The name of Greece differs in Greek compared with the names used for the country in other languages and cultures, just like the names of the Greeks. The ancient and modern name of the country is Hellas or Hellada
(Greek: Ελλάς, Ελλάδα; in polytonic: Ἑλλάς, Ἑλλάδα), and its official name is the Hellenic Republic, Helliniki Dimokratia (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία [eliniˈciðimokraˈti.a]). In English, however, the country is usually called Greece, which comes from the LatinGraecia (as used by the Romans).
Hellenes
The civilization and its associated territory and people, which is referred to in English as "Greece", have never referred to themselves in that term. They have rather called themselves 'Hellenes', adopting the traditional appellation of the Hellas region. This name has its origins in the mythological figure of Hellen, the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, in an origin myth which has parallels to parts of the Book of Genesis. Hellen's father survived a great flood which Zeus caused to happen in order to wipe out humanity. Hellen himself became the founding father to all Greek tribes, begetting one from each of his sons: Aeolus the Aeolians, Dorus the Dorians, and Xuthus the Achaeans and Ionians through his son Ion.[1]
Ionians
Of those, the Ionians largely lived in Anatolia, aka Asia Minor, ergo the most in contact with the Asian world, so their ethnonym became commonly used for all of the Hellenes, to civilizations to east of Greece.
The name Yūnān (Persian: یونان) came through Old Persian during the Achaemenid Empire (550-333 BC). It was derived from the Old Persian Yauna for the Ionian Greeks (Ancient Greek: Ἰάονες, iāones), on the western coast of Asia Minor,[2][3] who were the first Greeks to come into contact with the Persians. The term would eventually be applied to all the Greeks.[4] Today, words derived from Yūnān can be found in Persian, Pashto, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Kurdish, Armenian (as Yūnānistan "land of Yūnān"; -istan "land" in Persian), Arabic, Hebrew (Biblical and Modern) (Yavan יָוָן), Aramaic (identical to Hebrew, but in Syriac abjad ܝܘܢ Yaw'n).
The English name Greece and the similar adaptations in other languages derive from the Latin name Graecia (Greek: Γραικία), literally meaning 'the land of the Greeks', which was used by Ancient Romans to denote the area of modern-day Greece. Similarly, the Latin name of the nation was Graeci, which is the origin of the English name Greeks.
Those names, in turn, trace their origin from Graecus, the Latin adaptation of the Greek name Γραικός (pl. Γραικοί), which means 'Greek'.
The Romans most likely called the country Graecia and its people Graeci after encountering the ancient tribe Graecians from the area of Boeotia, but the Greeks called their land Hellas and themselves Hellenes. Several other speculations have been made.
William Smith notes in his Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography that foreigners frequently refer to people by a different name (an exonym) from their native one (an endonym).[5]Aristotle had the first surviving written use of the name Graeci (Γραικοί), in his Meteorology. He wrote that the area around Dodona and the Achelous River was inhabited by the Selli and a people, who had been called Graeci but were called Hellenes by his time.[6]
From that statement, it is asserted that the name of Graeci was once widely used in Epirus and the rest of the western coast of Greece. It thus became the name by which the Hellenes were known to the Italic peoples, who were on the opposite side of the Ionian Sea.[5]
The eastern part of the Roman Empire, which was predominantly Greek-speaking, gave rise to the name Ῥωμανία (Rhomania or Romania). In fact, for a long time that started in Late Antiquity, the Greeks called themselves Ῥωμαῖοι (sg. Ῥωμαῖος: Romans). Those terms or related ones are still sometimes used even in Modern Greek: Ρωμιός (from Ῥωμαῖος), Ρωμιοσύνη.
There was tension with Western Europe on how Roman the western and the eastern parts of the Roman Empire really were. The historian Hieronymus Wolf, after the Eastern Roman Empire had ceased to exist, was the first to call it the Byzantine Empire, the term that later became usual in the West. However, because it lasted almost 1000 years longer than the Western Roman Empire, Persians, Arabs, and Turks, all in the East, used and sometimes still use terms from Rhomania or Rome, such as Rûm, to refer to its land or people.
The third major form, "Hellas" and its derivatives, is used by a few languages around the world, including Greek itself. In several European languages in which the normal term is derived from Graecia, names derived from Hellas exist as rare or poetic alternatives.
The second major form, used in many languages and in which the common root is yun or ywn, is borrowed from the Greek name Ionia, the Ionian tribe region of Asia Minor, derived from Old Persian and meant for people with youthful appearances.[11] In Greek, these forms have never normally been used to denote the whole Greek nation or Greece.
In Sanskrit literature in India, the word यवन yavana is derived from this origin and meant the people with youthful appearances. It was used specifically for Greek people until 250 BCE while Indian kingdoms often traded with Greece. After Alexander's invasion on western borders of India, the word took a new meaning as foreigner or invader. The word यवन yawan, meaning 'foreigner,' is still in use in languages like Hindi, Marathi and Malayalam.
The first major form of names derives from the LatinGraecus and Graecia or their equivalent forms in Greek whence the former derive themselves. These terms have fallen out of use in Greek.
The Georgian name for Greece is coined from the Georgian word "wise" brdzeni (Georgian: ბრძენი), thus saberdzneti would literally mean "land of the wise men", possibly referring to the Ancient Greek philosophy.[13]
From its establishment after the outbreak of the Greek War of Liberation in 1821, the modern Greek state has used a variety of official names, most often designating changes of regime. Internally, the country was called Hellas, not Greece, even in the cases below where the name was translated internationally as Greece.
1821–1828: "Provisional Administration of Greece" (Προσωρινή Διοίκησις τῆς Ἑλλάδος), used by the provisional government before the international recognition of Greek autonomy (and later independence) in the London Protocol.
1832–1924: "Kingdom of Greece" (Βασίλειον τῆς Ἑλλάδος), adopted after Greece was declared a monarchy in the London Conference of 1832, and retained until 15 May 1924,[14] ten days before the abolition of the monarchy on 25 March 1924.
1924–1935: "Hellenic Republic" (Ἑλληνική Δημοκρατία), known historiographically as the Second Hellenic Republic, from 24 May 1924 (effective May 28)[15] until the 10 October 1935 coup by Georgios Kondylis and the restoration of the monarchy. This change between "State" and "Republic" remains the sole case the name was rectified and did not reflect a regime change.
1973–today: "Hellenic Republic" (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία), from the abolition of the monarchy by the military junta to the present day. However, the present Third Hellenic Republic is held to have begun in 1974, following the fall of the junta and the return of democratic rule.
^Wilkinson, Richard James (1932). "Yunan, Yunani". A Malay-English dictionary (romanised). Vol. II. Mytilene: Salavopoulos & Kinderlis. p. 654 – via TROVE.
^Rapp, Stephen H (1997). Imagining History at the Crossroads: Persia, Byzantium, and the Architects of the Written Georgian Past. University of Michigan. p. 207.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Government Gazette Issues start bearing the name "Hellenic State" on March 15 prior to the formal abolition of the monarchy: the new header of the Gazzete (ΦΕΚ Α΄ 56/1924) is concomitant with the publication of two Royal Decrees signed by Regent Kountouriotis.
