Katharevousa and Demotic: the Greek language question

The term is διγλωσσία, diglossia: as Triantafyllidis’ dictionary defines it, a people using two forms of its national language for different functions. Neither form was Ancient Greek. The dictionary calls καθαρεύουσα an artificial mixture of archaic and Modern Greek elements, used as the official language of the state, and notes that it aimed to stand apart from both ancient and modern Greek. It defines δημοτική as the common Modern Greek shaped from speech and cultivated in literature. A reader’s letter quoted on the Greek Language Portal shows the gap in one pair of sentences, both meaning “Athens expanded greatly”: Αι Αθήναι επεκτάθησαν κατά μεγάλον ποσοστόν and Η Αθήνα επεκτάθηκε κατά μεγάλο ποσοστό.

Both names have ancient roots and modern histories. Plato uses καθαρεύω for being pure (Phaedo 67a), and the Liddell–Scott–Jones lexicon cites Dionysius of Halicarnassus for purity of diction (Lysias 2). The dictionary also sees the influence of French idiome épuré or German Reinsprache in καθαρεύουσα. δημοτική came through French démotique, which goes back to the Egyptian script that Herodotus calls δημοτικά, “of the people” (2.36).

The debate took shape in the Greek Enlightenment. Adamantios Korais (1748–1833) argued for a middle way: neither “tyrants” of the common people nor “slaves” of their vulgarity, in words quoted by the historian K. Th. Dimaras, who sums up his practice as a Demotic cleaned up with moderation. Others wanted more: in 1853 Panagiotis Soutsos was calling for a return to the ancient language itself. Katharevousa, meanwhile, became the written language of the new Greek state.

The demoticist movement is usually dated from 1888, when Yannis Psycharis published Το ταξίδι μου (“My Journey”), written in Demotic and commonly called the movement’s manifesto. Rena Stavridi-Patrikiou, whose studies appear on the Portal, stresses that he kept his link to antiquity: for Psycharis, Demotic was the true child of the ancient language. She also notes that both forms claimed to symbolise the continuity and unity of the nation. This helps to explain how a question of grammar could rouse such strong feeling on both sides.

In September 1901 the Athens newspaper Akropolis began printing the Gospel of Matthew in a Demotic translation by Alexandros Pallis. A separate translation commissioned by Queen Olga had appeared that February. Students demonstrated in defence of katharevousa, some opponents saw a national danger in Slavism, and the Holy Synod condemned Modern Greek translations. On 8 November (Julian calendar) demonstrators and troops clashed in Athens. Most accounts give eight dead; one gives eleven. Metropolitan Prokopios of Athens and Prime Minister Theotokis both resigned. These events are known as the Ευαγγελικά.

The Ορεστειακά followed in November 1903. The Royal Theatre staged Aeschylus’ Oresteia in a translation by Georgios Sotiriadis, in a language between the two forms. Students of Professor Georgios Mistriotis, who held that ancient drama should be staged only in the original, protested. Accounts differ on the toll: one dead and dozens wounded, or two dead and seven wounded.

The Constitution of 1911 then addressed both matters. Article 107 made the official language the one in which the Constitution and laws were drawn up, and prohibited “any attempt to corrupt it”. Another clause banned rendering Scripture in another form of language without the sanction of the Church in Constantinople as well.

Demoticists turned to the schools. A girls’ school in Volos under Alexandros Delmouzos taught in Demotic from 1908 and closed in 1911 amid local hostility. The Society for Education was founded in 1910, and in 1917 the Liberal government brought Demotic into early primary teaching, with Delmouzos, Dimitris Glinos and Manolis Triantafyllidis working in the Ministry. Policy then shifted with governments. Triantafyllidis’ grammar of Demotic appeared in 1941. By one account, the Papandreou government of 1964 gave the two forms equal standing. Article 6 of the military regime’s 1968 Constitution tied the language of state and school to the language of the laws, which imposed katharevousa without naming it.

After the regime fell in 1974, Parliament passed Law 309 in April 1976 under the Karamanlis government (sources give the 3rd or the 30th), with Georgios Rallis as Education Minister. Its Article 2 requires “Modern Greek” in schools from 1976–77 and defines it as based on Demotic. It does not name a language of the state, so one study on the Portal says Demotic became official indirectly, through the language of schooling. A 1985 school law says simply η δημοτική, and in 1986 the text of the Constitution was transposed into Demotic.