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93-484: Language Question can refer to several linguistic and/or political debates, including: Greek language question Language Question (Italy) Language Question (Malta) Language Question (Ragusa)  [ it ] Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Language Question . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

186-481: A ceremonial sword ( l'épée ). The members bear the cost of their uniforms themselves. The robes cost around $ 50,000, and Amin Maalouf said that his induction cost him some $ 230,000 overall. The swords can be particularly expensive as they are individually designed. Some new members have had funds for them raised by committees. The Académie is France's official authority on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of

279-475: A Grammarian, Philologist, Schoolmaster, Metrician and Poet . After pointing out errors and solecisms in Soutsos's own language, Asopios went on to defend Korais's general 'simplifying' approach, but with the addition of his own selection of archaisms. The exchange sparked a small war of pamphlets from other pedants, competing to expose inconsistencies, grammatical errors, and phrases literally translated from French in

372-399: A certain usage, then this was sufficient justification for adopting it; the question whether the λαός could actively handle such a usage was usually ignored." (emphasis in the original) (Mackridge (2009), p. 185) In practice, even after fifty years of exposure to them and given several years of Ancient Greek grammar lessons in primary school, the 'common people' had adopted none of

465-629: A chairperson and chief representative of the Académie. The two other officers, a Director and a Chancellor, are elected for three-month terms. The most senior member, by date of election, is the Dean of the Académie. New members are elected by the Académie itself; the original members were appointed. When a seat becomes vacant, a person may apply to the Secretary if they wish to become a candidate. Alternatively, existing members may nominate other candidates. A candidate

558-411: A group of conservative and educated nobles who supported the archaic language and were the most important critics of the language of the people. This discussion later became crucial when it was to be decided which one should be the single language of the modern Greek state, which was yet to be founded. Adamantios Korais (1748–1833) influenced the further discussion considerably. While being a supporter of

651-500: A language that the nation does not understand, [with the result that] it remains untutored, ignorant and barbarous, and consequently betrayed by them". A decade later in Athens, among the logiόtatoi , even the young Georgios Hatzidakis (newly appointed assistant professor of linguistics at Athens University, and later to become Katharevousa 's greatest defender) had come to recognize the problem. In one of his earliest published pieces (in

744-443: A legal standard of precision exactly what was meant by " Katharevousa glossa " (at the time, Katharevousa was still an adjective). In fact, the only mention of language in legislation appeared in the educational laws of 1834 and 1836, which established that Ancient Greek (not Katharevousa ) should continue to be the only language of the readers and textbooks used in schools. There was also no official body to make such decisions: "It

837-787: A literary work), the grand prix du roman (for a novel), the Grand prix de poésie de l'Académie française (for poetry), the Grand prix de philosophie (for a philosophical work), the Grand prix du cinéma (for film), and the grand prix Gobert (for a work on French history). The Académie Française intervened in June 2008 to oppose the French Government's proposal to constitutionally offer recognition and protection to regional languages ( Flemish , Alsatian , Basque , Breton , Catalan , Corsican , Occitan , Gascon , and Arpitan ). The current members of

930-460: A member is known as l'habit vert , or green clothing. The habit vert , worn at the Académie's formal ceremonies, was first adopted during Napoleon Bonaparte's reorganization of the Institut de France . It consists of a long black coat and black-feathered bicorne , both richly embroidered with green leafy motifs, together with black trousers or skirt. Further, members other than clergy carry

1023-400: A patriotic and spiritual dimension. "All other nations have a present. We do not. ... By despising and renouncing our language, we are despising and renouncing our present." Two years later, Konemenos published Once More on Language , in which he answered his critics and developed his ideas. To those who complained that his prose did not sound like genuine Demotic speech, he explained that he

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1116-625: A satirical dialogue between "the Editor" (in Demotic) and "a Pedant" (in archaic Katharevousa ) which raised many of the issues central to the Language Question. The Editor defends his decision to value and preserve the songs, while the Pedant complains about their language, making himself look rather ridiculous in the process. Manousos ended his preface with a long quotation from Ioannis Vilaras in support of

