Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?

[nwhyte]

...Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks are taught their Greek.
(See here from 2:17 on.)

An entry in which nhw may be Taking It All Too Seriously

Comments

about Greek language forms

[anonymous]

swisstone, there is an anecdote about a classicist who visited Greece, went up the Acropolis and tried to speak in homeric Greek with a local who was selling bottles of water and sodas, only to be met with dismay - shop owners in Athens are more likely to understand English than Homer's Greek. I would guess that any Greek would be able to read the Gospels for the New Testament was written in "koine", the form of Greek spread over the hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman empire, and is the basis for Demotic. But the dialects before that are a different thing. We must also keep in mind that there's been 3000 years since Homer.

There is a conservative movement in Greece, but I wouldn't say the language itself evolves with a conservative pace. Of course the written form does. At least it used to.

The issue of diglossia in Greece is a very difficult one, although practically it's considered resolved today (with Demotic taught in schools for more than 25 years now). I must clarify this: demotic is not necessarily monotonic; up til 1982 it was written with all the (historical) diacritcs [some people still use spirits and perispomeni]. and katharevousa is not necessarily polytonic (althought it tends).

Demotic and katharevousa are not dialects; they are two different aspects/opinions on the official language of the newly founded greek national state in the 19th century. There are of course different dialects which can be quite incomprehensible (cretan, pontiac, cypriot etc).

Also, Greeks until the '70s were only taught to read and write Katharevousa in schools. And it was the official language. But people in everyday life would speak Demotic.

S.B.