Dussaud states: \u201cThe Phoenicians had received their alphabet at a very early stage from the Greeks, who had formed it from Cretan-Mycenaean writing.\u201d (See also: Georgiev, Problems of the Minoan Language, Sofia, 1953.)\r\n<\/p>\r\n  \r\n  <h2>PHOENICIAN WITHOUT VOWELS\u2026<\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p>Phoenician is not an alphabet, but a \u201csyllabary,\u201d without vowels: it has 22 consonants and lacks the consonants \u039e, \u03a6, \u03a8 of the Greek alphabet. Moreover, according to the TLG (Thesaurus Linguae Graecae) Center of the University of Irvine, the Cretan historian Dosiadis (author of the local history of Crete) reports that the alphabet was invented by the Cretans.<\/p>\r\n  \r\n  <h2>WHERE DOES THE LETTER \u201cALPHA\u201d COME FROM?<\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p>Plutarch (Quaestiones, 737) considers na\u00efve the view that the letter \u201calpha\u201d is Phoenician, derived from \u201caleph,\u201d the name given to the ox (considered first among necessities). According to the Great Etymological Lexicon, the letter \u201calpha\u201d derives from the verb alph\u014d (= \u201cI find\u201d), because \u201cit was the first of the other letters to be discovered.\u201d<\/p>\r\n  \r\n  <h2>THE PRESENT ALPHABET IS IONIAN<\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p>Each city-state or region in the archaic Greek world had its own alphabet (with small variations from those of other cities). The Greek alphabet in use today is the prevailing Ionic one, with 24 letters, since 403 BC, during the archonship of Euclides. The Corinthian alphabet also has 24 letters; the Cretan has 21; that of Miletus has 24; the Chalcidian has 25\u2014 from which the modern Latin alphabet arose, following adaptation by the inhabitants of Latium in Italy (who, it appears, received it from Greeks of Cumae). From the Greek alphabet also derived the Etruscan, the Cyrillic, the ancient Phrygian, the alphabet of Lycia, the Lydian, the Armenian, the Coptic, the Gothic, and others.<\/p>\r\n  \r\n\r\n  <h2>VERY ANCIENT GREEK WRITING SYSTEMS<\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p>There are many sources concerning the beginnings of Greek writing, among them:<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>1. The Dispilio Tablet (Kastoria). The tablet of Dispilio in Kastoria, brought to light in 1993 by Professor G. Chourmouziadis, which archaeometrists both from the \u201cDemocritus\u201d Research Center and from abroad dated to 5250 BC.<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>2. \u201cThe Sherd on the Islet of Gioura (Sporades)\u201d\r\nA sherd found by archaeologist Adam Sampson, bearing Greek writing on a potsherd, dated to 5500 BC.\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>\u201cThe Sherd from the Pilikata Area of Ithaca\u201d\r\nDated to 2700 BC (Stavros Museum of Ithaca), on which symbolic shapes are engraved, similar to those of Linear scripts A and B.\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>4. THE HOMERIC EPICS WERE TRANSMITTED IN WRITING<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>A reasonable question arises: how could thousands of verses of the Homeric epics be preserved and transmitted for many centuries unchanged, with remarkable accuracy? For this reason, Mistriotis, in his work History of the Homeric Epics (Sakellarios Press, Athens 1903, 2nd edition), states:  \u201cThe polymorphism and the instability in the lengthening and shortening of vowels cannot be attributed to the absence of writing.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>5. Professor Gilbert Highet states that a poem such as the Iliad could not have been transmitted without writing (The Classical Tradition, MIET editions), while the well-known author Horst Blanck (Papadima editions, p. 148) affirms:\r\n\u201cToday a large part of philologists inclines toward the hypothesis that the composition of the Homeric Epics had already made necessary the written fixation of the text\u2026 the rhapsodes carried with them their written manuscript copy.\u201d\r\nAlso, the French Hellenist Jacqueline de Romilly states categorically:\r\n\u201cHomer and writing coexist.\u201d (Why Greece?, \u201cAsty\u201d editions, p. 28.)\r\nThe dactylic hexameter of the Homeric epics is based on prosody (long and short vowels, double consonants, diphthongs, etc.). The view that the Phoenicians lent certain consonants and that the Greeks immediately wrote the Epics with correct orthography lacks strong arguments, as the Suda (or Souidas) Lexicon notes (see: \u201cPhoenice, city\u201d).\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n  <p>6. WILLIAM DURANT: THE PHOENICIANS RECEIVED IT FROM THE GREEKS<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>Notable is the statement by the American historian\/philosopher William Durant, author of a global history of civilization:\r\n\u201cThe Phoenicians were not the inventors of the alphabet; they merely circulated it from place to place. They took it from the Cretans and carried it to Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and other Mediterranean cities. They were the \u2018peddlers\u2019 and not the inventors of the alphabet.\u201d\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>7. The archaeologist and epigrapher Apostolos Arvanitopoulos declared:\r\n\u201cThe alphabet was conceived and implemented by the Ancient Greeks\u2026 and they bestowed it upon all humanity as a common possession.