1209-562: A search for internal correctness or at least consistency, and in part by a feeling that since Ancient Greek was the ideal language, any approach to it could only be regarded as progress. Not only did new writers use more archaic forms than their predecessors; individual authors also tended to use more archaisms as their careers advanced—sometimes even in successive editions of the same work. Soutsos first published his ground-breaking Katharevousa dramatic poem "The Wayfarer" ( Ὁ Ὁδοιπόρος ) in 1831, using much Demotic vocabulary and grammar. However,

1302-583: A single body called the Institut de France . Napoleon Bonaparte , as First Consul , decided to restore the former academies, but only as "classes" or divisions of the Institut de France . The second class of the Institut was responsible for the French language, and corresponded to the former Académie Française . When King Louis XVIII came to the throne in 1816, each class regained the title of "Académie"; accordingly,

1395-421: A speech to the Académie, which includes a eulogy for the member being replaced. This is followed by a speech made by one of the members. Eight days thereafter, a public reception is held, during which the new member makes a speech thanking their colleagues for their election. On one occasion, one newly installed member, Georges de Porto-Riche , was not accorded a reception, as the eulogy he made of his predecessor

1488-543: Is assigned a separate number. Candidates make their applications for a specific seat, not to the Académie in general: if several seats are vacant, a candidate may apply separately for each. Since a newly elected member is required to eulogize their predecessor in the installation ceremony, it is not uncommon that potential candidates refuse to apply for particular seats because they dislike the predecessors. Members are known as "les immortels" ("the Immortals") in reference to

1581-537: Is being devised at present ... it is the sole remaining shoot on the venerable old tree of our nationality". When (after the unification of 1864) Valaoritis moved to Athens to take a seat in the national Greek Parliament, his high reputation went with him; and when in 1872 the university commissioned him to write a commemorative poem, it described his language as "sweetly spoken and entirely national". Although this referred only to its use in poetry, Athenian attitudes to Demotic had now begun to change, particularly in

1674-493: Is characteristic of the Greek case that, while language reforms in other new states were undertaken with the help of official and semi-official bodies, Katharevousa was developed in an empirical and unsystematic fashion, without congresses, commissions, and academies, and with little official support." (Mackridge (2009), p. 164) Korais himself (though an admirer of the legislated clarity and precision of French) explicitly rejected

1767-434: Is continuing work on the ninth edition, of which the first volume ( A to Enzyme ) appeared in 1992, Éocène to Mappemonde was published in 2000, and Maquereau to Quotité in 2011. In 1778, the Académie attempted to compile a "historical dictionary" of the French language; this idea was later abandoned, the work never progressing past the letter  A . As the use of English terms by media increased over

1860-487: Is elected by a majority of votes from voting members. A quorum is twenty members. If no candidate receives an absolute majority, another election must be performed at a later date. The election is valid only if the protector of the Académie, the President of France, grants their approval. The President's approbation is only a formality. The new member is then installed at a meeting of the Académie. The new member must deliver

1953-406: Is necessary, to avoid the "mob rule" of undisciplined and uncorrected Demotic, but ultimate authority still lies with the people, whose judgement over the long term decides which works and writers are "elected" as the classics to be emulated. In line with these principles, Korais took great pains not to appear to be a one-man Académie . Much of his writing on the language question was published in

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2046-449: Is not necessary to be a member of the literary profession to become a member. The Académie has included numerous politicians, lawyers, scientists, historians, philosophers, and senior Roman Catholic clergymen. Five French heads of state have been members – Adolphe Thiers , Raymond Poincaré , Paul Deschanel , Philippe Pétain , and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing – and one foreign head of state, the poet Léopold Sédar Senghor of Senegal , who

2139-670: The Battle of Verdun of World War I , was elected to the Académie in 1931 and, after his governorship of Vichy France in World War II , was forced to resign his seat in 1945. The Académie had its origins in an informal literary group deriving from the salons held at the Hôtel de Rambouillet during the late 1620s and early 1630s. The group began meeting at Valentin Conrart 's house, seeking informality. There were then nine members. Cardinal Richelieu ,

2232-832: The Dictionary of Our Hellenic Dialect Interpreted into Ancient Greek and French . Here, the definitions and explanations were all given in Ancient Greek and French, used as precision instruments to dissect "grocers' style" Demotic, which was treated more as an object of study than a medium of communication. Vyzantios concluded his dictionary with a list of words of foreign origin (many of them Turkish) that were to be expelled from Demotic as part of its "purification". In his preface he argued that "it would be ridiculous to express scholarly and scientific ideas in 'grocers' style'; for this reason, in order to be written down, our spoken language must be corrected according to that of our ancient forebears:

