Can Parent and Daughter co-exist?

[Eduard Selleslagh]

-----Original Message-----
From: petegray <petegray at btinternet.com>
Date: Friday, September 24, 1999 10:26 AM

>> Katharevousa ... has always been a written language. (and other posts)

>My point - to remind those of you kind enough to respond - was that we could
>not realistically  call it anything but Greek.   So the "aunt"  (the
>artificial archaising construct) exists alongside the daughter (Demotike).

>Peter

[Ed Selleslagh]

Dhimotikí is by no means the daughter of Katharevousa. As Nikos Sarandakos
(and I, in a limited version) explained, K. played a serious role in
(re-)shaping present-day D., but that's a totally different matter. D. is the
daughter of Byzantine Greek (which already had most of the modern
pronunciation, like e.g. beta > vita, -a feature transferred into the Cyrillic
alphabet- and a futurum with an auxiliary 'thelo' ('will'), later 'tha'), and
the grand-....-granddaughter of classic kiní (koinè).

All you could say is that K. has been the rather influential tutor of D.

[Ed]

[ Moderator's comment:
  I believe that that is what Mr. Gray meant by referring to Katharevousa as
  the "aunt" of Dhemotiki.
  I think we should consider this sub-topic closed.
  --rma ]