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Greek language question
The Greek language question (Greek: το γλωσσικό ζήτημα, to glossikó zítima) was a dispute about whether the vernacular of the Greek people (Demotic Greek) or a cultivated literary language based on Ancient Greek (Katharevousa) should be the prevailing language of the people and government of Greece. It was a highly controversial topic in the 19th and 20th centuries, and was finally resolved in 1976 when Demotic was made the official language. The language phenomenon in question, which also occurs elsewhere in the world, is called diglossia.
While Demotic was the vernacular of the Greeks, Katharevousa was an archaic and formal variant that was pronounced like Modern Greek, but it adopted both lexical and morphological features of Ancient Greek that the spoken language had lost over time. Examples:
These differences meant that Katharevousa was only partly intelligible to a Greek without higher education. There was no single Katharevousa. Instead, proponents of the formal language put forward ever-changing variants that were never standardized. These variants approached Attic Greek in extreme cases, but they could also be closer to spoken Greek and could thus be understood by the majority of the people.
The Greek language question concerns the co-existence of two forms of Greek that sometimes differ significantly. Such differences can greatly exceed common stylistic differences between written and spoken or formal and informal forms of language, as demonstrated in the following text:
The discussion began at the end of the 18th century, as Eugenios Voulgaris (1716–1806), Lambros Photiadis, St. Kommitas and Neophytos Doukas, who were proponents of a more archaic language, and Voulgaris' students Iosipos Moisiodax (1725–1800) and Dimitrios Katartzis (c. 1730 –1807), who proposed a simpler language, began to voice their opinions. The phanariots were a group of conservative and educated nobles who supported the archaic language and were the most important critics of the language of the people. This discussion later became crucial when it was to be decided which one should be the single language of the modern Greek state, which was yet to be founded. Adamantios Korais (1748–1833) influenced the further discussion considerably. While being a supporter of the language of the people, Korais sought to cleanse it from elements that he considered to be too "vulgar" and eventually invented Katharevousa. After a prolonged War of Independence, the modern Greek state was founded in 1830; the first capital was Nafplio and, from 1834 onwards, Athens.
Publishing had been brought almost to a halt by the war, and with it the intellectual debate, but by 1830 an informal consensus had been reached that the new state should have a unified written language modeled on Korais' version of Katharevousa; "... the romantic-classical ideology of the new state that emerged from [the War] could not condone the use of 'vulgar' spoken Greek; instead it installed the linguistic compromise solution advocated by Korais as a provisional measure until such time as Ancient Greek could be fully revived. What was perhaps intended to be a temporary stop-gap, however, eventually became firmly entrenched as the established form of Greek in official use".
The adoption, however, was not expressed in formal or legal terms specifying Katharevousa as "the language of the state". To do so would have dashed the hopes of the many who hoped that Ancient Greek itself would one day take over that role. It would also have been difficult to specify to a legal standard of precision exactly what was meant by "Katharevousa glossa" (at the time, Katharevousa was still an adjective). In fact, the only mention of language in legislation appeared in the educational laws of 1834 and 1836, which established that Ancient Greek (not Katharevousa) should continue to be the only language of the readers and textbooks used in schools.
There was also no official body to make such decisions: "It is characteristic of the Greek case that, while language reforms in other new states were undertaken with the help of official and semi-official bodies, Katharevousa was developed in an empirical and unsystematic fashion, without congresses, commissions, and academies, and with little official support".
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Greek language question
The Greek language question (Greek: το γλωσσικό ζήτημα, to glossikó zítima) was a dispute about whether the vernacular of the Greek people (Demotic Greek) or a cultivated literary language based on Ancient Greek (Katharevousa) should be the prevailing language of the people and government of Greece. It was a highly controversial topic in the 19th and 20th centuries, and was finally resolved in 1976 when Demotic was made the official language. The language phenomenon in question, which also occurs elsewhere in the world, is called diglossia.
While Demotic was the vernacular of the Greeks, Katharevousa was an archaic and formal variant that was pronounced like Modern Greek, but it adopted both lexical and morphological features of Ancient Greek that the spoken language had lost over time. Examples:
These differences meant that Katharevousa was only partly intelligible to a Greek without higher education. There was no single Katharevousa. Instead, proponents of the formal language put forward ever-changing variants that were never standardized. These variants approached Attic Greek in extreme cases, but they could also be closer to spoken Greek and could thus be understood by the majority of the people.
The Greek language question concerns the co-existence of two forms of Greek that sometimes differ significantly. Such differences can greatly exceed common stylistic differences between written and spoken or formal and informal forms of language, as demonstrated in the following text:
The discussion began at the end of the 18th century, as Eugenios Voulgaris (1716–1806), Lambros Photiadis, St. Kommitas and Neophytos Doukas, who were proponents of a more archaic language, and Voulgaris' students Iosipos Moisiodax (1725–1800) and Dimitrios Katartzis (c. 1730 –1807), who proposed a simpler language, began to voice their opinions. The phanariots were a group of conservative and educated nobles who supported the archaic language and were the most important critics of the language of the people. This discussion later became crucial when it was to be decided which one should be the single language of the modern Greek state, which was yet to be founded. Adamantios Korais (1748–1833) influenced the further discussion considerably. While being a supporter of the language of the people, Korais sought to cleanse it from elements that he considered to be too "vulgar" and eventually invented Katharevousa. After a prolonged War of Independence, the modern Greek state was founded in 1830; the first capital was Nafplio and, from 1834 onwards, Athens.
Publishing had been brought almost to a halt by the war, and with it the intellectual debate, but by 1830 an informal consensus had been reached that the new state should have a unified written language modeled on Korais' version of Katharevousa; "... the romantic-classical ideology of the new state that emerged from [the War] could not condone the use of 'vulgar' spoken Greek; instead it installed the linguistic compromise solution advocated by Korais as a provisional measure until such time as Ancient Greek could be fully revived. What was perhaps intended to be a temporary stop-gap, however, eventually became firmly entrenched as the established form of Greek in official use".
The adoption, however, was not expressed in formal or legal terms specifying Katharevousa as "the language of the state". To do so would have dashed the hopes of the many who hoped that Ancient Greek itself would one day take over that role. It would also have been difficult to specify to a legal standard of precision exactly what was meant by "Katharevousa glossa" (at the time, Katharevousa was still an adjective). In fact, the only mention of language in legislation appeared in the educational laws of 1834 and 1836, which established that Ancient Greek (not Katharevousa) should continue to be the only language of the readers and textbooks used in schools.
There was also no official body to make such decisions: "It is characteristic of the Greek case that, while language reforms in other new states were undertaken with the help of official and semi-official bodies, Katharevousa was developed in an empirical and unsystematic fashion, without congresses, commissions, and academies, and with little official support".
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