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Dimotiki ( , "[language] of the people") or Demotic is the modern
Modern Greek

Modern Greek refers the varieties of Greek spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic modern features of the language had been present centuries earli...
 vernacular
Vernacular

Vernacular refers to the native language of a country or a locality. In general linguistics, it is used to describe local languages as opposed to Lingua franca, official standards or global languages....
 form of the Greek language
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
. The term has been in use since 1818. Dimotiki refers particularly to the form of the language that evolved, with foreign infuence, from ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
, in opposition to the archaic and artificial Katharevousa
Katharevousa

Katharevousa , is a form of the Greek language conceived in the early 19th century by Greeks intellectual and revolutionary leader Adamantios Korais ....
, which was the official standard until 1976. The two complemented each other in a typical example of diglossia
Diglossia

In linguistics, diglossia is a situation where a given language community uses not just one dialect, but two: the first being the community's present day vernacular and the second being either an ancestral version of the same vernacular from centuries earlier or a distinct yet closely related present day dialect ....
 until the resolution of the Greek language question
Greek language question

The Greek language question was a dispute discussing the question whether the language of the Greek people or a cultivated imitation of Ancient Greek should be the official language of the Greek nation....
 in favour of Dimotiki.

tiki is often thought to be the same as the Modern Greek
Modern Greek

Modern Greek refers the varieties of Greek spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic modern features of the language had been present centuries earli...
 language, but these two terms are not completely synonymous.






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Dimotiki ( , "[language] of the people") or Demotic is the modern
Modern Greek

Modern Greek refers the varieties of Greek spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic modern features of the language had been present centuries earli...
 vernacular
Vernacular

Vernacular refers to the native language of a country or a locality. In general linguistics, it is used to describe local languages as opposed to Lingua franca, official standards or global languages....
 form of the Greek language
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
. The term has been in use since 1818. Dimotiki refers particularly to the form of the language that evolved, with foreign infuence, from ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
, in opposition to the archaic and artificial Katharevousa
Katharevousa

Katharevousa , is a form of the Greek language conceived in the early 19th century by Greeks intellectual and revolutionary leader Adamantios Korais ....
, which was the official standard until 1976. The two complemented each other in a typical example of diglossia
Diglossia

In linguistics, diglossia is a situation where a given language community uses not just one dialect, but two: the first being the community's present day vernacular and the second being either an ancestral version of the same vernacular from centuries earlier or a distinct yet closely related present day dialect ....
 until the resolution of the Greek language question
Greek language question

The Greek language question was a dispute discussing the question whether the language of the Greek people or a cultivated imitation of Ancient Greek should be the official language of the Greek nation....
 in favour of Dimotiki.

Dimotiki and "Modern Greek"

Dimotiki is often thought to be the same as the Modern Greek
Modern Greek

Modern Greek refers the varieties of Greek spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic modern features of the language had been present centuries earli...
 language, but these two terms are not completely synonymous. While Dimotiki is a term applied to the evolved colloqual language of the Greeks, the modern Greek language of today (Standard Modern Greek; ?e?e??????? ?????) is more like a fusion of Dimotiki and Katharevousa, although with much stronger influence from Dimotiki; it is actually a variety of Dimotiki which has been enriched by "educated" elements. It is not wrong to call the spoken language of today Dimotiki, but such a terminology ignores the fact that Modern Greek contains - especially in a written or official form - numerous words, grammatical forms and phonetical features that didn't exist in colloquial speech and only became part of the language through its archaic variety. Besides, even the most archaic forms of Katharevousa were never thought of as Ancient Greek, but were always called "Modern Greek", so that the term "Modern Greek" applies to Dimotiki, Standard Modern Greek and even Katharevousa.

Examples of Modern Greek features which do not exist in Dimotiki

The following examples are intended to demonstrate Katharevousa's features in Modern Greek. They were not present in traditional Dimotiki and only became part of the modern language through Katharevousa (sometimes as neologism
Neologism

A neologism is a newly coined word that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language . Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event....
s), where they are used mostly in writing (for instance, in newspapers), but also orally. Especially words and fixed expressions are both known and used actively also by non-educated speakers.

