ABSTRACT

During the Greek Enlightenment the period of roughly fifty years leading up to the Greek War of Independence, the language issue figures more prominently - but in its new ramifications must be understood against the background of the earlier history of the language as a whole. As early as the sixteenth century, Nikolaos Sofianos had already compiled the first grammar of Modern Greek. During the period of Ottoman rule, two traditions of written language started to take shape, differentiated by different degrees of archaism. There was a less archaizing form employed mainly by ecclesiastical authors and best represented by Agapios Landos, Frangiskos Skoufos and Elias Meniatis. On the other hand, Alexandros Elladios and Evgenios Voulgaris, among others, employed a more archaizing language. In 1982, a more radical government instituted accentual reform, which had exercised many scholars in the past. It is a widely-held belief, however, that the orthographic problem awaits its resolution.