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Demotic Greek (, , , ) is the standard spoken language of Greece in modern times and, since the resolution of the Greek language question in 1976, the official language of Greece. "Demotic Greek" (with a capital D) contrasts with the conservative Katharevousa, which was used in formal settings, during the same period. In that context, Demotic Greek describes the specific non-standardized vernacular forms of Greek used by the vast majority of Greeks during the 19th and 20th centuries.
As is typical of Diglossia situations, Katharevousa and Demotic complemented and influenced each other. Over time, Demotic became standardized. In 1976, it was made the official language of Greece. It continued to evolve and is now called Standard Modern Greek. The term "demotic Greek" (with a minuscule d) also refers to any variety of the Greek language which has evolved naturally from Ancient Greek and is popularly spoken.
Greek noun declensions underwent considerable alteration, with irregular and less productive forms being gradually regularized (e.g. ancient ἀνήρ being replaced by άντρας ( man)). Another feature is the merging of classical accusative and nominative forms: They are only distinguished in Demotic by their definite articles, which continued to be declined as in Ancient Greek. This was especially common with nouns of the third declension, such as ( hometown, fatherland) which became nominative η πατρίδα, accusative την πατρίδα in Demotic.
A result of this regularization of noun forms in Demotic is that most native words end in a vowel, s (sigma]]), or n (ν). Thus, the set of possible word-final sounds is even more restricted than in Ancient Greek. Exceptions are foreign loans like μπαρ ( bar), learned forms ύδωρ (from Ancient Greek , water), and Interjection like ( ach!, oh!). Many dialects even append the vowel - e (ε) to third-person verb forms: instead of ( they write). Word-final consonant clusters are also rare, again mainly occurring in learned discourse and via foreign loans: ( coal – scientific) and ( boxing – sport). (1997). 041510002X, Routledge. 041510002X
The indirect object is usually expressed by prepending the word σε to the accusative case or Genitive case (especially with regard to means or instrument). Bare σε is used without the article to express an indefinite duration of time, or contracted with the definite article for definiteness (especially with regard to place where or motion toward). By contrast, Katharevousa continued to employ the older εἰς in place of σε.
The verb system inherited from Ancient Greek gradually evolved. The perfect, pluperfect, future perfect, and past conditional tenses were gradually replaced with conjugated forms of the verb έχω ( I have). The future tense and the subjunctive and optative moods, and eventually the infinitive, were replaced by the modal/tense auxiliaries θα and να used with either the simplified or fused future/subjunctive forms. In contrast to this, Katharevousa employed older perfective forms and infinitives that had been mostly lost in the spoken language. However, Katharevousa did sometimes employ the same aorist or perfective forms as the spoken language, but preferred an archaizing form of the present indicative, e.g. for Demotic ( I hide), which both have the same aorist form έκρυψα.
Demotic Greek also borrowed a significant number of words from other languages, including Italian and Turkish, something which Katharevousa avoided.
Furthermore, in a broader sense, the Greek term italic=yes (Dimotikí) can also describe any naturally evolved colloquial language of the Greeks, not just that of the period of diglossia.
Native Greek speakers, depending upon their level of education, may often make mistakes in these "educated" aspects of their language; one can often see mistakes like προήχθη instead of προήχθην ( I've been promoted), λόγου του ότι/λόγο το ότι instead of λόγω του ότι ( ), τον ενδιαφέρον άνθρωπο instead of τον ενδιαφέροντα άνθρωπο ( the interesting person), οι ενδιαφέροντες γυναίκες instead of οι ενδιαφέρουσες γυναίκες ( the interesting women), ο ψήφος instead of η ψήφος ( the vote).
For instance, Psycharis proposed changing the form of the neuter noun "light" το φως (gen. του φωτός) into το φώτο (gen. του φώτου). Such radical forms had occasional precedent in Renaissance attempts to write in Demotic, and reflected Psycharis' linguistic training as a Neogrammarian, mistrusting the possibility of exceptions in linguistic evolution. Moreover, Psycharis also advocated spelling reform, which would have meant abolishing most of the six different ways to write the vowel /i/ and all instances of double consonants. Therefore, he wrote his own name as Γιάνης, instead of Γιάννης.
As written and spoken Demotic became standardized over the next few decades, many compromises were made with Katharevousa (as is reflected in contemporary standard Greek) despite the loud objections of Psycharis and the radical "psycharist" (ψυχαρικοί) camp within the proponents of Demotic's use. Eventually these ideas of radical demoticism were largely marginalized and when a standardized Demotic was made the official language of the Greek state in 1976, the legislation stated that it would be used "without dialectal and extremist forms"—an explicit rejection of Psycharis' ideals.
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