In contemporary Greek literature two distinct forms of the modern language present themselves--the vernacular ([Greek: he kathomiloumene]) and the purified ([Greek: he kathareuousa]). The former is the oral language, spoken by the whole Greek world, with local dialectic variations; the latter is based on the Greek of the Hellenistic writers, modified, but not essentially altered, in successive ages by the popular speech. At the time of the War of Independence the enthusiasm of the Greeks and the Philhellenes was fired by the memory of an illustrious past, and at its close a classical reaction followed: the ancient nomenclature was introduced in every department of the new state, towns and districts received their former names, and children were christened after Greek heroes and philosophers instead of the Christian saints. In the literary revival which attended the national movement, two schools of writers made their appearance--the purists, who, rejecting the spoken idiom as degenerate and corrupt, aimed at the restoration of the classical language, and the vulgarists, who regarded the vernacular or "Romaic" as the genuine and legitimate representative of the ancient tongue. A controversy which had existed in former times was thus revived, with the result that a state of confusion still prevails in the national literature. The classical scholar who is as yet unacquainted with modern Greek will find, in the pages of an ordinary periodical or newspaper, specimens of the conventional literary language, which he can read with ease side by side with poems or even prose in the vernacular which he will be altogether unable to interpret. Reforms of Coraes.