Demotic Greek (, , ) is the standard spoken language of Greece in modern times and, since the resolution of the Greek language question in 1976, the official language of Greece. "Demotic Greek" (with a capital D) contrasts with the conservative Katharevousa, which was used in formal settings, during the same period. In that context, Demotic Greek describes the specific non-standardized vernacular forms of Greek used by the vast majority of Greeks during the 19th and 20th centuries.
As is typical of diglossic situations, Katharevousa and Demotic complemented and influenced each other. Over time, Demotic became standardized. In 1976, it was made the official language of Greece. It continued to evolve and is now called Standard Modern Greek. The term "demotic Greek" (with a minuscule d) also refers to any variety of the Greek language which has evolved naturally from Ancient Greek and is popularly spoken.
Basic features
Demotic Greek differs in a few ways from Ancient Greek and from subsequent learned forms of Greek. Syntactically, it favours parataxis over subordination. It also heavily employs redundancy, such as (small little-girl) and (he-went-back-to-sleep again). Demotic also employs the diminutive with great frequency,
The indirect object is usually expressed by prepending the word to the accusative
Special dative forms:
- (thank God)
- (in the name [of] ...)
- (in cash)
- (following)
- (meanwhile)
- (in ignorance [of])
- (moreover)
- (working, literally on the deed)
- (percent, literally in a hundred)
- (with [one's] own hands)
Grammatical (morphological) features
- Adjectives ending in , , (e.g. interesting) or in , , (e.g. thoughtful) - mostly in written language.
- Declinable aorist participle, e.g. (having delivered), ([having been] born) - 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 [e.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 [e.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 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, 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 Demotic became standardized over the next few decades, many compromises were made with Katharevousa (as is reflected in contemporary standard Greek) despite the loud objections of Psycharis and the radical "psycharist" () camp within the proponents of Demotic's use. Eventually these ideas of radical demoticism were largely marginalized and when a standardized Demotic was made the official language of the Greek state in 1976, the legislation stated that it would be used "without dialectal and extremist forms"—an explicit rejection of Psycharis' ideals.