Neugriechischen

Neugriechischen, in German linguistics, designate Modern Greek, the form of the Greek language spoken from the late Byzantine period to the present. It encompasses the standard language used in Greece and Cyprus and various local dialects and varieties spoken by Greek communities abroad. Modern Greek descends from Koine Greek and continues the Greek linguistic tradition after Ancient Greek, through Medieval Greek and the two historical literary forms Katharevousa and Demotic Greek.

Historically, Katharevousa was a learned, archaizing form used in official and literary contexts during the 18th and 19th centuries, while Demotic Greek developed as the everyday speech and eventually became the basis of the official language. After extensive education reforms in the late 20th century, Demotic Greek gained primacy in schools and media. The orthography was reformed in the late 20th century, with the monotonic system (one diacritic per letter) replacing the polytonic system.

The Modern Greek language uses the Greek alphabet and has four grammatical cases for nouns and adjectives (nominative, genitive, accusative, vocative), two numbers (singular and plural), and three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter). It has a stress-based prosody and a relatively analytic syntax compared with Ancient Greek. The vocabulary reflects borrowings from Turkish, French, Italian, and English, in addition to native roots.

Officially, Neugriechischen is the state language of Greece and one of the official languages of Cyprus, with a large global diaspora. It is taught as a foreign language and studied in linguistics worldwide, contributing extensively to Mediterranean, European, and global cultural exchange.