\u201d\r\nThere are sufficient testimonies in texts of ancient historians and writers (later than Homer\u2019s era) which support that there existed a written Greek language (different from Linear B) around 1200 BC, that is, prior to the Phoenician\u2013Semitic syllabary.\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>8. GILBERT MURRAY: GREEK IS THE MOST PERFECT LANGUAGE<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>Concerning this language of incomparable perfection\u2014 which we ourselves have mistreated, while for foreign Hellenists and linguists it remains an object of admiration and study\u2014 one may cite the statement of the distinguished Oxford Hellenist Gilbert Murray:\r\n\u201c[\u2026] a thought can be expressed with ease and grace in Greek, whereas it becomes difficult and heavy in Latin, English, French, German. Greek is the most perfect language, because it expresses the thoughts of more perfect human beings.\u201d\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>9. The distinguished Spanish Hellenist and linguist Professor F. R. Adrados, a foreign member of the Academy of Athens, has repeatedly stated that Western European languages are semi-Greek or crypto-Greek.<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>10. THE INVENTOR OF ACCENTS AND BREATHINGS<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>It is also worth noting that Aristophanes of Byzantium (2nd century BC) is considered the first to have devised and applied accents and breathings.<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>11. THE PHAISTOS DISC\u03a5<\/p>\r\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/diskos-faistou.jpg\">\r\n\r\n  <p>On the \u201cPhaistos Disc,\u201d dated before 1200 BC (found in Crete and still undeciphered), the letters B, G, L, Y appear clearly \u201cprinted.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>12. CLAY DOCUMENTS (2ND MILLENNIUM BC)<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>Michael Ventris and John Chadwick were the first to argue that the tablets \u201cof baked clay, from the second millennium BC, found at Pylos, Knossos, Mycenae, and other places, contained Greek documents originating from the ancient Mycenaean kingdoms.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>13. MYCENAEAN GREEK<\/p>\r\n  <p>Mycenaean, as F. R. Adrados recently emphasized (following others), was Greek, written with the aid of an ancient syllabic script that was later forgotten.<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>14.OSVALD PANAGL: A PRIMITIVE VARIANT OF ANCIENT GREEK<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>In a lecture at the Academy of Athens (8\u201310 March 2013), the distinguished Austrian linguist and Mycenologist Osvald Panagl stated that the above tablets (from Knossos, Pylos, Mycenae) were written in a primordial variant of Ancient Greek, 500 years older than the linguistic idiom of the Homeric epics. Consequently, their dating goes back to around 1300 BC.<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>15. IKLAINA (MESSENIA): LINEAR B (1450\u20131400 BC)<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>16. \u039f \u0391\u03c1\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u039c. \u039a\u03bf\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u038a\u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1 \u039c\u03b5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03bd\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5 \u0393\u03c1\u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae \u0392\u0384 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 1450 \u03c0.\u03a7. (\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c3\u03b5\u03bb\u03af\u03b4\u03b1 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03ba\u03b1\u03c6\u03ae\u03c2 iklaina.wordpress.com)<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>At Iklaina in Messenia (14 km from Pylos), archaeologist Michael Cosmopoulos, professor at the University of Missouri (director of excavations since 1998), found \u201camong rubble and refuse\u201d the oldest clay tablet of Linear B known to date, dated between 1450 and 1400 BC, as he informed me in a relevant letter.\r\n(Excavation website reference is noted in the original: iklaina.wordpress.com)\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u0391\u03ba\u03b1\u03b4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03ca\u03ba\u03cc \u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf THE ORIGIN OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE: Oral and Written Traditio Lecture by Antonios Kounadis. Former President of the Academy of Athens Delivered at the Academy of Athens, January 14, 2019 THE GREEK LANGUAGE AS A SUPREME CULTURAL GOOD The view advanced in the 18th century that the Greek language belongs to the Indo-European [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3753","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_hostinger_reach_plugin_has_subscription_block":false,"_hostinger_reach_plugin_is_elementor":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3753"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4322,"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3753\/revisions\/4322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}