2325-575: The French Academy , is the principal French council for matters pertaining to the French language . The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu , the chief minister to King Louis XIII . Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution , it was restored as a division of the Institut de France in 1803 by Napoleon Bonaparte . It is the oldest of the five académies of

2418-527: The Greek Orthodox Church who worshiped in Koine Greek and shared much Greek culture even though they spoke other languages such as Albanian or Aromanian at home. At this early stage of the Greek state, it was far from clear how large its borders would ultimately be and whether citizenship would depend on language, religion, or simple residence. It was recognized, though, that if Demotic had become

2511-463: The "common people" nor the State would ever be using Ancient Greek as their everyday language. Katharevousa thus lost one of its justifications, as a necessary halfway stage in the natural restoration of the ancient language. It would now have to stand on its own merits as the practical written language of a modern state. It was also clear that something had to be done to loosen the grip of Ancient Greek on

2604-552: The Académie's motto , À l'immortalité ("To Immortality"), which is inscribed on the official seal of the charter granted by Cardinal Richelieu. One of the immortels is chosen by their colleagues to be the Académie's Perpetual Secretary. The Secretary is called "Perpetual", as though the holder serves for life, but holds the ability to resign; they may thereafter be styled as "Honorary Perpetual Secretary", with three post- World War II Perpetual Secretaries having previously resigned due to old age. The Perpetual Secretary acts as

2697-554: The Académie, either because their candidacies were rejected, because they were never candidates, or because they died before appropriate vacancies arose. Notable French authors who never became academicians include Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Jean-Paul Sartre , Joseph de Maistre , Honoré de Balzac , René Descartes , Denis Diderot , Romain Rolland , Charles Baudelaire , Gustave Flaubert , Molière , Marcel Proust , Jules Verne , Théophile Gautier , and Émile Zola . The official uniform of

2790-630: The French head of state has always served as the Académie's protector. From 1672 to 1805, the official meetings of the Académie were in the Louvre ; since 1805, the Académie Française has met in the Collège des Quatre-Nations (known now as the Palais de l'Institut). The remaining academies of the Institut de France also meet in the Palais de l'Institut. The Académie Française has forty seats, each of which

2883-506: The French language since the 1700s, and has criticized the view that anglicisms present an "invasion" on the French language. It distinguishes anglicisms into three categories: some that are useful to the French language and introduced vocabulary which did not have a French equivalent at the time (the Académie cites the word " confortable " as an example, from the English "comfortable"); others that are detrimental and only establish more confusion as

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2976-582: The French language. The Académie publishes a dictionary of the French language, known as the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française , which is regarded as official in France. A special commission composed of several (but not all) of the members of the Académie compiles the work. The Académie has published thirteen editions of the dictionary, of which three were preliminary, eight were complete, and two were supplements for specialised words. These are: The Académie

3069-476: The Ionian Islands , Valaoritis had become famous for his passionately patriotic poems, written in vigorous Demotic with dramatic dialogue and a style recalling Greek folk-song. But (in an 1857 foreword, just after the Soutsos controversy) he had also mounted a strong defence of the general use of "the language of the people" in poetry: "Born automatically, it is not the work of art, unlike the [ Katharevousa ] that

3162-639: The Islands) became one of the first to break with this convention when he published The Question of the Language in Corfu. Writing in fluent Demotic prose, Konemenos presented what was in effect a Demoticist manifesto, arguing that the spoken language should become the basis of the national written language. "Language ... is a means, not an end", he wrote, and should be judged on its effectiveness in conveying meaning and emotion. "Vulgarity and impropriety" are properties of

3255-602: The Italian-based Mediterranean Lingua Franca of the Levantine ports. In Athens, the new capital, now that Katharevousa had been accepted for official purposes, most hopes for the future were concentrated on "ennobling" and "correcting" everyday speech; outside the Ionian Islands (which would not become part of the Greek state until 1864), very few now argued for the use of "uncorrected" Demotic as

