Correspondents' Correspondence

...The process started with discussions at the Institute of Kconomics...

...The conservatives also agree the changed got out of hand...

...The reaction to an amnesty plan Husak proposed at the congress underlined the nature of the split...

...And the ruling Presidium is indeed largely unchanged, except for the vacancy created by dropping 80-year-old former President Ludvik Svoboda...

...Cypriot Greek has borrowed many Italian words...

...I was having trouble enough with Greek verbs, then I learned that most of the words I found in the dictionary are not spoken (there are no Demotic dictionaries), and if I said "because" a certain way I would immediately be branded a monarchist...

...and explicit Soviet support-but his lead is far from secure...

...Nobody in the party hierarchy wants to repeat those experiences...

...echoed throughout the theater...

...The dispute has practically crippled the Party...

...The Socialists used the traditional "elevtheria" for "freedom," but the signs of one Communist faction read "levteria" while another wing of the party demanded "lefteria...

...Most renowned is the classic language of Homer, Plato and the playwrights...

...This would have readmitted many of the 390,000 persons crossed off Communist membership lists for backing Dubcek-if they now supported Party policy and had not been liberal leaders...

...The crux of the debate is the fate of the managers and technocrats who supported reforms and pushed for decentralization of the economy...

...A number of international developments, such as the rising costs of raw materials, have burdened the economy...

...This confuses most citizens and makes conversation maddeningly difficult for foreigners...

...Correspondents, correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS Prague Stalemate Prague-"As you see, there were no surprises," Czechoslovak Communist chief Gustav Husak remarked when he announced his reelection last month at the Party congress...

...With the return of democracy the pendulum has swung again: At present almost everything is in Demotic...

...and snowballed into the calamity of the Prague Spring...

...There were efforts to teach it in the schools, and some newspapers started to publish in the language...

...It remains primarily a spoken language, however, so it continues to evolve daily...

...The Genera] Secretary's words were intended to acknowledge that the immobilisme will probably drag on for years...

...The advice may be right, especially since the alternatives seem less promising...

...In the early 1960s, when George Papandreou's liberal Center Union party took control of the government, a move to reform Demotic Greek began...

...One often hears Leftist students correcting themselves to make their Greek more folk-like...

...But this would bring the Party back to the situation of 1962, when a period of stagnation forced it to give the experts a freer hand...

...As before, Husak and his conservative followers retained the leadership, while their hardline opponents remained powerful...

...including the line, "Norwegians learn Norwegian, the Greeks are taught their Greek,' the audience burst out laughing...

...natives of the remote Pontus region on the Black Sea speak something closely allied to ancient Greek...

...The result has been a "social contract" that leaves politics to the Party and personal affairs to the people...

...Tom Heneghan It's All Greek Athens-Amid all the turmoil in the Mediterranean this year, one ripple of reform by Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis' government has gone largely unnoticed outside this country-the program to establish a common national tongue...

...Neither group can effectively implement its policies...

...They have been straining against each other for years now, and there are no signs this self-defeating struggle will soon end...

...You don't change horses in midstream," Husak told the congress, explaining why it should follow his guidance...

...The various dialects of the contemporary vernacular reflect additional factors...

...Then the military dictatorship came to power, declared Katharevusa the "language of Christian Greece" and insisted it be used in classrooms, newspapers and on television...

...The hardliners, led by Presidium member Vasil Bilak, insist the liberals are "right-wing opportunists" who should be tried for treason...

...not political considerations...

...So, although few Demotic textbooks exist, no one is rushing to print more: After all, government policy could change before the ink had a chance to dry...

...Compounding these problems are lingering domestic difficulties: worker apathy, decreasing export competitiveness, an aging industrial base...

...Recently, I took my children to see My Fair Lady here...

...Yet consider the poor students of high-school age who started their education using Demotic, were switched to Katharevusa, are back to Demotic, and will again confront Katharevusa if they go on to the university, where it still reigns...

...were demoted or fired, and their ideas came under heavy attack...

...and Greek-Americans have developed Hellenized English terms...

...Though both Czech factions are staunchly pro-Moscow, the moderate-conservative group favors quietly pardoning all but the more prominent of "those who erred in 1968...

...Lest the issue finally seem on its way to slow resolution, some members of the government, including President Constantine Tsatsos, want ancient Greek restored to the regular curriculum...

...No one knows for sure how it was pronounced, except that, as with Old English, it was far different from what one hears today, Modern spoken Greek, called Demotic (or People's), has evolved over the centuries from its ancient predecessor with large dollops of Turkish, Slavic and other languages of conquering or coexisting groups thrown in...

...Nevertheless, the former managers have been missed and their absence may soon become even more noticeable...

...When Henry Higgins sang "Why Can't the English Teach Their Children How to Speak...

...It is difficult to see how any constructive policy can emerge from this impasse...

...When Greece won independence there was no official language, since Demotic had never been written down or provided with a regular grammatic structure during Ottoman rule...

...No one speaks Katharevusa, but because it has been taught in the schools, it has served to separate the educated from the uneducated, the rich from the poor...

...Cokie Roberts...

...The hardliners, remembering how their power was threatened, reject any notion of economic reform...

...Try giving a cab driver directions in Katharevusa with an American accent???it's Greek to him...

...Many versions of the same word exist, and pronunciation indicates a speaker's political stance...

...For, indeed, there are many kinds of Greek...

...Thus Husak has generally averted political trials and the hardliners have managed to limit attempts at limited reconciliation...

...In contrast, Presidium member Josef Kempny drew a wave of applause with his declaration that the appeals of those excluded from the Party had already been given adequate consideration...

...Despite this upheaval, the economy has not done badly in the past few years...

...Over the years, Husak has won a slight advantage in the contest...

...Scholars and clergymen, considering it too tinged by foreign elements, meanwhile created a synthetic language called Katharevusa, or clean, based on a complicated French grammar...

...During the "normalization' phase following the invasion, these specialists???0 per cent of the country's managers...

...Yet that hardly alters the fact that there are two horses trying to take the Party across the water, and they cannot agree on the best course...

...But occasional voices support carefully controlled reform...

...When Husak presented his program, few of the 1,200 delegates clapped...

...Disputes over it have been bitter, often erupting in street demonstrations and riots...

...The solution would appear to be modernization based on economic...

...The hardliners opppose Husak's plan, although they have none themselves...

...The language problem has traditionally bedeviled most Greeks...

...With Karamanlis' announcement that Demotic will now be the sole language of the schools throughout the secondary level, some of these problems could in time be solved...

...For instance, at a demonstration commemorating the anniversary of the incidents at the Polytechnic University, students carried banners calling for "bread, work and freedom...

...One friend who worked in television at the time wrote her script in Demotic Greek and had it translated into Katharevusa before going on the air...

...Growth has been steady and the standard of living is high...

...Husak seems to feel the politically reliable managers among hose expelled from the Party would be most capable of directing the improvements necessary to avoid popular discontent...

...Since the purging of Alexander Dubcek's liberal supporters from the Party following the Soviet invasion of 1968, these two factions have been locked in a stalemate, especially over how to deal with the unsuccessful reformers...

...One side's "victory" usually consists of blocking an offensive by the other...

...Convinced of the futility of political actions, most Czechoslovaks have concerned themselves with material rewards...

...A chorus of "What Greek...

...This has also made it a political issue, with the Socialists and Communists calling for its elimination and the elite urging its preservation...

...They were replaced by Party functionaries whose economic knowledge might have been faulty but whose political views were Hawless...