Talk:Demotic Greek

Rename "Demotic Greek"
This article should be renamed "Demotic Greek", per W:Use English. FilipeS (talk) 17:17, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

When?
When does this language exist? Is it ancient? Is it modern? Is it in between? Does it have a time range when it is applicable? Did someone forget something? Stevenmitchell (talk) 15:50, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Erm, did you read the article's lead? It's right there. This is the modern, vernacular version of the Greek language, and since 1976, the one in official use as well.Constantine  ✍  19:24, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree there should be at least some mention as to when it started to be spoken, not just when it became the official language of Greece, as there is no actual mention of any time period. Seeing how there were aspects of Demotic even in the 10th-11th centuries AD or even earlier, this will in turn show how continuous it is with other, earlier forms of Greek, especially medieval Greek but also Koine, that will subsequently, subtly balance out the immense focus that is given to the changes from Ancient to Modern Greek, which though important, realistically are not making Modern Greek as much different and alien to ancient Greek as the article seems to want to point towards. 62.74.60.136 (talk) 00:05, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

POV
The goal of this article should be to explain to an unversed reader (such as me) exactly what Demotic Greek is, and perhaps how it relates historically to other forms of Greek. Unfortunately, only the first paragraph is reliably informative. The rest of the article - a list of forms in Modern Greek that did NOT come from Demotic, and an uncited, suspiciously partisan-sounding biography - appears to be written by someone with the agenda of delegitimizing the reforms that led to the adoption of Demotic as the national language. I have applied NPOV and Weasel tags in the hope that someone more informed than I will come along to help fix this article. Angio (talk) 04:40, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't find the weasel words, although I agree that citation is still a problem. Also, this article mostly describes phonology and the I will work on that. There are syntactical issues that aren't covered as fully as they could be. As for the section on the Psycharis reforms, I don't hear the "partisan" tone. It is a fact that the law (Article 2, Subsection 2) says exactly what is quoted in that section by the editor who put it there: http://www.et.gr/idocs-nph/search/pdfViewerForm.html?args=5C7QrtC22wEE8HdDZpIXTHdtvSoClrL8qZcZTSsH80R5MXD0LzQTLWPU9yLzB8V68knBzLCmTXKaO6fpVZ6Lx3UnKl3nP8NxdnJ5r9cmWyJWelDvWS_18kAEhATUkJb0x1LIdQ163nV9K--td6SIueaOB3dwn5DlLtM05wKk00lXiaYh-_UdMb_Akrg5rqok On the other hand, I don't have a source that says this is an oblique reference to Psycharis, and the previous editor did not provide one. I consider it likely that they had him in mind, but we don't know that at this point, and it calls for a citation-needed tag. But is not "deligitimizing reforms" to state the plain text of the law as the reformers themselves wrote it, and if we search the obiter dicta thoroughly enough, we can probably find quotes from the enacting legislators that clarify what they meant. So I am removing the weasel words tag, but adding citation-needed tags where appropriate.--Jpbrenna (talk) 18:51, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Angio. The whole article is partisan and revisionist and intends to prove that the adherents of Katharevousa were not wrong and did not really lose. It does not just state the plain text of the law, it gives an interpretation of it, and I don't see that the interpretation is attributed to a source.--87.126.21.225 (talk) 17:52, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Requested Move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved per discussion. GTBacchus(talk) 00:57, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Dimotiki → — Per WP:EN. Angio (talk) 06:25, 27 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Weak oppose. Google  shows more ghits unrelated to Wikipedia for dimotiki. Unless there's some evidence for the usage of the proposed name, the move should not proceed. Andrewa (talk) 11:03, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment ... yeah, and most of those hits are in Greek. WP:EN provides that English names should be used for foreign words wherever possible, and the English name for Dimotiki is Demotic Greek. For evidence, please see Encyclopedia Britannica et al. Angio (talk) 17:33, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Reply: Not true, but I do apologise for posting the wrong links... try for English language only sites. Britannica does use Demotic Greek as their article name, but that's not relevant evidence at all, as they have completely different article title conventions to Wikipedia. And they give both names. Andrewa (talk) 02:17, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The difference is that the Britaanica used foreign constructs as article titles more often than we do; but here they don't. (They do, of course, mention Français and langue d 'oïl in their article on French; is that a reason for us to use either of them as the title of French language?) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:00, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Support looks like the correct English name; I've never seen "Demotiki" used, except in "Demotic Greek (Dimotiki)". &mdash;innotata 18:00, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Support as English; what next? Attiki? Innotiki's point is one reason why raw google texts should be watched carefully. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:00, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move material to Standard Modern Greek
The differences between Demotic and Standard Modern Greek belong to the latter. This is about the development of a standard language from a vernacular. Andreas (T) 16:03, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Demotic Greek was written from left to right
The anonymous editor also confused Demotic Greek with Demotic (Egyptian), which was indeed written from right to left. Andreas (T) 21:40, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Redoing the wording under Basic Features
The first sentence of this section says "Demotic Greek differs from varieties of Ancient Greek and learned forms inherited from the same in several important ways." Is this correct, since learned forms are usually by definition not inherited (orally transmitted through usage in the population) but intentional loan words taken from texts of more ancient forms of the language, such as for prestige reasons and so on? Word dewd544 (talk) 15:57, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

The word "inherited" was, I think, meant to specify that the learned forms in question were derived from Ancient Greek. This is an unnecessary detail, as there are no learned forms derived from other languages ;-). I removed the offending word. &mdash; Black Walnut talk 22:34, 29 December 2021 (UTC)