3348-612: The already dominant position of the Tuscan dialect of Florence as the model for Italian ; the Florentine academy had published its Vocabolario in 1612. During the French Revolution , the National Convention suppressed all royal academies, including the Académie Française . In 1792, the election of new members to replace those who died was prohibited; in 1793, the academies were themselves abolished. They were all replaced in 1795 by

3441-686: The ancient grammar to the current language. Even Soutsos, however, had limits. He left out the dual number, and the logical connectives γάρ 'for' and οὖν 'therefore', as being too far from modern usage; and in yet another compromise, he admitted that the public were not yet ready for the ancient negative particle οὐ , while also recommending that the Demotic equivalent δεν should be avoided, thus leaving his followers with no easy way of writing 'not'. The proposal drew an immediate counter-attack from Soutsos's bitter academic rival Konstantinos Asopios : The Soutseia, or Mr Panagiotis Soutsos Scrutinized as

3534-401: The ancient language alone is prescribed" for teaching in primary schools; it was the only consistent set of rules with a status that all could agree on. Meanwhile, although the details were under continual dispute, the drift towards the archaic continued; to men who visualized the language as a magnificent building in need of restoration, the structure would always seem ugly and incomplete until

3627-458: The archaic usages. They were happy to use newly coined Katharevousa terms for modern inventions, and some (though not all) alternatives for loanwords, but the trickle-down of Ancient Greek grammatical forms into the language of ordinary people that Korais and Vyzantios had hoped for simply did not happen. It seemed that the scholars had greatly overestimated the influence of the written word on everyday speech patterns. In fact, instead of closing

3720-519: The care and diligence possible, to give exact rules to our language, to render it capable of treating the arts and sciences". The Académie Française has remained responsible for the regulation of French grammar, spelling, and literature. Richelieu's model, the first academy devoted to eliminating the "impurities" of a language, was the Accademia della Crusca , founded in Florence in 1582, which formalized

3813-470: The chief minister of France, made himself protector of the group, and in anticipation of the formal creation of the academy, new members were appointed in 1634. On 22 February 1635, at Richelieu's urging, King Louis XIII granted letters patent formally establishing the council; according to the letters patent registered at the Parlement de Paris on 10 July 1637, the Académie Française was "to labor with all

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3906-419: The content, not the language itself; and since even the [lόgioi] Error: {{Lang}}: Non-latn text/Latn script subtag mismatch ( help ) –the learned–were by then accepting the use of Demotic in poetry, it had proved capable of conveying even the most sublime concepts. "I believe", he continued, "that our modern language is a perfection of the ancient." For Konemenos, as for so many others, the language question had

3999-455: The dead of our paternal language is our sweetest dream." Rangavis himself continued to write ever more archaic virtuoso works, notably Theodora (1884). But in the event, he was to be one of the last archaists in Greek literature, and Mackridge evaluated Theodora as "remarkable and futile". Almost all of these writers "subscribed to the frequently expressed argument that as long as the λαός (the common people) could passively comprehend

4092-618: The editions of 1842 and then 1853 contained progressively more archaic language. However, the question of exactly which archaisms to re-introduce provoked much acrimonious bickering among scholars. This flared up in 1853, when Panagiotis Soutsos published New School of the Written Word, or Resurrection of the Ancient Greek Language Understood by All . Breaking with the convention of respecting Korais (while still making archaizing "corrections"), in this pamphlet he rejected

4185-399: The educational system. Accordingly, in 1881, provision was officially made for the teaching of some Katharevousa in Greek primary schools. It was the first time that anything other than Ancient Greek had been allowed in education. However, change was slow; some Ancient Greek continued to be taught in primary schools until 1917, and secondary schools were allowed nothing else until 1909. It

4278-621: The end of World War II : Philippe Pétain , Abel Bonnard , Abel Hermant , and Charles Maurras were all excluded for their association with the Vichy regime . In total, 20 members have been expelled from the Académie. There have been a total of 742 immortels , of whom eleven have been women; Marguerite Yourcenar was the first woman to be elected, in 1980, but there have been 25 unsuccessful female candidacies, dating from 1874. Individuals who are not citizens of France may be, and have been, elected. Moreover, although most academicians are writers, it

