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Anyone else enjoy Καθαρεύουσα literature? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Γρηγόρη Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 4255 days ago 55 posts - 154 votes  Speaks: English*, Greek, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: German, French, Russian | Message 1 of 13 03 June 2013 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I know that most Greeks hate καθαρεύουσα, but I have perverse love of reading literature written in it. I read
novels in Standard Demotic as well, but there's plenty of fun stuff, often in the public domain and available on- line, that's written in καθαρεύουσα. Some of the things that I have enjoyed reading: Short stories by Papadiamantis, Vizyinos, Vikelas, and others. Βικέλα Δημητρίου, Λουκῆς Λάρας Χανς Κρίστιαν Ἀνδερσεν (μεταφρ. τοῦ Δ. Βικέλα), Παραμύθια Δανικά Ἰουλίου Βέρν, Περιοδεία τῆς γῆς εἰς ὀγδοήκοντα ἡμέρας Ροΐδου Ἐμμανουήλ, Πάπισσα Ἰωάννα Anyone have any other favorites? Edited by Γρηγόρη on 03 June 2013 at 6:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4158 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 13 04 June 2013 at 6:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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Papadiamandis, Kalvos, and some of the others you mentioned.
I don't think people hate katharevousa exactly. It's just that it's linked with past eras, ideological wars and bad school teaching. Not to mention some really horrible texts written in it. One of the most shocking things in my life was to see Papadiamandis "translated" in the demotic. I still can't get over that one! Does Estia still come in katharevousa? When I was taking the panellinies exams it was, and we were supposed to read it in order to become more familiar with those types of the language. Personally I think that if it comes as a natural expression it's good, if it tries to imitate the ancient style, it becomes complicated, unnatural, forced and ugly. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5399 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 3 of 13 04 June 2013 at 8:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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How big is the gap between katharevousa and ancient (koine) Greek? It is mainly new words or is the Grammar too changed to understand its texts from an ancient point of view of the language?
Where do you find this kind of texts
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| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4158 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 4 of 13 04 June 2013 at 8:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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double post... Edited by renaissancemedi on 04 June 2013 at 8:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4158 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 5 of 13 04 June 2013 at 8:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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Katharevousa is called that, because its purpose was to clense the language from foreigh elements. So, it turned back to the ancient texts for words and styles. Some gifted writers did well, some others not so well... As for the gap: In my view the texts are uneven in how close they get to the ancient language. Some of them were even trying to imitate Thucidides, a model of beauty and clarity. They produced monsters, again in my opinion. The ones who actually wrote out of love for the language, not checking every other word in an ancient grammar or a syntax manual, produced good texts. It's so difficult to seperate in your head the ancient,kathareviusa and demotic elements, mainly because everything coexists somehow in this modern language. I may be biased, but I think today is the richest version of our language, because we can draw from such a wonderful and diverse past. So, learn as much as possible but if you can't separate exactly the eras don't feel it's your fault, because many many times, it just isn't possible.
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| Lykeio Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4044 days ago 120 posts - 357 votes | Message 6 of 13 04 June 2013 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well I dislike Katharevousa for a) for political reasons in that it completely clashes
with my views on perscriptivism vs descriptivism in language, as well as the vast ideological baggage it comes with and b) from a linguistic point of view. Not only is it a poor approximation, and some of its ancient sounding neologisms horrible from an ancient pov, but it killed off some genuine natural ancient words which had just evolved naturally. BUT outside of academic and intellectual writings, I actually enjoy some elements of the full on literary tradition. I'm not talking about the guy who tried to write in Anc Greek χωρίς απαρέμφατο but you know. Brief favourites being: Emmanuel Rhoidis (who also, IIRC, wrote a defence of demotic...in puristic)and Alexandros Papadiamantis was great, a fantastic psychological profiler, both probably top for me. Also it worked great for translations of certain works, so there is that. So, yes, divorced of its idealism its actually kind of cool. ESPECIALLY when authors play with register and have lower class people talk in almost village like dimotic. Reminiscent of those old Sanskrit plays. I do think though generally (modern) Greek prose has came a long way since though. But once you get over the knee jerk reaction its nice to read now and then. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4158 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 7 of 13 04 June 2013 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
Who tried that? It sounds like a joke! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lykeio Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4044 days ago 120 posts - 357 votes | Message 8 of 13 04 June 2013 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
I know right? I can't remember...which is frustrating me, I came across this a while back in an article and actually read some, it was...bizarre. It certainly was not Rangavis, who for some reason is in my head. Did he try to re-introduce the infinitive in his plays? Something around that. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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