Simplify the following text for a Grade 9 native English-speaking person.
Original: Via the Roman Empire , Greek culture came to be foundational to Western culture in general . The Byzantine Empire inherited Classical Greek culture directly , without Latin intermediation , and the preservation of classical Greek learning in medieval Byzantine tradition further exerted strong influence on the Slavs and later on the Islamic Golden Age and the Western European Renaissance .
Simplified: Greek was also the language , and partly the culture , of the Byzantine Empire .