4371-404: The following text: The discussion began at the end of the 18th century, as Eugenios Voulgaris (1716–1806), Lambros Photiadis , St. Kommitas and Neophytos Doukas , who were proponents of a more archaic language, and Voulgaris's students Iosipos Moisiodax (1725–1800) and Dimitrios Katartzis (ca. 1725-1807), who proposed a simpler language, began to voice their opinions. The phanariots were

4464-520: The formal language put forward ever-changing variants that were never standardized. These variants approached Attic Greek in extreme cases, but they could also be closer to spoken Greek and could thus be understood by the majority of the people. The Greek language question concerns the co-existence of two forms of Greek that sometimes differ significantly. Such differences can greatly exceed common stylistic differences between written & spoken or formal & informal forms of language, as demonstrated in

4557-474: The gap between Ancient and Modern Greek must be eliminated by writing in a more archaic language than that which is spoken, so that readers will familiarize themselves with the ancient forms." Like Korais, he was confident that "poets and other writers will control the future development of the language" and that Demotic speakers would follow their lead and start to "purify" their own speech. The majority, however, now followed Korais in recognizing with regret that

4650-470: The gap between Demotic and Ancient Greek was now too large to be bridged this way in one step. After all, Demotic speakers had been exposed to Ancient Greek in church and school for centuries without any noticeable trickle down; the languages had simply grown too far apart for any such diffusion to be possible. It was hoped now that Katharevousa would be close enough to Demotic for its "purifying" influence to work. As Korais had written in 1804: "Root out from

4743-479: The gap by gradually pulling Demotic up to its own level, Katharevousa was moving away from the spoken language, widening the gap and leaving the "common people" behind. As a result, while many Greeks could read (or at least puzzle out) the Katharevousa in official use, only a minority could now write it with any pleasure or confidence. It was far from the universal standard language of Korais's vision; writing itself

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4836-486: The idea of a top-down imposition of language standards by a body modelled on the Académie française . As a secular republican in language as well as in politics, he rejected this "tyranny" and favoured an informal "parliamentary" model; the poets and prose writers are the "legislators", "elected" by the size of their readership, and they have a duty to guide the language wisely by their majority opinion and their example. Guidance

4929-457: The institute. The body has the duty of acting as an official authority on the language; it is tasked with publishing an official dictionary of the language. The Académie comprises forty members, known as les immortels ("the immortals"). New members are elected by the members of the Académie itself . Academicians normally hold office for life, but they may resign or be dismissed for misconduct. Philippe Pétain , named Marshal of France after

5022-456: The invitation of the state) vocabularies appropriate to their fields; the more "official" the field, the more like Ancient Greek the new vocabulary appeared. For example, the newly formed Royal Hellenic Navy introduced the use of Ancient Greek nautical terms although civilian seamen continued to use the traditional ones, many of them loanwords from Italian, owing to the centuries-old maritime influence of Venice and Genoa, and with borrowings from

5115-452: The language of the people, Korais sought to cleanse it from elements that he considered to be too "vulgar" and eventually invented Katharevousa . After a prolonged War of Independence , the modern Greek state was founded in 1830; the first capital was Nafplio and, from 1834 onwards, Athens . Publishing had been brought almost to a halt by the war, and with it the intellectual debate, but by 1830 an informal consensus had been reached that

5208-584: The language of the state. Quite apart from its supposed inadequacy and vulgarity, there had been another political and diplomatic reason to rule out using Demotic as the state language. In 1830 the population of the new Greek state was about 800,000; but outside the borders were at least two million more Greek-speakers (mainly in the remaining provinces of the Ottoman Empire and the British-controlled Ionian Islands), and millions more members of

5301-406: The language the weeds of vulgarity, yet not all at once by the forkful, but gradually with the hand, one after the other; sow Hellenic seeds in it, but these too by the handful and not by the sackful. You will be surprised how in a short while your words and phrases have passed from the book into the mouths of the people." Typical of the many prominent intellectuals who believed that this would work

5394-400: The last piece had been slotted back into place. By 1877, the diplomat and Katharevousa poet Kleon Rangavis  [ el ] could write: We are convinced, now that the dative has become generally accepted, that the future, which is already in use among the better writers, will follow it, and that the infinitive, on the increase in many quarters, will follow this in turn, together with

5487-460: The linguistic welfare of the whole population, it "represented the triumph of Enlightenment intellectuals over the Ancient Greek resurrection proposal". During the next few decades, however, the Katharevousa in general use grew more and more archaic as writers gradually introduced Ancient Greek features (like the noun dative case) that had not been present in Korais's version. In part, it was driven by

