Professional Translation agency for
Greek translations

We don’t want to delve too deeply into history, but: Greek is a language with a long history and tradition. It is regarded as one of the oldest languages in the world. Many of the great works of antiquity – in philosophy, literature and science – were written in Greek. And it is not only because it has created and shaped many scientific and medical terms that it still remains an important language today.

Greek is one of the official languages of the European Union, and around 13 million people speak it as their first language. They live mainly in Greece, but the language is also spoken in the USA, Canada, Australia and Germany. Greek is quite different from many languages. In a lot of areas and for many people, translations into or from Greek are therefore very important. In order to ensure that the message of a text is rendered completely, correctly and effectively, it must be translated with the right technical expertise and an excellent feel for the language – and not only for scientific and medical translations.

Greek has a very flexible linguistic system which allows for many different grammatical forms. There are often several different ways to express a sentence. Although that gives a translator a certain amount of scope, it requires a highly developed feel for the language so that the translation retains the style and tone of the source text. In addition, they are a series of (supposedly) untranslatable expressions and turns of phrase in Greek. These idioms often have a particular importance in Greek culture and are difficult to render in other languages. But professional translators can usually find an appropriate and creative solution in these cases.

A brief linguistic digression: there are various Greek dialects and linguistic variants that differ in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. The most familiar are: Attic, Ionian, Aeolian and Doric. The Attic dialect is also referred to as classical Greek and is the basis of the written Greek language. Ionian, Aeolian and Doric Greek developed in different regions of Greece. Although they all come from the same family of languages, the dialects differ in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Cypriot Greek (spoken mainly in Cyprus) is another variant and has more loan words from Turkish than other Greek dialects.

Why do you need to know this? A good translation is aligned precisely with the linguistic style of its readers – including in Greek. Most Greeks now speak New Greek (also referred to as Demotic), which is based on the Attic dialect. But here, too, it must always be ensured that the translated texts are linguistically correct and stylistically adapted. This is referred to as localisation. You will get a really good translation into the language of your target audience from a professional translation agency.