The issue of what form the Greek language should take during the years immediately following the establishment of the Greek state is fairly complicated. It originated in a conflict which had already broken out during the pre-revolutionary years. Indeed, in the framework of the modern Greek Enlightenment movement, the debate between those in favour of a return to the ancient dialect of Attica on one hand and, on the other, the creation of a modern Greek common language which would be understandable by popular classes, was very intense and resulted in strong conflicts. Korais's proposal, the so-called 'middle way' between the archaizing language and the colloquial one, was however mainly based on the latter, though in a form free of foreign elements and enriched with scholarly ones.

But the problem that the new state had to face was linguistic homogenization of the country and the population living in it. It was necessary to form a single administrative language to be used by all the representatives of official institutions in the same way throughout the whole country. This evolution was necessary for the single modus operandi of state institutions, education, justice, the army etc. The colloquial language, the language of the people, 'popular Greek', was not a single language. In fact it consisted of many dialects, and this fact constituted a basic argument for the supporters of katharevousa (purist Greek). This fact was vividly presented in Dimitrios Vyzantios's Vavylonia (Babylon). A kind of katharevousa, which came as close as possible to the ancient Greek language, prevailed over the linguistic lack of uniformity and incapability - until that time - of supporters of the colloquial language to form a type of demotic language which would be commonly accepted and understood by all.

This tide was faithfully followed by the intellectuals of the First Athenian School. At the same time, the University of Athens, secondary education and the administrative hierarchy formed social categories which connected katharevousa to their social and educational superiority. Katharevousa, which until then had been a means of political and cultural unification of the state, became an element of social differentiation. It constituted the language of the social and intellectual leadership of the country and became the official written code of communication, but it was still barely understood by the mass of the population. On the other hand, the wider intellectual framework inside and outside the country should not be overlooked. Classical Antiquity, whose heritage was claimed by modern Greeks, constituted one of the most important cultural models of the age. They drew various elements from it and tried to appropriate most of the social and intellectual waves of the Western world. Within such a framework, the selection of the archaizing language was almost self-evident. At the same time, it contributed to the defence of one of the fundamental characteristics of Greek national identity: the descent of modern Greeks from the ancient ones. At a time when Fallmerayer's theories questioned this position, apart from historiographical contributions, the linguistic daily routine of the archaizing language constituted an additional argument.

Of course, the work of Solomos, as well as that of other Heptanesian scholars, apart from their artistic quality, laid the foundations for a common model of demotic language. Based on that, the intellectuals of the generation of 1880 made it possible for the 'kanonas' (rules) of demotic to be drawn up, that is, the organization of those forms of expression which became widely understood and accepted into a single linguistic instrument, regardless of local or social particularities. This was the result of a tedious and complicated procedure which started with the publication of a book entitled To Taxidi Mou (My Journey) (1888) by Giannis Psycharis (1854-1929). He was a linguist who had followed a brilliant career at the University of Paris, and could not tolerate the dominance of a language that the largest part of the population could not understand. At the same time, he considered that the argument claiming that important concepts could not be expressed through the language of the people, was groundless. In his Taxidi he proved that it was possible to write about very important issues in demotic language. What was left to do was to make it into a single language; this attempt would be undertaken by a large group of people who joined the movement for the advocacy of demotic, whose forerunner was Kostis Palamas.