5580-400: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Language_Question&oldid=1212637145 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Greek language question While Demotic was

5673-476: The magazine Estia , 1883) he admitted, "In our struggle to render the written language more noble, we are allowing the Greek people to become more uncouth." However, he explicitly ruled out switching to writing in Demotic, which he dismissed as "the tattered Romaic language , which is not sufficient for anything" (emphasis in original). By about 1880, it had become tacitly accepted that the fifty-year dream of Vyzantios, Soutsos and their fellows had failed: neither

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5766-485: The modernization of the French orthography , has sometimes been criticized by many linguists for allegedly behaving in an overly conservative manner. For instance, in 1997, Lionel Jospin 's government began using the feminine noun " la ministre " to refer to a female minister, following the official practice of Canada , Belgium and Switzerland and a frequent, though until then unofficial, practice in France. The Académie insisted, in accordance with French grammar rules on

5859-518: The necessity of "correcting" the modern language. The rhetoric of the time is "full of adjectives such as 'correct', 'rich', 'pure', 'noble' and even 'sacred' to describe Ancient Greek and/or Katharevousa and their antonyms 'ungrammatical', 'poor', 'corrupt' or 'adulterated', 'vulgar' or 'base', and 'profane' or even 'blasphemous' to refer to Demotic." Foreign loanwords were especially reviled. As Korais had written, "To borrow from foreigners—or, to speak more clearly, to beg words and phrases, with which

5952-524: The negative particles ... This extract is from the introduction to Julian the Transgressor ( Ιουλιανός ο παραβάτης: ποίημα δραματικόν ), the "dramatic poem" in which Rangavis attempted to re-introduce the long-disused infinitive into poetry. Although this author was an extreme example, his linguistic ambition had been widely shared; Skarlatos D. Vyzantios, well known for his 1835 dictionary of Demotic, had written as late as 1862 that "resurrection from

6045-454: The new state should have a unified written language modeled on Korais's version of Katharevousa ; "... the romantic-classical ideology of the new state that emerged from [the War]; could not condone the use of 'vulgar' spoken Greek; instead it installed the linguistic compromise solution advocated by Korais as a provisional measure until such time as Ancient Greek could be fully revived. What

6138-621: The original meaning of the word is distorted in translation; and others still that are useless or avoidable, a category of anglicisms used by "snobs" who use words from an English provenance to demarcate themselves from society and appear "in vogue". For the last category of anglicisms, the Académie writes that those words are typically short-lived in French parlance. The Académie Française has informed government officials to stop using English gaming terms like "e-sports", it should be "jeu video de competition". Likewise "streamer" should be "joueur-animateur en direct". The Académie, despite working on

6231-415: The prefaces to his 16-volume Hellenic Library series of ancient Greek texts, and they were modestly titled "Impromptu thoughts on Greek culture and language". Most of his other linguistic studies were issued as five collected volumes under the even more self-effacing title Atakta , a "jumbled miscellany". It has even been suggested that "the chief reason why Korais did not publish a grammar of Modern Greek

6324-416: The prizes were created during the twentieth century, and only two prizes were awarded before 1780. In total, the Académie awards more than sixty prizes, most of them annually. The most important prize is the Grand prix de la francophonie , which was instituted in 1986, and is funded by the governments of France, Canada, Monaco, and Morocco. Other important prizes include the Grand prix de littérature (for

6417-483: The second class of the Institut became the Académie Française . Since 1816, the existence of the Académie Française has been uninterrupted. The President of France is the "protector" or patron of the Académie. Cardinal Richelieu originally adopted this role; upon his death in 1642, Pierre Séguier , the Chancellor of France , succeeded him. King Louis XIV adopted the function when Séguier died in 1672; since then,

6510-582: The specific development of dialects, but concentrate them on the dignified formation of the Panhellenic language". The adjudicator was Alexandros Rizos Rangavis , one of the most influential literary men of the time. Language policy at the time was very much at the service of the Megali Idea , the grand re-unification of the entire Greek nation. Some critics were less polite; an anonymous newspaper article (probably written by Soutsos) sharply told Tertsetis that it

