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Parent Category: About Crete
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Minoan Language Crete Dialect
Crete, culturally and linguistically is regarded throughout Europe as the cradle of European civilization. The Minoans on Crete, 3,000 years ago was the first European culture to have a written form of their language.
Much like the ancient Egyptian language in its written form, the Minoans developed their own hieroglyphic language. Unlike the Egyptian language of the Pharoahs, Minoan is until this day is still today being deciphered. Only recently are orthologists (language experts) able to decipher the key methodology and construct of the Minoan language.
With communication enhanced through written script, the Minoans were also the first advanced civilization to emerge in Europe producing pottery and metalwork of exceptional beauty, crafted with a high degree of creativity and skill. It is thought by today's historians that the Minoans drew their inspiration from the earlier advanced civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Did You Know Crete Has Many Dialects?
Today, Crete has a number of its own dialects, geographically localized. But modern Greek, the official language of Greece is spoken by everyone in Crete as the lingua franca, as the common tongue. Much of the folklore surrounding the Cretan culture is preserved and propagated through the highly popular Mantinadas that are expressive, from the heart, songs of life and happenings to the people today and of their forefathers. Mantinadas are unique to Crete and can heard throughout the day on local Crete-specific radio stations across the island.
What is the single most important sound that identifies a Cretan speaker?
Cretans turn the the soft "K" sound as in, "h" and "x", into a "sh" sound. This is most pronounced in "Oxi," which means "no". Therefore Oxi (O'hee - ) becomes O'shee.
Crete (Kriti) as written in the ISO-639 Standard in other languages:
Albanian aae/sq: Kretë
Arabic ar: كريت
Bahasa Indonesian/Malaysian id: Kreta
Bangladeshi - Bangla/Bengali ben: ক্রীট
Basque (euskara) eu: Kreta
Bosnian bs: Kreta
Bulgarian bg: Крит
Catalan ca: Creta
Chinese zho: 克里特Crete
Croatian hr: Krit
Czech cs: Kréta
Danish da: Kreta
Esperanto eo: Kreto
Estonian et: Kreeta
Finnish fi: Kreeta
French fr: Crète
Gaelic ghc: Chréit
German de: Kreta
Greek el: Κρήτη
Hungarian hu: Kréta
Icelandish is: Krít
Indian Hindi hin= क्रेते
Iranian Farsi far: کرت
Israeli he: כרתים
Italian it: Creta
Japanese ja: クレタ島
Korean ko: 크리티 지역
Latin la: Creta
Latvian lv: Krēta
Luxembourgish lb: Kreta
Lithuanian lt: Kreta
Nederlandse - Dutch nl: Kreta
Norwegian no: Kreta
Polish pl: Kreta
Portuguese pt: Creta
Romanian ro: Creta
Russian ru: Крит
Slovakian sk: Kréta
Slovenian sl: Kreta
Serbian sr: Крит
Spanish es: Creta
Swedish sv: Kreta
Turkish tr: Girit
Venetian vec: Creta
Welsh cym: Creta
ISO Code Reference:ISO 639
Useful modern Greek Words. More.
