>
>And, in any case, katharevousa was not Ancient Greek but was an artificial
>product created in the second quarter of the 19th century by progressively
>'purifying' (hence the name) the demotic by introducing elements from the
>Atticizing Koine of Byzantine culture which had been maintained by the
>Church. Katharevousa was a macaronic language, incongrously mingling old &
>new, with quite a few false archaisms, hypercorrections & mere blunders.
All true, but this list is the *last* place I expected to hear complaints
about language artficiality!
>One can hardly mourn its demise.
Yet I have met Greeks who do. ~alypius