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Language and National Identity in Greece 1766–1976 This page intentionally left blank Language and National Identity in Greece 1766–1976 PETER MACKRIDGE 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Peter Mackridge 2009 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mackridge, Peter. Language and national identity in Greece, 1766–1976 / Peter Mackridge. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978–0–19–921442–6 1. Greek language, Modern–Political aspects–History. 2. Nationalism–Greece–History. 3. Language policy–Greece. I. Title. PA1050.M33 2009 306.44’909509–dc22 2008041406 Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by MPG Books Grap _________________ ISBN 978–0–19–921442–6 13579108642 The debate . concerning the genuineness of our National Dialect and the exam- ination of its natural form and character is no longer simply a literary or grammatical debate, but a national debate, a public problem, and a postulate that is constitutive of the most sacred rights of the Nation. (Kodrikas 1818)1 Just as each individual has a different facial character from everyone else, so naturally he must have a different character of language. But this character cannot manifest itself as it truly is except when a person writes in his natural language—that is, in the language which he suckled with his mother’s milk and which he speaks every day, or at least more regularly than other, acquired languages. Just as it is true concerning each individual person that ‘a man’s character is known by his language’, so the character of an entire nation is known by its language. (Korais 1804)2 Was the language question merely literary? On the contrary, it was also, and chiefly, political . , containing . the solution . to the Greek destiny, that is to say the final and absolute solution to the Eastern Question. (S. Zambelios 1852)3 The son of a great poet used to say that the profitless burden that he was condemned by irrevocable ill fortune to bear on his shoulders throughout his life was his father’s name. The great and useless load which we Greeks are condemned by irrevocable ill fortune to bear on our puny shoulders is the great and glorious, but heavy and burdensome name of our great forefathers, with all the obligations that it entails. (Vernardakis 1884)4 Language and homeland are one and the same. To fight for one’s homeland or one’s national language is one and the same struggle. (Psycharis 1888)5 La battaglia per la lingua è prima di tutto battaglia di idee. (Rotolo 1965)6 1 Kodrikas 1988: p. iii, used as epigraph in Sathas 1870. 2 Korais 1984b: 43–4, 52, quoting Menander. 3 Zampelios 1852: 368. 4 Vernardakis 1884: 441. 5 Psycharis 1971: 37 [=Psycharis 1888: p. i]. 6 Rotolo 1965: 55. vi [I]dentity crisis is the central problem of modern Greek society, the constituent feature of contemporary Hellenism and the axis around which our modern history revolves. (Tsaousis 1983)7 [T]he conflict between demoticism and purism/archaism can be viewed as a conflict for the appropriation of the authority to form the national identity. (Tziovas 1986)8 7 Tsaousis 1983: 17. 8 Tziovas 1986: 5. Contents Preface viii Transliteration from Greek and pronunciation of Greek words x Maps and illustrations xii Acknowledgements xiii 1 Theoretical background 1 2 The preconditions for the Greek language controversy 32 3 The early stages of the controversy, 1766–1804 80 4 Adamantios Korais as language reformer 102 5 Alternative proposals to Korais’ project, 1804–1830 126 6 Language in the two Greek states, 1830–1880 159 7 The beginning of the demoticist campaign, 1880–1897 203 8 Educational demoticism and political reform, 1897–1922 241 9 The political polarization of the language question, 1922–1976 288 10 Epilogue 321 Glossary 336 Bibliography 339 Index 371 Preface In the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) the heroine’s Greek- American family have modelled the façade of their house on the Parthenon, and her father claims that the Japanese word kimono is derived from the Greek word cheimonas [winter] on the grounds that a kimono keeps the wearer warm in winter. Comically exaggerated as they are, these two instances of architectural and verbal language, as cultural features that distinguish Greeks from other nations and enable them to be proud of their own culture, illustrate the importance of language and other aspects of culture to a nation’s sense of identity. Greek national identity has been chiefly defined by two criteria that have been held to distinguish Greeks from non-Greeks. The first is membership of the Orthodox Church. The second is the possession of the Greek language. While there are other peoples in the world who are predominantly Orthodox Christian, the Greek language is clearly distinguished from all other languages in the world by its alphabet, its vocabulary, and its grammar. The Modern Greek language has con- stantly been associated in the minds of educated Greeks with the Ancient Greek language, together with the unique civilization (including the great achievements in literature and philosophy) that was expressed through it. In the minds of almost all Greeks, their language has also been connected, in an unbroken continuity upheld by the traditions of the Orthodox Church and by the chanting of texts in the liturgy, with the New Testament and other early ecclesiastical texts. This has given educated Greeks a sense that their nation possesses a unique cultural heritage. Their language both distinguishes them from all other modern nations and connects them with the civilization of ancient Hellas, early Christianity, and Byzantium. It is largely this complex connection between contemporary and older culture that has given rise to the development of the Greek national identity in modern times. In no other area has this connection been so problematic as in language. It is the question of the Greek language that is the subject of this book. Roderick Beaton has written that the story of the Greek language question ‘tends to be told piecemeal and there is no single, authoritative history of the debate from the late eighteenth century to the late Preface ix twentieth’.1 I cannot claim that my book is that single, authoritative history, but Beaton’s statement has been both a challenge and an incentive to me. 1 Beaton 1999: 296. Transliteration from Greek and pronunciation of Greek words In most cases I have transliterated Greek words into the Roman alphabet. There is no single internationally recognized system for transliterating Modern Greek. I have adopted a procedure that normally reproduces the Greek letters rather than the pronunciation. This allows the reader to gain an approximate visual image of the word and is also useful when looking up a Greek writer’s name in a library catalogue. I have normally transliterated: αυ as av or af according to the pronunciation in each particular case γγ as ng γι as gi, not y γκ as nk ευ as ev or ef according to the pronunciation in each particular case ηasi,note υ (without preceding α or ε) as y, not i ϕasf,notph χ as ch, not h As far as pronunciation is concerned: ai is pronounced e ch is pronounced like Scots or German, not English g is pronounced [G] before a, o,oru (no equivalent in English), but y before e or i; however, after n it is pronounced g gi is usually pronounced y before a vowel d is pronounced like th in English there ei, oi,andy are all pronounced i as in English thin mp is pronounced mb or b nk is pronounced ng or g nt is pronounced nd or d th is pronounced like th in English thin x is pronounced like English x Transliteration and pronunciation xi I have made some exceptions in personal names, especially those of certain authors whose work has been published extensively under a different form of their name in languages other than Greek, e.g. G. N. Hatzidakis, C. P. Cavafy rather than G. N. Chatzidakis, K. P. Kavafis. In transliterated Greek words (but not names or titles) I have usually used an acute accent to mark the stressed vowel unless the stress falls on the penultimate syllable.

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