Ask most people about the origins of the marathon—a race covering 26.2 miles of terrain—and you will likely hear about how Pheidippides, an ancient Greek courier, ran 26 miles from the town of ...

When Andrea Marcolongo’s book “La Lingua Geniale,” subtitled “9 ragioni per amare il greco” (“Nine Reasons to Love Greek”), came out in 2016, I bought it, in Italian, and took it with me to Greece. I ...