For word nerds, language loons, and grammar geeks, here are nine reflections on the language of Sappho, Plato, and Thucydides, and its relevance today. No batteries or prior knowledge of Greek required.

Andrea Marcolongo is an Italian journalist, writers, Classics scholar, and former speech writer for Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The Ingenious Language was a bestseller in Italy and in many of the other dozen countries in which it has thus far been published. She is also the author of The Heroic Measure.

Will Schutt is the author of Westerly, winner of the 2012 Yale Series of Younger Poets award. His poems and translations have appeared in Agni, Narrative, The New Republic, and The Southern Review. For his translations of poems by Edoardo Sanguineti he received grants from the NEA and PEN/America. He lives in Baltimore.