Home life in Hellas, Greece and the Greeks - eBooks4Greeks.gr

288 HOME LIFE IN HELLASin its seventeenth year, a well-printed eight-pagedaily. Judging from its advertisement columns,its coffers are fuller than those of its contemporariesin the mother country. There are manyAthenian weeklies, fortnightlies, and monthlieschildren's papers, women's papers written bywomen, and family journals—most of them illustrated.The learned professions have also theirorgans, and there are others devoted to particularinterests. Romeos, the Athenian Punch, is ahousehold word in Greece. The letterpress isthe work of one man, Mr. Souris, who for morethan a quarter of a century has laughed goodnaturedlyin verse week by week. Romeos is atour de force, but the modern Aristophanes hasfound time for other work, of which PhasoulisPhilosopher, is the most notable.One fears to touch on the great language controversywhich divides Greek men of letters intotwo camps, the advocates of the Katharevoussa,or "purified" tongue, and the vulgarists, knownas Malliaroi, the long-haired. The latter maintainthat the so-called " restored " language is a purelyartificial concoction, an incongruous mixture, notpartaking of the antique spirit, but of Orientalpedantry. Those who use it think they are revertingto Xenophon, but in doing so they showthat they have not escaped yet from the influenceof the Turk. A true imitation of the ancientswould be to produce modern things as they did.Popular Greek is a development along the linesfollowed by the Romance tongues from Latin.