Short answers, pulled from the story.
Greek is an Indo-European language that constitutes an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to territories with Greek populations since antiquity, including Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, Turkey, parts of Italy, southern Albania, and other regions around the Balkans, Caucasus, Black Sea, and Eastern Mediterranean.
Greek has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia dated to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language.
Greek is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today, principally in Greece and Cyprus, along with communities in Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. The diaspora has notable communities in the United States, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and throughout the European Union, especially Germany.
The Greek language question was a polarisation between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki, the vernacular form, and Katharevousa, a purified compromise with Ancient Greek developed in the early 19th century. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, giving birth to Standard Modern Greek after absorbing features of Katharevousa.
Greek has been written in Linear B, the Cypriot syllabary, and since approximately the 9th century BC the Greek alphabet, which was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet. Linear B was deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s, based on the research of Alice Kober.
Greek roots have been used for centuries to coin new words in other languages and, together with Latin, remain a predominant source of international scientific vocabulary. Borrowed words include mathematics, physics, astronomy, democracy, and philosophy, while Greek elements still form neologisms such as anthropology, photography, and cinematography.
Greek became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek. Koine Greek was the original language of the New Testament, and the Old Testament was translated into it as the Septuagint, so that variety is referred to as New Testament Greek or Biblical Greek.