Greek is an Indo-European language native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greeks. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical Ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of the Christian Bible. In its modern form, it is the official language of Greece and Cyprus, and spoken by approximately 20 million people (first language for ca. 15 million), including minority and emigrant communities in numerous parts of the world. It is written in the Greek alphabet.

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is mainly spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Bahrain and also in surrounding areas; it has official-language status in the first three countries under different names.

 
The Persian language has been a medium for literary and scientific contributions to the Islamic world as well as the Western. It has had an influence on certain neighboring languages, particularly the Turkic languages of Central Asia, Caucasus, and Anatolia as well as Urdu, Hindi, Saraiki and other Indian languages. It has had a lesser influence on Arabic and other languages of Mesopotamia.