The official language of the newly established Greek state
Item
Title
The official language of the newly established Greek state
Creator
Spatial Coverage
Subject - keywords
Date
15 April 2021
Abstract
From 1830, after the creation of the first independent Greek state, the projection that its homologous and religious inhabitants were neither racially Greek nor culturally worthy of their ancient ancestors provoked a collective ideological reaction to the historical national identity. Because the language of a European state was considered a component of its unity and identity, the baton was taken over by scholars after Adamantios Korais’ proposal for a “halfway” in linguistic matters. In the capital of the newly created state, the fermentations led to the idea of adopting, after cleansing from the mixed barbaric and foreign idioms, a common oral language spoken or that could be spoken by the moderately educated Greeks. For the adoption and cultivation of a corresponding written language there was already fertile oral material, such as the varieties of the Peloponnesian idiom, the urban idiom, the modern Greek dialects, and Constantinople as a melting pot of linguistic variety. There was no “official language” in the sense of the introduction of the municipal and language education reform of 1976. The predominance of the archaising form of Modern Greek, which was never taught during the first critical – from a linguistic perspective – 50 years of the Greek state, eventually took place as a one-way linguistic compromise, without initial aggravation, and the choice of a refined version of the dialect used by scholars instead of the ancient language. It is a triumph of the capital’s intellectuals, a linguistic trend developed by writers, journalists, civil servants, which was enthusiastically embraced by most members of the political and cultural elite and the bourgeoisie in the 19th century, but empirically and unorganised, without the contribution of committees and academies. The period 1830-1850 records the main characteristics of this linguistic instrument that was the “official” expression of the linguistic consciousness of the new state. Spyridon Trikoupis’ discourse on language (1853) is a characteristic text.
(Edited and translated description from organiser’s website)
(Edited and translated description from organiser’s website)
Type specialization
Format
Data sets
Language
Bibliographic Citation
Number Of Pages - Duration
00:27:58
Rights
All Rights Reserved
Position: 8626 (19 views)