The Ionian Islands are a group of islands in the Ionian Sea, west of mainland Greece. They are traditionally called the Heptanese, but the group includes many smaller islands in addition to the seven principal ones.

Modern Greek, generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek, refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to as Standard Modern Greek. The end of the Medieval Greek period and the beginning of Modern Greek is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic features of the modern language arose centuries earlier, having begun around the fourth century AD.