Words and fixed expressions

  • e?d?af???? (interesting)
  • t??????st?? (at least)
  • t?? ap??a?e (he abducted her)
  • e??a? ?e????? ?t? ... (it is a fact that ...)
  • p??? t? pa??? (for now)


Especially dative forms:
  • d??a t? Te? (Thank God)
  • e? ???µat? ... (in the name [of] ...)
  • t??? µet??t??? (in cash)
  • e? s??e?e?a (following)
  • e? t? µeta?? (meanwhile)


Grammatical (morphological) features

  • Adjectives ending in -??, -??sa, -?? (e.g. e?d?af???? interesting) or in -??, -??, -?? (e.g. s?f??? thoughtful) - mostly in written language.
  • Declinable aorist
    Aorist

    Aorist is an grammatical aspect or, used more specifically, a verb grammatical tense in some Indo-European languages such as Greek language. The term is also used for unrelated concepts in some other languages, such as Turkish language....
     participle, e.g. pa?ad?sa? (having delivered), ?e????e?? ([having been] born) - mostly in written language.
  • Reduplication in the perfect tense. E.g. p??s?e???µ???? (invited), pepa?a??µ???? (obsolete)


Phonological features

Modern Greek features many letter combinations which were avoided in classical Dimotiki:
  • -pt- (e.g. pta?sµa "misdemeanor"); Dimotiki preferred -ft- (e.g. fta?? "to err || to be guilty")
  • -?t- (e.g. ?t?sµa "building, structure"); Dimotiki preferred -?t- [e.g. ?t?st?? "(stone)mason"]
  • -e?d- (e.g. ?e?d?? "falsity, lie"); Dimotiki preferred -e?t- (e.g. ?e?t?? "liar")
  • -s?- (e.g. ????s??? / a???s???a "I was sufficed / satisfied"); Dimotiki preferred -st- (e.g. a???st??a)
  • -??- (e.g. e???? "yesterday"); Dimotiki preferred -?t- [e.g. (e)?t??]
  • etc.


Greek native speakers often make mistakes in these "educated" aspects of their language; one can often see mistakes like p?????? instead of p??????? (I've been promoted), ????? t?? ?t?/???? t? ?t? instead of ???? t?? ?t? (due to the fact that), t?? e?d?af???? ?????p? instead of t?? e?d?af????ta ?????p? (the interesting person), ?? e?d?af????te? ???a??e? instead of ?? e?d?af????se? ???a??e? (the interesting women), ? ??f?? instead of ? ??f?? (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
Ioannis Psycharis

Ioannis Psycharis was a linguistics, author and promoter of Dimotiki. Psycharis was the coiner of the term diglossia, which describes a language community's simultaneous use of the genuine mother tongue of the present day, the vernacular, and a dialect from centuries earlier in the history of the language....
, who lived in France and gained fame through his work My Voyage („t? ta??d? µ??", 1888). Not only did Psycharis propagate the exclusive use of the naturally grown colloquial language, but he actually opted for making the language even simpler than it was anyway, in order to "cleanse" it from all expressions and forms that might have been perceived as "educated". For instance, he proposed to squeeze the natural form t? f?? (gen. t?? f?t??; =light) into a modern Greek declension, transforming it to t? f?t? (gen. t?? f?t??). Such radical forms had occasional precedent in Renaissance attempts to write in Dimotiki, and reflected Psichari's linguistic training as a Neogrammarian
Neogrammarian

The Neogrammarians were a Germany school of linguistics, originally at the University of Leipzig, in the late 19th century who proposed the Neogrammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound change....
, mistrusting the possibility of exceptions in linguistic evolution. Moreover, Psycharis also advocated spelling reform, which would have meant to abolish the six different ways to write the vowel "i" and all instances of double consonants. Therefore, he wrote his own name as G?????, instead of G??????.The standard form of Dimotiki which developed over the next few decades made more compromises with katharevousa (as is reflected in the contemporary standard), and despite acrimony between the "psicharist" (???a?????) radicals and the moderates, the radical strand was ultimately marginalised. When Dimotiki was made official in 1976, the legislation stated that the Dimotiki used would be "without extremist and dialectal forms"—the "extremism" being a reference to Psichari's forms.

See also

  • Modern Greek
    Modern Greek

    Modern Greek refers the varieties of Greek spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic modern features of the language had been present centuries earli...
  • Katharevousa
    Katharevousa

    Katharevousa , is a form of the Greek language conceived in the early 19th century by Greeks intellectual and revolutionary leader Adamantios Korais ....
  • Greek language question
    Greek language question

    The Greek language question was a dispute discussing the question whether the language of the Greek people or a cultivated imitation of Ancient Greek should be the official language of the Greek nation....
  • Diglossia
    Diglossia

    In linguistics, diglossia is a situation where a given language community uses not just one dialect, but two: the first being the community's present day vernacular and the second being either an ancestral version of the same vernacular from centuries earlier or a distinct yet closely related present day dialect ....