The Greeks (Greek: Έλληνες) have been identified by many ethnonyms. The most common native ethnonym is Hellene (Ancient Greek: Ἕλλην), pl. Hellenes (Ἕλληνες); the name Greeks (Latin: Graeci) was used by the ancient Romans and gradually entered the European languages through its use in Latin. The mythological patriarch Hellen is the named progenitor of the Greek peoples; his descendants the Aeolians, Dorians, Achaeans and Ionians correspond to the main Greek tribes and to the main dialects spoken in Greece and Asia Minor (Anatolia). The first Greek-speaking people, called Myceneans or Mycenean-Achaeans by historians, entered present-day Greece sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age. Homer refers to "Achaeans" as the dominant tribe during the Trojan War period usually dated to the 12th–11th centuries BC, using Hellenes to describe a relatively small tribe in Thessaly. The Dorians, an important Greek-speaking group, appeared roughly at that time. According to the Greek tradition, the Graeci (Latin; Ancient Greek: Γραικοί, Graikoi, "Greeks") were renamed Hellenes probably with the establishment of the Great Amphictyonic League after the Trojan War. When the Romans first encountered Greek colonists in Southern Italy, they used the name Graeci for the colonists and then for all Greeks; this became the root of all relevant terms in European languages. The Persians used the name Yaunas (Yunans) after the Ionians, a Greek tribe who colonized part of the coasts of western Asia Minor. The term was used later in Hebrew (Yevanim, יוונים), Arabic, and also by the Turks. The word entered the languages of the Indian subcontinent as the Yona. A unique form is used in Georgian, where the Greeks are called Berdzeni (ბერძენი). By Late Antiquity (c. 3rd–7th centuries), the Greeks referred to themselves as Graikoi (Γραικοί, "Greeks") and Rhomaioi/Romioi (Ῥωμαῖοι/Ῥωμηοί/Ρωμιοί, "Romans") the latter of which was used since virtually all Greeks were Roman citizens after 212 AD. The term Hellene started to be applied to the followers of the polytheistic ("pagan") religion after the establishment of Christianity by Theodosius I.
General names of Greece
Most European languages, as well as other languages that have borrowed the name from one of them, use names for Greece that come from the Latin Graecia and Graecus, the name the Romans used for the Greeks, itself from the Greek Γραικός:
In languages of Middle East and South and Central Asia, the common root is "yun" or "ywn". It is borrowed from the Greek name Ionia, a once Greek region of Asia Minor, and the Ionians:
The third form is "Hellas", used by a few languages around the world, including Greek:
Other forms:
Middle Persian: 𐭧𐭫𐭥𐭬𐭠𐭣𐭩𐭪𐭩 (Hrōmāyīg) Laz: Xorumona (ხორუმონა) Georgian: საბერძნეთი (Saberdzneti)
Brief history The first people speaking an ancient Proto-Greek language entered mainland Greece during the Neolithic period or the Bronze Age. From the Ancient Greek dialects as they presented themselves centuries later, it seems that at least two migrations of Greeks occurred overall, the first of the Ionians and the Aeolians probably in the 19th century BC and the second of the Dorians probably in the 13th century BC. The first migration resulted in Mycenean Greek, an archaic Greek language which appears in Linear B syllabic inscriptions and the second resulted in the Dorian dialect which displaced the Arcadocypriot dialect that seems to be closest to the Mycenean Greek. The tribes later called Aeolians and Ionians established several feudal kingdoms around Greece, and the historians called them Myceneans after their most powerful kingdom Mycenea in Peloponnese, or Myceneans-Achaeans because in Homer the Achaeans were the dominating tribe in Greece and the name Achiyawa that appears in Hittite texts seems to correspond to a thalassocratic country which might be Mycenea. Although Homer referred to a union of the Greek kingdoms under the leadership of the king of Mycenae during the Trojan War, there is no evidence that these kingdoms were dominated by a central power. Most of the Mycenaean palaces were destroyed at the end of the 13th century BC. The Greek tradition relates this destruction to the Dorians, but it is suggested that the Dorian invasion was only one of the causes of the Bronze Age collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean, as there is no evidence that the newcomers established a different civilization. The destruction was followed by the Greek Dark Ages with very poor archaeological findings, when most occupied areas were deserted, but some areas like Attica occupied by the Ionians remained untouched by the invaders. Several Greek tribes moved to regions of Greece where they acquired different names, and population groups moved through the islands to the western coasts of Asia Minor where they kept their native names Aeolians, Ionians and Dorians. It seems that the myth of Hellen, the progenitor of the Hellenes, was invented when the Greek tribes started to separate from each other, and stressed their common origin. The name "Hellenes" was probably used by the Greeks with the establishment of the Great Amphictyonic League, an ancient association of Greek tribes. According to legend it was founded after the Trojan War, by the eponymous Amphictyon, brother of Hellen. It had twelve founders and was organized to protect the great temples of Apollo in Delphi (Phocis) and of Demeter near Thermopylae (Locris). The twelve founders enumerated by Aeschines were the Aenianes or Oetaeans (Αἰνιᾶνες, Οἰταῖοι), the Boeotians (Βοιωτοί) of Thebes, the Dolopes (Δόλοπες), the Dorians (Δωριείς) of Sparta, the Ionians (Ἴωνες) of Athens, the Phthian Achaeans (Ἀχαιοί), the Locrians (Λοκροί) (Opuntians, Ὀπούντιοι and Ozolians, Ὀζολαί), the Magnesians (Μάγνητες), the Malians (Μαλιεῖς), the Perrhaebians (Περραιβοί), the Phocians (Φωκεῖς), the Pythians (Πύθιοι) of Delphi, and the Thessalians (Θεσσαλοί). Among the descendants of Hellen are mentioned Aeolus, Ion, Achaeus, Dorus, Graecus and Makedon. It seems that the Macedonians were a Dorian tribe that stayed behind in Macedonia when the main Dorian tribes moved to the south.
Achaeans (Ἀχαιοί)
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