Katharévousa
The katharévousa (in Greek καθαρεύουσα /ka θa'revusa/, literally “(language) purified”) is a form of Greek created at the beginning of the 19th century by Adamántios Koraïs (1748 - 1833). Koraïs was pushed back by the Byzantine influence on the Greek company and was a severe critic of the ignorance of the clergy and their tender to the Ottoman Empire. The katharévousa was conceived to purge the Greek language of the foreign influences without to return to the old Greek. Moreover, the word katharévousa about means “clean”, in the sense that it would have been about the evolution of the old Greek if there had not been of foreign influence.
In fact, the katharévousa contained antiquated forms of modern Greek words and replaced the foreign loans by equivalents resulting from the old Greek; it was also equipped with an antiquated grammar although simplified.
At the conclusion of the Second world war, a long political debate opposed holding them of the popular form Dhimotikí (δημοτική) with those of the katharévousa .
The katharévousa reached the statute of official language in 1830 but (it was never popular was indeed not the language of the people) and in 1976 it was replaced by the dhimotikí .
Related articles
- Dhimotikí ;
- Greek modern.
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