Living in Paris and affected by the French Enlightenment Korais believed in the promotion and development of spoken national languages. Therefore he was against those scholars of the nation that supported the return to ancient Greek or the establishment of the archaic language in writing. He considered language as “one of the most inalienable possessions of the nation [...] in which all members of the nation participate with equal rights”, and believed in the need to adopt a language tool that is understood by the people. However, knowing the language condition prevailing in Greece, where due to the long-term slavery and the lack of education language had suffered significant changes, he wanted to propose to correct it based on the principles governing ancient Greek.

This correction took for granted that the spoken language was in a condition of suffering and needed treatment. This treatment involved in one hand eliminating foreign words and the linguistic excesses of the vernacular, and on the other hand to adapt the words of demotic to the form of ancient Greek or to adopt ancient words, where the spoken language was deficient. He believed that educated Greeks, not the people, should perform this correction. […]

Korais approached the language question mainly from the point of view of classical philologist and classical education. In approaching language, like Doucas, he uses evaluative terms, such as “barbaric”, “vulgar”, “language of the educated” etc, and despite the fact that he seems to accept one of the most foundamental principles of the Greek Enlightenment regarding the evolution of languages, in practice he attempts to regulate language prescriptively. Thus, in accordance with what Korais proposes language ends up in several cases monstrous, since the hybrid forms adopted are arbitrary and beyond the conventions of either ancient Greek or demotic”. (p.  283-284)