Demotic Greek - Radical Demoticism

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 („το ταξίδι μου", 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. For instance, he proposed to change the form of the neuter noun το φως gen. του φωτός (=light) into το φώτο (gen. του φώτου). 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 the six different ways to write the vowel /i/ and all instances of double consonants. Therefore, he wrote his own name as Γιάνης, instead of Γιάννης. The standard form of Demotic which developed over the next few decades made more compromises with Katharevousa (as is reflected in the contemporary standard), and despite acrimony between the "psycharist" (ψυχαρικοί) radicals and the moderates, the radical strand was ultimately marginalised. When Demotic was made official in 1976, the legislation stated that the Demotic used would be "without extremist and dialectal forms"—the "extremism" being a reference to Psycharis' forms.