Christos Klairis, Professor Emeritus of General Linguistics at the Sorbonne, stressed that “language is power and identity,” underlining that Greece and the Greek language go hand in hand. He spoke about the significance of establishing 9 February as World Greek Language Day, during his appearance on Voice of Greece radio and the program “Our Global Voice”, presented by Dimitris Kontogiannis.
Mr. Klairis—born in Constantinople, a graduate of the Great School of the Nation, and Vice President of the International Society of Functional Linguistics—referred to the history of the Greek language and expressed particular satisfaction with the global recognition of its value by UNESCO, despite the fact that it is spoken by only around 15 million people worldwide.
Mr. Klairis, who—together with Professor Giorgos Babiniotis—drafted the arguments used by Greece’s Permanent Delegation to UNESCO, specifically by Ambassador Yiorgos Koumoutsakos, to persuade other countries, also spoke of the “dictatorship of the English language” and the threat it poses to other languages, such as Greek. He further addressed the impact that artificial intelligence (AI) will have on “small languages” like Greek, noting that it threatens all languages with exclusion from certain domains.
PHOTO: Kalamata Journal