6603-427: The spoken language could not be properly cultivated if it was so widely separated from the written variety that mutual influence between the two became impossible." Katharevousa thus formed part of a reasoned strategy for empowering ordinary people by improving the language in which they spoke and thought, admittedly not to Ancient Greek standards but as close as was currently practicable. In its practical concern for

6696-400: The state language, it might well have alienated millions of non-Greek speaking Orthodox believers within the potentially much larger future borders. Among the believers in "correction", hopes were still divided between those who pushed for the full resurrection of Ancient Greek (bringing with it "Truth and Freedom", as Soutsos put it later), and the majority who believed with Korais that this

6789-587: The storerooms of one's language are already replete—creates a reputation for complete ignorance or even idiocy as well as dishonour." In this intellectual climate, the population set to work with enthusiasm to restore the national honour by "correcting" the Greek vocabulary. Alehouses and brewers took down the signs saying μπιραρία biraria (from Italian birreria ) and put up ζυθοπωλείον 'ale-house'. Grocers took down μπακάλικο bakaliko (from Turkish bakkal ) and put up παντοπωλείον while various academics and professionals devised and issued (at

6882-474: The traditional use of the masculine noun, on the use of " le ministre " for a minister of either gender. In 2017, 77 linguists retaliated with an opinion column to denounce the "incompetence and anachronism of the Académie". Use of either form remains highly controversial. The Académie Française is responsible for awarding several different prizes in various fields (including literature, painting, poetry, theatre, cinema, history, and translation). Almost all of

6975-464: The vernacular of the Greeks, Katharevousa was an archaic and formal variant that was pronounced like Modern Greek, but it adopted both lexical and morphological features of Ancient Greek that the spoken language had lost over time. Examples: These differences meant that Katharevousa was only partly intelligible to a Greek without higher education. There was no single Katharevousa . Instead, proponents of

7068-459: The whole idea of a "simplified" Ancient Greek, dismissing Katharevousa as a "meagre Frankish edifice" full of imported Gallicisms, and deriding the university professors whose writing was hardly Greek at all, merely literally translated French. He declared "that the hearts and minds of the modern Greeks will be elevated by writing Ancient Greek, and that they will thereby learn Truth and Freedom". Accordingly, Soutsos proposed to restore almost all of

7161-433: The works of their rivals, and proposing their own alternative sets of rules. In this climate of academic discord, it was difficult for the educational authorities to know what grammatical rules to teach in the few years of primary education available to most Greeks. The matter was settled in 1856 when a royal decree re-affirmed the decisions of 1834 and 1836 and laid down, "As the grammar of the Greek language ... that of

7254-477: The written use of the spoken language, and immediately put this into practice by writing his own commentaries on the songs in Demotic. Such arguments did not find a sympathetic ear in the mainland Greek state. When in 1853 the Ionian poet Georgios Tertsetis was bold enough to enter the national poetry competition with the Demotic poem "Corinna and Pindar" the adjudicator advised that "we must not dissipate our forces in

7347-439: The written use of the spoken language. In 1850 there was a new development when Antonios Manousos produced the first collection of Greek folk-songs to be published on Greek soil: National Songs . This was one of the first shoots of the folklore movement that was to blossom a generation later, though for the moment its influence was limited to the Ionian Islands. But Manousos did more than just collect. In his preface, he presented

7440-557: The years after 1870. It was no longer just the "debased grocers' slang" of a generation before. In the next year, 1873, the national poetry competition was won for the first time by a collection of poems in Demotic— The Voice of My Heart by the young Dimitrios Kampouroglou. When it came to prose, however, even Valaoritis still used Katharevousa . In 1873, Nikolaos Konemenos  [ el ] (brought up in Lefkada and Corfu in

7533-536: The years, the Académie has tried to prevent the Anglicization of the French language. For example, the Académie has recommended the avoidance of loanwords from modern English (such as walkman , computer , software and e-mail ), in favour of neologisms, i.e. newly coined French words derived from existing ones ( baladeur , ordinateur , logiciel , and courriel respectively). The Académie has also noted that anglicisms have been present in

7626-485: Was also a moral and spiritual side to linguistic "correction". Korais had believed, "Because of their enslavement to foreign rulers, the Modern Greeks were incapable of thinking properly and thus of speaking properly; the correction of language would, however, lead to the correction of both thought and behaviour." It was hoped that as the damage done to the spoken language by centuries of subjection to "Oriental despotism"

