Greece without the Greek alphabet

Heaven forbid!

"When Greece Was About to Swap the Greek Alphabet for Latin", Philip Chrysopoulos, Greek Reporter (1/17/05)

It seems unthinkable.

In the mid 1970s when Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis proposed changing the Greek alphabet to Latin and making the Greek language phonetic, the minister of culture and a Parliament member threatened to resign.

I don't know why anyone would say the Greek alphabet is not phonetic.  In general, its letters correspond to consistent sounds, making pronunciation of its words relatively predictable.  Both in Ancient Greek and in Modern Greek, most letters of the alphabet have a stable symbol-to-sound relationship.

The unusual idea of the conservative PM came as a shock to those who learned of his proposal. It was quite unexpected coming from him.

Konstantinos Karamanlis returned triumphantly to Greece on July 24, 1974 following the fall of the seven-year military dictatorship. Upon becoming Greece’s PM, his vision was to introduce crucial reforms to make Greece a true, modern European country. The same day, he was sworn in as Prime Minister of Greece and the most suitable person to unite Greece after a tumultuous seven-year period.

The former Greek Prime Minister was on self-exile in Paris after the April 21, 1967 military coup of Georgios Papadopoulos. While in France, he formed a friendship with French Minister of Finance Valerie Giscard D’Estaing.

…

Towards the end of the 1970s, the Greek politician flirted with the idea of furthering Greece’s progress and European identity by introducing the Latin alphabet to the Greek language and making the writing phonetic.

Again, here comes the idea that the Greek alphabet is not phonetic.

On July 25, 1999, in an article by renowned journalist and newspaper editor of To Vima, Stavros Psycharis reported that the Greek Prime Minister had proposed the establishment of the Latin alphabet and phonetic writing. He described the proposal as a “crisis.”

Psycharis recounted a meeting in which Karamanlis met with Culture Minister Konstantinos Tsatsos and prominent educator and MP Evangelos Papanoutsos to discuss education issues:

“The first time the crisis broke out was in a meeting between Karamanlis and Konstantinos Tsatsos, before becoming President of the Republic, when he was minister of culture, and the late Evangelos Papanoutsos. The prime minister had invited them to his office to discuss Education issues. At one point Karamanlis told them that they should consider the possibility of combining the Greek alphabet with the Latin one, even considering the issue of phonetic writing.”

“Karamanlis’ interlocutors jumped up like springs. ‘I couldn’t believe my ears!’ Konstantinos Tsatsos would say several years later. In any case, the two interlocutors of the then prime minister declared that they would resign, and Karamanlis withdrew the proposal.”

The reason that Karamanlis shocked the two politicians was that he was not known for his involvement in language issues, and such an initiative surprised his party colleagues.

The unexpected proposal to radically change the writing of a language with a tradition of thousands of years of uninterrupted continuity, in which great works were written, would result in damaging Greece’s identity and legacy.

It was no surprise that the issue was not discussed further. Rather, it became an anecdote that very few would even consider repeating.

….

China without Chinese characters.

Unthinkable, except for men like Lu Xun (1881-1936) and Qian Xuantong (1887-1939).

 

Selected readings

• "Chinese characters written in Greek letters" (7/12/20)
• "Transletteration" (8/11/09)
• "'The world's oldest in-use writing system'?" (5/12/12)

[Thanks to Arthur Waldron]