Greek is the main language spoken in Cyprus, but English is spoken almost everywhere. Whilst Russian, French and German are also commonly found within the tourist industry.

Greek is an Indo European language, spoke today by 15 – 22 million people, mainly in Greece and Cyprus, The Greek language in fact boasts the longest documented history of any Indo European language, spanning as far back as 3400 years.

Greek has been written as we know it since the 9th century BC in Greece and 4th century BC in Cyprus, before this in Cyprus you would have found the Cypriot syllabary.

The Cypriot syllabary is a syllabic script used in Iron Age Cyprus, from the 11th to the 4th centuries BC, when it was replaced by the Greek alphabet.

The pioneer of this change was king Evagoras of Salamis. It is descended from the Cypro-Minoan syllabary. Most texts using the script are in the arcadocypriot dialect of Greek, but some bilingual inscriptions were found in Amathus.

The script was deciphered in the 19th century by G. Smith due to a Phoenician Cypriot bilingual inscription.

It has been established that the Cypriot syllabary is derived from the ‘Linear A’ script and most probably, the Minoan writing system. The most obvious change is the disappearance of ideograms, which were frequent and represented a significant part of ‘Linear A’.

The earliest inscriptions of this script are found on clay tablets. Parallel to the evolution of cuneiform, the signs soon became simple patterns of lines. There is some evidence of a semiotic influence due to trade, but this pattern seemed to have evolved as the result of habitual use.