Abstract
How long did Greek continue to be spoken in north-eastern Afghanistan ? We shall probably never know. Till now Greek inscriptions have only been found on the outskirts of Afghan territory and from pre-Christian times, at Kandahar and at Ai Khanum (second century B.C.). The latter must have been a thoroughly Hellenistic city, and Kandahar also must have had an element in its population speaking or understanding Greek for Aśoka to have inscriptions written there in this language. On coins Greek continued to be used long after the Graeco-Bactrian kings, by the Indo-Parthian and the first Kusana kings. And the position of Greek was at any rate strong enough to induce the Kusānas to use Greek, and not Indian or Aramaic, script for their own language, a script which persevered, in a debased form, down into the ninth century A.D.
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