Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language.Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now …

Whereas the Classical Greek city states used different dialects of Greek, a common standard, called Koine (κοινή "common"), developed gradually in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC as a consequence of the formation of larger political structures (like the Greek colonies, Athenian Empire, and the Macedonian Empire) and a more intense cultural exchange in the Aegean area, …