Kreikkaa

Kreikkaa is Finnish and functions as the partitive form of kreikka. The word is used to refer to the Greek language as well as to Greece in contexts where the object is indefinite or partitive. It appears in everyday speech and educational contexts, for example opiskelen kreikkaa meaning I study Greek and puhun kreikkaa meaning I speak Greek. In strict geographical usage the country is usually named Kreikka in the nominative form, with other cases used as required by Finnish grammar.

The Greek language belongs to the Indo-European family and has a history spanning several millennia. Ancient Greek evolved into Koine Greek in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, which in turn developed into Medieval Greek and, from the 19th century onward, the standard Modern Greek. The modern language is generally classified as Demotic Greek, with Katharevousa historically used for official and literary purposes in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters and is used for both uppercase and lowercase forms, with diacritics that indicate stress and vowel length in older forms. Modern Greek is the official language of Greece and is also spoken by Greek communities abroad; it has a highly standardized form used in education, media, and administration, with several regional dialects.

Greece, located in southeastern Europe, occupies part of the Balkan peninsula and many Aegean, Ionian, and Mediterranean islands. Its capital is Athens. The country has a long antiquity, with contributions to philosophy, science, theater, and politics, and it underwent complex histories under Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman rule before gaining independence in the 19th century. Today Greece is a member of the European Union and uses the euro, with tourism and services playing important roles in the economy.