Greek (Ελληνικά, Ellinika - "Hellenic") is an Indo-European language with a documented history of 3,500 years, the longest in the Indo-European family. Today, it is spoken by approximately 20 million people around the world. Greek has been written in the Greek alphabet (the first to introduce vowels), since the 9th century BC in Greece (before that in Linear B), and the 4th century BC in Cyprus (before that in Cypriot syllabary). Greek literature has a continuous history of some 3000 years. Today, Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the official languages of the European Union.