The Death of the Greek Language and its use of Communication Channels

When meaning is understood there is no more need for words to express them, such an example channel is eye contact. The practice of interacting in close personal space while talking allows for a deeper feeling of connection. When a person lacks these behaviors it can be interpreted as rude (Hagan, 2013). These present forms of communication and channels in Greek represent the ways that it has a unique senses of sender, message, channel, receiver, and the effect. In Greek, the sender has a typical knowledge of how a message will be received. The message itself doesn’t always have to be fully conveyed for the receiver to understand the effect. As fore-mentioned, Hagan states that if the receiver understands the meaning of the message they may interrupt the sender, which may cause a change in the effect of the message. The use of nonverbal communication within Greek such as the use of hand motions or affectionate touching shows that the senders and receivers do not necessarily need words to convey their messages, especially in the region of emotion. However, because the cultural use of nonverbal cues is so significant there can be a lot of information lost when words are not utilized. Hagan mentions that it may be difficult for people from other cultures to pick up on certain messages because of the way they are presented in Greek. The primary example that the author provides is the use of the word no. Many Greek speakers tend to tip their head back when saying no, thus giving the illusion that they are nodding. This can prove confusing if conversing with a non-native speaker, for there is not a universal gesture that is always associated when stating the negative.

The death of a language is an interesting phenomenon, partly because it is seen as an end of a cultural way of life, but also because of the residue that the language leaves behind. Greek has approximately 13 million speakers (Ager, 2016), which means it will not likely to die out in the immediate future. Also, the speakers of Greek live in various parts of the world, including the mainland country of Greece, the surrounding islands, and parts of Italy (Ager, 2016). This diversity of regions means that even if the language was to decline in some areas, it would still persist in others. However, as it is only spoken by 1/538 of the world, which could limit the time frame in which it dies. If Greek were to die out in one thousand years, the remnants of the language would still exist, just as Latin is still used even though it is a dead language. The English language alone has over 150,000 words that are derived directly from Greek (Peraki, 2015). Because the language has impacted other major languages all throughout history, it would be a tragic loss to have such an influential language die out. The loss of Greek would be very similar to the death of Latin. About 10 percent of Latin words have directly been transitioned into English, which is a considerable amount when taking into account the total number of words in English (Peraki, 2015). Likewise, other languages would still employ the words they have adopted from Greek, but without the original language there to gain insight from, a major amount of impact would be lost. 

Sources:

Ager, S. (2016). Greek. Retrieved from Omniglot: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/greek.htm

Hagan, J. (2013, October 7). Awareness of Greek Culture. Retrieved from Wordpress: https://jhagan92.wordpress.com/2013/10/07/communication-in-greece/

Peraki, M. (2015, May 18). How has Greek influenced the English language? Retrieved from British Council: https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/how-has-greek-influenced-english-language