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Demotic Greek or Dimotiki ( el, Δημοτική Γλώσσα, , , ) is the standard spoken language of Greece in modern times and, since the resolution of the
Greek language question The Greek language question ( el, το γλωσσικό ζήτημα, ''to glossikó zítima'') was a dispute about whether the language of the Greek people (Demotic Greek) or a cultivated imitation of Ancient Greek ('' Katharevousa'') should be ...
in 1976, the official language of Greece. "Demotic Greek" (with a capital D) contrasts with
Katharevousa Katharevousa ( el, Καθαρεύουσα, , literally "purifying anguage) is a conservative form of the Modern Greek language conceived in the late 18th century as both a literary language and a compromise between Ancient Greek and the contempor ...
, which was used in formal settings, during the same period. In that context, Demotic Greek describes the specific non-standardized
vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
forms of Greek used by the vast majority of Greeks during the 19th and 20th centuries. As is typical of diglossic situations, Katharevousa and Dimotiki complemented and influenced each other. Over time, Dimotiki became standardized. In 1976, it was made the official language of Greece. It continued to evolve and is now called
Standard Modern Greek The linguistic varieties of Modern Greek can be classified along two principal dimensions. First, there is a long tradition of sociolectal variation between the natural, popular spoken language on the one hand and archaizing, learned written form ...
. The term "demotic Greek" (with a minuscule d) also refers to any variety of the
Greek language Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), souther ...
which has evolved naturally from
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
and is popularly spoken.


Basic features of Dimotiki

Demotic Greek differs in several ways from Ancient Greek and from subsequent learned forms of Greek. Syntactically, it favors
parataxis Parataxis (from el, παράταξις, "act of placing side by side"; from παρα, ''para'' "beside" + τάξις, ''táxis'' "arrangement") is a literary technique, in writing or speaking, that favors short, simple sentences, without conju ...
over subordination. It also heavily employs redundancy, such as (''small little-girl'') and (''he-went-back-to-sleep again''). Somewhat in connection with this, Demotic employs the
diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A ( abbreviated ) is a word-form ...
with great frequency, to the point that many Demotic forms are in effect neuter diminutives of ancient words, especially irregular ones, e.g. from (''island'') from ancient (''island''). Greek noun declensions underwent considerable alteration, with irregular and less productive forms being gradually replaced by more regular forms based on the old one: (''man'') for ancient . Another feature was the merging of classical accusative and nominative forms, distinguishing them only by their definite articles, which continued to be declined as in Ancient Greek. This was especially common with nouns of the third declension, such as (''hometown'', ''fatherland'') which became nominative , accusative in Demotic. A result of this regularization of noun forms in Demotic is that the words of most native vocabulary end in a vowel, ''s'' or ''n'' (), i.e. an even more restricted set of possible word-final sounds than Ancient Greek. Exceptions are foreign loans like (''bar''), and learned forms (from Ancient Greek , ''water''), and exclamations like (''ach!'', ''oh!'') Many dialects even append the vowel -''e'' () to third-person verb forms: instead of (''they write''). Word-final
consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
s are also rare, again mainly occurring in learned discourse and via foreign loans: (''coal'' – scientific) and (''boxing'' – sport).
Indirect object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
is usually expressed by prepending the word to the
accusative The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘ ...
where Ancient Greek had for accusative of motion toward; bare is used without the article to express indefinite duration of time, or contracted with the definite article for
definiteness In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those which are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical ...
especially with regard to place where or motion toward; or with the
genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...
, especially with regard to means or instrument. Using one noun with an unmarked accusative article-noun phrase followed by contracted with the definite article of a second noun distinguishes between definite direct and indirect objects, whether real or figurative, e.g. «» or «...» (lit. ''I put my hand upon the Gospel'' or ''...in the fire'', i.e. ''I swear it's true'', ''I'm sure of it''). By contrast, Katharevousa continued to employ the ancestral form, , in place of . The verb system inherited from Ancient Greek gradually evolved, with the old future, perfect, and pluperfect tenses gradually disappearing; they were replaced with conjugated forms of the verb (''I have'') to denote these tenses instead. The future tenses and the subjunctive and optative moods, and eventually the infinitive, were replaced by the modal/tense auxiliaries and used with new simplified and fused future/subjunctive forms. In contrast to this, Katharevousa employed older perfective forms and infinitives that had been for the most part lost in the spoken language, but in other cases it employed the same
aorist Aorist (; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by th ...
or perfective forms as the spoken language, but preferred an archaizing form of the present indicative, e.g. for Demotic (''I hide''), which both have the same aorist form . Demotic Greek also borrowed a significant number of words from other languages such as Italian and Turkish, something which katharevousa avoided.


Dimotiki and "Standard Modern Greek"

Dimotiki is commonly used interchangeably with "
Standard Modern Greek The linguistic varieties of Modern Greek can be classified along two principal dimensions. First, there is a long tradition of sociolectal variation between the natural, popular spoken language on the one hand and archaizing, learned written form ...
" ('). Nonetheless, these terms are not necessarily synonyms. While today's Standard Modern Greek is fundamentally a continuation of earlier Dimotiki, it also contains—especially in its written form and formal registers—numerous words, grammatical forms, and phonetical features that did not exist in the most "pure" and consistent forms of Dimotiki during the period of diglossia in Greece. Due to these admixtures, it could even be described as a product of a "merger" between earlier Dimotiki and Katharevousa. Furthermore, in a broader sense, the Greek term () can also describe any naturally evolved colloquial language of the Greeks, not just that of the period of diglossia.


