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Greek Language Profile ΝΕΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ |
Greek, the official language of the Hellenic Republic, is often labeled
'Modern' in order to distinguish it from Ancient and Medieval Greek.
The mother-tongue of some ten million people, Greek has been spoken
in the southern Balkans since the mid-second millennium BC. Although
in antiquity Greek was characterized by a large number of dialects,
Modern Greek is directly descended from only one of them - the koiné
('common') Greek that came into use throughout the eastern Mediterranean
in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great. The breadth of
its geographical distribution can be gauged by the fact that Greek continued
to be spoken as far east as the coast of Asia Minor and as far west
as southern Italy until well into the twentieth century. 
Beginning in antiquity, the prestige of Athenian literature led to a
pronounced dichotomy between the spoken language - called Demotic, or
'popular' - and the literary language based on the ancient Athenian
writers. The result is that most Greek literature surviving from the
late ancient period through early modern times is written in an artificial
and archaic idiom. This tendency was exacerbated by the fact that the
Greek homeland lay under the domination of the Ottoman Turks for nearly
four centuries, which inhibited the growth of a vernacular literary
language like those that sprang up in western Europe in early modern
times. Since the achievement of Greek independence in the 1820s, the
question of language has been fiercely debated: on the one side are
those who favor the archaizing katharevousa ('purifying') idiom,
and on the other are those who champion the legitimacy of the Demotic;
at present, the official position of the government favors the latter.
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