Katharevousa - History

History

The first known use of the term katharevousa is in a work by the Greek polymath Nikephoros Theotokis, in 1796.

Katharevousa was widely used in public documents and whatever was conceived as work of formal activity by Greek scholars. In modern Greek colloquial connotation, the word katharevousa has come to mean "formal language".

In later years, Katharevousa was used for official and formal purposes (such as politics, letters, official documents, and newscasting), while Dimotiki (δημοτική), 'demotic' or popular Greek, was the daily language. This created a diglossic situation whereby most of the Greek population was excluded from the public sphere and advancement in education unless they conformed to Katharevousa. In 1976, Dimotiki was made the official language, and in 1981 Andreas Papandreou abolished the polytonic system of writing; by the end of the 20th century full Katharevousa in its earlier form had become obsolete. Much of the vocabulary of Katharevousa and its grammatical and syntactical rules have influenced Dimotiki, so that the project's emphasis has made an observable contribution to the language as it is used today. Modern Greek may be argued to be a combination of the original Dimotiki and the traditional Katharevousa as stressed in the 19th century, combined with the institutional influence of Koine Greek. Amongst Katharevousa's later contributions is the promotion of classically based compounds to describe items and concepts that did not exist in earlier times, such as "newspaper", "police", "automobile", "airplane", "television" and many others, rather than borrowing new words directly from other languages.