National Sophie Day – July 4, 2024

History of National Sophie Day

The name Sophie is of Greek origin. The name ‘Sophia’ means ‘knowledge’ and has a French equivalent, and its variations were first used in writing from the beginning of the fourth century. Since then, Sophie has been the name of many well-known figures and iconic characters. Some examples include Sophie Hatter, the lead character in the best-selling book turned animated feature “Howl’s Moving Castle,” and Sofie Fatale from Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill.”

The Greek language is native to Greece, Cyprus, Albania, the Balkans, Asia Minor, and the Eastern part of the Mediterranean. It is the language with the most extended documented history among all Indo-European languages, with over 3,400 years of written records. It first emerged in the Balkan peninsula around the third millennium B.C. The earliest piece of written evidence of Greek is a clay tablet found in Messenia between 1450 and 1350 B.C. The language is divided into six periods, i.e., Proto-Greek, Mycenaean Greek, Ancient Greek, Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, and Modern Greek. Proto-Greek is an unrecorded assumed ancestor of all variations of the Greek language. The Mycenaeans’ civilization spoke Mycenaean Greek, the first documented form of the Greek language, followed by Ancient Greek, which was the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of ancient Greece.

The language era continued to be in use till the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The following period of Koine Greek can be first traced back to the annexation of territories by Alexander the Great. It eventually became the second language in the Roman Empire and is sometimes referred to as New Testament Greek or Biblical Greek. Medieval Greek was the continuation of Koine Greek that entailed variations of spoken Koine that rapidly developed similarities to what became Modern Greek. Modern or Neo-Hellenic Greek emerged in the 11th century during the Byzantine period.