Editing Greek language (section)

===Historical unity===
[[File:Modern Greek dialects en.svg|thumb|left|upright=1.1|The distribution of major modern Greek dialect areas]]
The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language are often emphasised. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language.<ref>{{harvnb|Browning|1983|pp=vii–viii}}.</ref> It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, "[[Homeric Greek]] is probably closer to [[Demotic Greek|Demotic]] than 12-century [[Middle English]] is to [[Modern English|modern spoken English]]".<ref>{{harvnb|Alexiou|1982|p=161}}.</ref>