Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek refers to the Greek language as it existed during the Archaic (9th–6th centuries BC) and Classical (5th–4th centuries BC) periods in Greece. The Ancient era of Greek history normally includes also the Hellenistic (post-Classic) age, which formally constitutes its own stage in the Greek language known as Koine Greek.

Ancient Greek is the language of the Homeric poems, including the Iliad and the Odyssey, and of the great works of literature and philosophy of the Athenian Golden Age, which came to be the foundations of Western civilisation's modern mathematics and sciences.

For information on the Hellenic language family prior to the creation of the Greek alphabet, see articles Mycenaean Greek and Proto-Greek.