ABSTRACT
Modern Greek literature begins is itself a contentious one: for a sample of different answers see Panayotakis. The process of standardization of course depends on there being a standard grammar and historical dictionary: for Modern Greek we still lack the latter. Here the sine qua non of future study of medieval texts will be the completion of the grammar of medieval Greek in preparation in Cambridge. Psichari's novel spelling system is as ostentatiously provocative to the unsuspecting reader as the substance of his arguments is to the linguistic specialist with traditional assumptions about the nature of the Modern Greek language's relation to Ancient Greek. The brief consideration of the writer generally regarded as the greatest modern Greek artist in prose fiction, Alexandros Papadiamantis. Issues about orthographic standardization are not, of course, confined to modern Greek texts, but the history of language standards in Greek, a history inseparable from the history of literature, makes them particularly vexed.
