demotic

[Bailey]

de·mot·ic (d-mtk)
adj.
1. Of or relating to the common people; popular: demotic speech; demotic entertainments.
2. Of, relating to, or written in the simplified form of ancient Egyptian hieratic writing.
3. Demotic Of or relating to a form of modern Greek based on colloquial use.
n.
Demotic Greek.



[Greek dmotikos, from dmots, a commoner, from dmos, people; see d- in Indo-European roots.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

mark not-political-just-a-good-word Bailey

[Perry]

Get the door, it's demotic.

[gailr]

Good word, Bailey. (Here's a couple paragraphs on demotic script from Omniglot.)

The second block of text on the Rosetta Stone is in demotic. It was faster and more abstract than hieroglyphics or hieratic, like a shorthand. Although its name is derived from 'popular', literacy was still restricted to a tiny percentage of the population. The magic inherent in writing―of any style or name―has a residual effect in the continued reverence for scripture.

-gailr

[Slava]

This just came up in a crossword puzzle, and lo, here it is in an ancient suggestion. I'll re-up it, toss it back out there, and see if anyone bites.

Main question, which I didn't find answered on the internot, is, how does it differ, if at all, from vernacular. In the non-specific Capitalized sense, that is.

Demon, mentioned in a post above, would also be a good word. Touched on in other words (cacodemon, pandemonium, etc.), but perhaps worthy of a deeper, more personal, dive?

[bbeeton]

I haven't been able to verify this, but I remember reading, I'm pretty sure in "Gods, Graves and Scholars", that demotic was considered to look like "row upon row of agitated commas". On viewing the Rosetta Stone, I rather agree. At any rate, a memorable description.