The nearest modern relatives of Greek appear to be Albanian and Armenian. However their relationship to Greek is not immediately apparent to someone who hasn’t studied linguistics a little bit.

For example, Albanian words for "new," i ri and e re are related to Greek neos (m.) and nea (f.) while the Armenian word for new, nor is a cognate with Greek nearos meaning "young" or "fresh." However, the relationships are more dissimilar than the words for "new" between the Germanic languages: neu, nieuw, ny or the Romance languages: novo, nuevo, nuovo, nou, nouveau etc.

There were a whole host of Indo-European languages spoken in the Balkans and Western Asia Minor in ancient times – Illyrian, Dacian, Thracian, Mysian, Lydian, Phrygian etc. that appear to have been relatively close to Greek but they are all extinct now.

There may be a pre-Indo-European substratum in Greek too which gives it its special flavor. Especially, if the Greeks were originally a non-Indo-European people. However, this is still debated by linguists and has not been proven conclusively. It’s just a possibility.

Some linguists claim that Sanskrit has been colored by the pre-Indo-European Dravidian languages that were spoken in India too. Likewise, maybe Russian, Latvian and Lithuanian with a Finnish substratum.

When I speak Italian I feel a connection with Italy

When I speak English – my native language – the last thing I feel is any connection with Germany or anywhere else.

When I speak Greek, I feel a connection with one of the greatest civilizations that ever existed and which contributed more words to the vocabularies of other languages than any other with the possible exception of Latin.