7719-432: Was also the first African elected, in 1983. Other famous members include Voltaire ; Montesquieu ; Victor Hugo ; Alexandre Dumas, fils ; Émile Littré ; Louis Pasteur ; Louis de Broglie ; and Henri Poincaré . Many notable French writers have not become members of the Académie Française . In 1855, the writer Arsène Houssaye devised the expression "forty-first seat" for deserving individuals who were never elected to

7812-456: Was becoming the preserve of a small elite. By the 1870s, it had become a matter of serious concern. In the Ionian Islands, always less impressed by the social status of Katharevousa , Andreas Laskaratos wrote in 1872 that "the [logiόtatoi] Error: {{Lang}}: Non-latn text/Latn script subtag mismatch ( help ) [pedants], the enemies of the nation, while pretending to speak to the nation in a language better than its own, are speaking and writing in

7905-406: Was considered unsatisfactory, and he refused to rewrite it. Georges Clemenceau refused to be received, as he feared being received by his enemy, Raymond Poincaré . Members remain in the Académie for life. The council may dismiss an academician for grave misconduct. The first dismissal occurred in 1638, when Auger de Moléon de Granier was expelled for theft. The most recent dismissals occurred at

7998-428: Was gradually repaired, the Greeks would begin to think more like their rational, critical and creative ancestors, and that the political and cultural life of the nation would thus be revitalized. Skarlatos Vyzantios  [ el ] played a leading role among the supporters of full Ancient Greek revival. In 1835 he published the first dictionary of spoken Demotic to be compiled by a Greek for almost two centuries:

8091-599: Was in the Ionian Islands , part of the Greek state only after 1864 and culturally still on the periphery, that the first stirrings of a new Demotic movement appeared. On the mainland, the First Athenian School of literature had been concentrating on Katharevousa since 1830; but in the Islands the Heptanesian tradition of Demotic poetry associated with Dionysios Solomos lived on, and some were still prepared to argue for

8184-523: Was inappropriate for Ionians, who possessed "a poor dialect", to impose it on "the language of the free Hellenes". However, these attitudes were to be softened over the next two decades, notably by Aristotelis Valaoritis , Ionian poet and parliamentarian, whose work significantly advanced the acceptance of Demotic as a language of poetry. During his early career in the Parliament of the United States of

8277-471: Was perhaps intended to be a temporary stop-gap, however, eventually became firmly entrenched as the established form of Greek in official use." (Mackridge (2009), p. 158) The adoption, however, was not expressed in formal or legal terms specifying Katharevousa as "the language of the state". To do so would have dashed the hopes of the many who hoped that Ancient Greek itself would one day take over that role. It would also have been difficult to specify to

8370-421: Was precisely that he wanted to avoid legislating on grammatical matters." In 1833, the year of Korais's death, a new collected edition of his "Impromptu thoughts..." prefaces was published, making his ideas available to a much wider audience than before and providing a linguistic example to follow. Two of his ideas in particular had widespread influence: his admiration of Ancient Greek beauty, and his belief in

8463-404: Was quite unrealistic but that Demotic could still be "corrected" to the less demanding level of Katharevousa . Both believed wholeheartedly in the power of the written language to transform the spoken one; they hoped that the "pure" forms would naturally trickle down to replace the "corrupted" Demotic ones and that the spoken language would thus be pulled up to a "richer" and "nobler" level. There

8556-470: Was the statesman and diplomat Spyridon Trikoupis , whose authoritative History of the Greek Revolution was written in Katharevousa . "In the introduction to his History Trikoupis attacked the archaizers and promoted Korais's 'middle way', which he followed in practice in his book .... He expressed the hope that the spoken and written language would eventually become one and the same, arguing that

8649-483: Was trying to develop a "de-regionalized" Demotic. The supporters of Katharevousa had always maintained that the spoken dialects differed so much among themselves that it would be impractical to use Demotic as a written language; Konemenos showed that there was more than enough common ground. "We don't have dialects, but we have idioms". Acad%C3%A9mie fran%C3%A7aise The Académie Française ( French pronunciation: [akademi fʁɑ̃sɛːz] ), also known as

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