The end of the Medieval Greek period and the beginning of Modern Greek is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic features of the modern language arose centuries earlier, having begun around the fourth century AD.

During most of the Modern Greek period, the language existed in a situation of diglossia, with regional spoken dialects existing side by side with learned, more archaic written forms, as with the vernacular and learned varieties (Dimotiki and Katharevousa) that co-existed in Greece throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Varieties of Modern Greek include Demotic, Katharevousa, Pontic, Cappadocian, Mariupolitan, Southern Italian, Yevanic, Tsakonian and Greco-Australian.

Strictly speaking, Demotic or Dimotiki (Δημοτική), refers to all popular varieties of Modern Greek that followed a common evolutionary path from Koine and have retained a high degree of mutual intelligibility to the present.

Demotic Greek comprises various regional varieties with minor linguistic differences, mainly in phonology and vocabulary.

The main distinguishing feature common to Northern variants is a set of standard phonological shifts in unaccented vowel phonemes: [o] becomes [u], [e] becomes [i], and [i] and [u] are dropped.

It derives from Hellenistic and Medieval Koine and preserves characteristics of Ionic due to ancient colonizations of the region.

[11][12][13][14] Ruméika (Ρωμαίικα) or Mariupolitan Greek is a dialect spoken in about 17 villages around the northern coast of the Sea of Azov in southern Ukraine and Russia.

[17] Southern Italian or Italiot (Κατωιταλιώτικα) comprises both Calabrian and Griko varieties, spoken by around 15 villages in the regions of Calabria and Apulia.

Its origins can be traced to the Dorian Greek settlers who colonised the area from Sparta and Corinth in 700 BC.

There are two diacritical symbols, the acute accent which indicates stress and the diaeresis marking a vowel letter as not being part of a digraph.

The correspondence between consonant phonemes and graphemes is largely unique, but several of the vowels can be spelt in multiple ways.

[20] A number of diacritical signs were used until 1982, when they were officially dropped from Greek spelling as no longer corresponding to the modern pronunciation of the language.

Polytonic orthography, besides being used for older varieties of Greek, is still used in book printing, especially for academic and belletristic purposes, and in everyday use by some conservative writers and elderly people.

Features lost: Features gained: Modern Greek has developed a simpler system of grammatical prefixes marking tense and aspect of a verb, such as augmentation and reduplication, and has lost some patterns of noun declension and some distinct forms in the declensions.

Archaisms are still widely used, especially in writing and in more formal speech, as well as in some everyday expressions, such as the dative εντάξει ('okay', literally 'in order') or the third person imperative ζήτω!

The following is a sample text in Modern Greek of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (by the United Nations): Άρθρο 1:Arthro 1:Árthro 1:[ˈarθro ˈena ‖ΌλοιOloiÓliˈoliοιoiiiάνθρωποιanthropoiánthropiˈanθropiγεννιούνταιgenniountaiyeniúndeʝeˈɲundeελεύθεροιeleutheroieléftherieˈlefθeriκαιkaikeceίσοιisoiísiˈisiστηνstinstinstinαξιοπρέπειαaxioprepeiaaksioprépiaaksioˈprepiaκαιkaikeceταtatataδικαιώματα.dikaiomata.dhikeómata.ðiceˈomata ‖ΕίναιEinaiÍneˈineπροικισμένοιproikismenoiprikizménipriciˈzmeniμεmememeλογικήlogikiloyikíloʝiˈciκαιkaikeceσυνείδηση,syneidisi,sinídhisi,siˈniðisi |καιkaikeceοφείλουνofeilounofílunoˈfilunναnananaσυμπεριφέρονταιsymperiferontaisimberiférondesimberiˈferondeμεταξύmetaxymetaksímetaˈksiτουςtoustustuzμεmememeπνεύμαpneumapnévmaˈpnevmaαδελφοσύνης.adelfosynis.adhelfosínis.aðelfoˈsinis] (transliteration)(transcription)(IPA){Άρθρο 1:} Όλοι οι άνθρωποι γεννιούνται ελεύθεροι και ίσοι στην αξιοπρέπεια και τα δικαιώματα.

They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.Courses Dictionaries and glossaries Grammar Institutes Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern