Katharevousa Greek

Katharevousa (καθαρεύουσα "the purifying [language]") is the puristic literary register of Greek that served as the official language of the Modern Greek state from 1834 until 1976, when Demotic (the spoken vernacular) became sole official. Constructed by Adamantios Korais and others during the Greek Enlightenment to archaize Modern Greek lexicon and morphology toward Ancient/Koine norms — restoring classical noun declensions, the dative case, the optative, and Ancient-Greek-derived vocabulary in place of Turkish/Italian/Slavic loanwords prevalent in Demotic. Wrote in polytonic accentuation (rough/smooth breathings, three accent marks) until the 1982 monotonic reform. The "Greek Language Question" (γλωσσικό ζήτημα) between Katharevousa and Demotic occupied Greek public life for over 150 years and triggered the 1901 Evangelika riots (over a Demotic Bible translation) and the 1903 Oresteiaka riots (over a Demotic Aeschylus). Taught today for reading 19c.-20c. literature (Roidis, Papadiamantis), official documents, and ecclesiastical/legal Greek — distinct from both Ancient Greek (el_grc) and Modern Greek (el).

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