Examples of Modern Greek features that did not exist in Dimotiki

The following examples are intended to demonstrate Katharevousa features in Modern Greek. They were not present in traditional Demotic and only entered the modern language through Katharevousa (sometimes as
neologism A neologism Ancient_Greek.html"_;"title="_from_Ancient_Greek">Greek_νέο-_''néo''(="new")_and_λόγος_/''lógos''_meaning_"speech,_utterance"is_a_relatively_recent_or_isolated_term,_word,_or_phrase_that_may_be_in_the_process_of_entering_com ...
s), where they are used mostly in writing (for instance, in newspapers), but also orally, especially words and fixed expressions are both understood and actively used also by non-educated speakers. In some cases, the Demotic form is used for literal or practical meanings, while the ''Katharevousa'' is used for figurative or specialized meanings: e.g. for the wing or feather of a bird, but for the wing of a building or airplane or arm of an organisation.


Words and fixed expressions

* (''interesting'') * (''at least'') * (''he abducted her'') * ... (''it is a fact that ...'') * (''for now'') * (figurative, ''I wash my hands'' 'of him, her, it''; adapted from the Ancient Greek phrase describing
Pontius Pilate Pontius Pilate (; grc-gre, Πόντιος Πιλᾶτος, ) was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. He is best known for being the official who presided over the trial of ...
washing his hands at
Matthew Matthew may refer to: * Matthew (given name) * Matthew (surname) * ''Matthew'' (ship), the replica of the ship sailed by John Cabot in 1497 * ''Matthew'' (album), a 2000 album by rapper Kool Keith * Matthew (elm cultivar), a cultivar of the Chi ...
27:24; for actual hand-washing, the Demotic phrase is .Pring, J.T. ''The Pocket Oxford Greek Dictionary.'' (New York: 1965 & 1982; 2000 ed.) Special dative forms: * (''thank God'') * (''in the name f...'') * (''in cash'') * (''following'') * (''meanwhile'') * (''in ignorance f') * (''moreover'') * (''working'', literally ''on the deed'') * (''percent'', literally ''in a hundred'') * (''with ne'sown hands'')


Grammatical (morphological) features

* Adjectives ending in , , (e.g. ''interesting'') or in , , (e.g. ''thoughtful'') - mostly in written language. * Declinable
aorist Aorist (; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by th ...
participle, e.g. (''having delivered''), ('' aving beenborn'') - mostly in written language. * Reduplication in the perfect. E.g. (''invited''), (''obsolete'')


Phonological features

Modern Greek features many letter combinations that were avoided in traditional Demotic: * (e.g. "misdemeanor"); Demotic preferred (e.g. "to err; to be guilty") * (e.g. "building, structure"); Demotic preferred .g. "(stone)mason"* (e.g. "falsity, lie"); Demotic preferred (e.g. "liar") * (e.g. / "I was sufficed / satisfied"); Demotic preferred (e.g. ) * (e.g. "yesterday"); Demotic preferred .g. * etc. Native Greek speakers, depending upon their level of education, may often make mistakes in these "educated" aspects of their language; one can often see mistakes like instead of (''I've been promoted''), instead of ('), instead of (''the interesting person''), instead of (''the interesting women''), instead of (''the vote'').


Radical demoticism

One of the most radical proponents of a language that was to be cleansed of all "educated" elements was Giannis Psycharis, who lived in France and gained fame through his work ''My Voyage'' (', 1888). Not only did Psycharis propagate the exclusive use of the naturally grown colloquial language, but he actually opted for simplifying the morphology of
Katharevousa Katharevousa ( el, Καθαρεύουσα, , literally "purifying anguage) is a conservative form of the Modern Greek language conceived in the late 18th century as both a literary language and a compromise between Ancient Greek and the contempor ...
forms prescription. For instance, Psycharis proposed changing the form of the neuter noun "light" ' (gen. ') into ' (gen. '). Such radical forms had occasional precedent in Renaissance attempts to write in Demotic, and reflected Psycharis' linguistic training as a
Neogrammarian The Neogrammarians (German: ''Junggrammatiker'', 'young grammarians') were a German school of linguists, originally at the University of Leipzig, in the late 19th century who proposed the Neogrammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound chang ...
, mistrusting the possibility of exceptions in linguistic evolution. Moreover, Psycharis also advocated spelling reform, which would have meant abolishing most of the six different ways to write the vowel /i/ and all instances of double consonants. Therefore, he wrote his own name as , instead of . As written and spoken Dimotiki became standardized over the next few decades, many compromises were made with
Katharevousa Katharevousa ( el, Καθαρεύουσα, , literally "purifying anguage) is a conservative form of the Modern Greek language conceived in the late 18th century as both a literary language and a compromise between Ancient Greek and the contempor ...
(as is reflected in contemporary standard Greek) despite the loud objections of Psycharis and the radical "psycharist" () camp within the proponents of Dimotiki's use. Eventually these ideas of radical demoticism were largely marginalized and when a standardized Dimotiki was made the official language of the Greek state in 1976, the legislation stated that Dimotiki would be used "without dialectal and extremist forms"—an explicit rejection of Psycharis' ideals.


References

{{Greek language Languages attested from the 19th century Varieties of Modern Greek Languages of Greece
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...