Greek To Me - Origins

Origins

It may have been a direct translation of a similar phrase in Latin: "Graecum est; non legitur" ("it is Greek, it cannot be read"). This phrase was increasingly used by monk scribes in the Middle Ages, as knowledge of the Greek alphabet and language was dwindling among those who were copying manuscripts in monastic libraries.

The usage of the metaphor in English traces back to early modern times, and is first used in 1603 by Thomas Dekker in his play Patient Grissel:

FAR: Asking for a Greek poet, to him he fails. I’ll be sworn he knows not so much as one character of the tongue.

RIC: Why, then it’s Greek to him.

The expression is almost exclusively used with reference to the speaker (generally "Greek to me"); Dekker's "Greek to him" is rare.

It was also used in 1616 in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, as spoken by Servilius Casca to Cassius after a festival in which Caesar was offered a crown:

CASSIUS: Did Cicero say any thing?
CASCA: Ay, he spoke Greek.
CASSIUS: To what effect?
CASCA: Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the face again: but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me. I could tell you more news too: Marullus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Caesar's images, are put to silence. Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if I could remember it.

(William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (1599))

Here, Casca's literal ignorance of Greek is the source of the phrase, using its common meaning to play on the uncertainty among the conspirators about Cicero's attitude to Caesar's increasingly regal behaviour. Shakespeare was not the only author to use the expression.

Another meaning attributed to the phrase implies that "it's all Greek to me" could be seen as a wordplay for: "everything is Greek for me".