BBC News Online: World: Europe

Campaign to keep Greek pure

A group including professors of philosophy, archaeologists, playwrights and politicians, have circulated a manifesto against "Greeklish" - echoing French fretting over "Franglais".

The manifesto argues that use of computers is responsible for bastardising the language of Aristotle and Homer, resulting in Greeklish, a mix of Greek and English-based computer terms.

The group blames an "unholy plot" by the international computer industry to foist Greeklish on the Greek public.

Polysyllables

However the industry's defenders point out that computers are sold with Greek language software, including Greek versions of the Windows applications.

The Greeks are themselves to blame, they say, if they choose - as many do - to write their e-mails in Latin characters or even truncated English computerese.

Greek computer users say their native language has many polysyllabic words, and it is often easier to communicate online using something approximating to English.

According to media reports, the intellectuals' manifesto claims that the Greeks should not accept the corruption of their script by replacing some elements with foreign characters.

The affair is reminiscent of French concerns about the corruption of their language and the appearance of Franglais - but in France there is a body, the Academie Francaise, which acts as an official protector of the language.

Informality

According to Babis Metaxas, editor of the Greek section of the BBC World Service, the influx of foreign words into Greek usage comes not only from the internet and computing fields, but also from the stock exchange.

"It does not mean that the Greeks forget their language. When they write and want to be formal they probably use Greek, but in everyday speech they would go for these easier foreign sounding words," he says.