World Greek Language Day is observed each February 9 to commemorate the passing of Dionysios Solomos, the national poet of modern Greece, in 1857. Unique in its content and expression, the Greek language serves as the vehicle of Hellenikē Paideia (Greek Education), which consciously aims to cultivate the ideal of a higher type of man (mankind).
One of the Greeks’ most remarkable contributions to civilization is their elevation of antrhōpos (ἄνθρωπος), man as mankind, at the core of their value system by creating an anthropocentric civilization. In ancient Greek literature, we read, “For all things, the measure is antrhōpos (man). In other words, antrhōpos assigns value to everything, serving as the standard by which all things related to humanity are measured and evaluated. Does modernity prioritize the antrhōpos as the highest principle in its contemporary value hierarchy, guiding decision-making accordingly?”
The Greeks established an anthropocentric political society that gave birth to democracy as an expression of freedom. Democracy, demokratia (δημοκρατία), in its original and authentic sense, represents a self-governing and autonomous citizenry. This constitution of a self-governed citizenry existed exclusively in the Greek world and had not been replicated elsewhere in its Greek form. This extraordinary achievement of demokratia is described in the Greek language with unique terms that embody its unique qualities. The Greek language offers terms related to democracy with no direct equivalents in other languages and can only be conveyed through descriptive expressions.
The body of the citizens in ancient Greek democracy, the demos (δῆμος), proclaims it is sovereign. Every citizen is autonomous, autonomos (αὐτόνομος) in living under one’s law, self-legating, with independent jurisdiction, autodikos (αὐτόδικος), with one’s own courts, autotelēs (αὐτοτελής) self-gaining, self-governing, ending in himself. These Greek words affirm the self-position and self-definition of the political body in the Athenian democracy.
The Greek democracy was founded on three pillars expressed by unique words. The first pillar is isopoliteia (ἱσοπολιτεία), which means the entire citizenry is equitable. In other words, the citizenry partakes in self-governance regardless of where the citizen is stationed in societal status or wealth, and the vote of every single citizen carries the same weight, isopsēphia (ἱσοψηφία). Moreover, the vote, psēphos (ψῆφος), has a different weight from what modernity understands as a vote: The Greek word means that every citizen enjoys the decision-making vote about any law, decree or jurisdiction. It is not a vote for representatives. The citizens vote equally and directly about all matters, being the citizens instituted as the sovereign governing body of the city-state, the polis. The same happens with the administration of justice in the courts. There are no professional judges. Virtually all courts are juries, with all jurors being citizens chosen by lot with equal vote.
The second pillar is isonomia (ἱσονομία). The term represents the equality of the citizenry concerning the law, which is much more than an equal passive right. On the contrary, isonomia expresses freedom as active general participation in public affairs and the administration of justice. This participation is actively promoted through formal rules and the general ethos, the ethical formation of the polis. According to Athenian law, a citizen who does not take a side while the city is in civil strife becomes atimos (ἄτιμος), which means deprived of his political rights.
The third pillar is isēgoria (ἱσηγορία). All citizens have the right to speak, and they address their opinions as equals. Speaking in the public sphere is a moral obligation, and the citizens are expected to speak their minds with parrēsia (παρρησία). Parrēsia is a compound word of πᾶς (everyone) and ῥῆσις (saying), and it encapsulates all three: outspokenness, frankness, and freedom of speech.
These unique terms describe the unparalleled historical paradigm of democracy in the Greek world. Its political culture is captured in the middle reflexive verb, dēmeuomai (δημεύομαι). This one word describes the entire constitution of Athenian democracy: It means power is in the hands of the people in the sense that the citizenry rules the state and is ruled by the state. We read in Euripides: To kratos dedēmeutai. Which modern state can claim that dedēmeutai today and give similar meaning to all those above unique Greek terms, vehicles of concepts about political freedom and autonomy?
The Greeks fostered the development of a type of citizen, who is hypsipolis (ὑψίπολις), high for his city-state, inspiring the community to establish a universal standard for civic life. The hypsipolis is a virtuous political individual who partakes in the city-state’s governance, shaping the polis and being shaped by it. Notably, this emerging sense of individuality differed significantly from the modern experience of self, which often centers on an individual wrapped up in himself. The political culture of the Greeks consists of a political individuality that expresses ideas and emotions that are truly personal, yet universal standards still bind the individual who recognizes only the authority of the democratic law that rules his fellow citizens and the life of the polis. Unlike Western individualism, the expression of personal emotions and thoughts in Greek civilization was not purely subjective. Instead, the Greeks embody the entirety of the objective world and its laws within their personality, reflecting and representing them in themselves.
To conclude, the Greek language reflects the democratic ideal of the Greeks, who take freedom and consciousness of selfhood not by abandoning themselves to subjective thought and feeling but by making themselves an objective entity of value for the entire political community in the democratic polis. What is the equivalent ideal of modernity? As shown, this question finds its answers in no language other than Greek, making the Greek language modern as a vehicle of advanced ideals and a project of autonomy for modernity.
Dr Polyvia Parara is a senior lecturer in the Department of Classics at the University of Maryland.
