Greek language day is on 9 February and chief Greek linguist Georgios Babiniotis, who has nine dictionaries to his name, is concerned about the deluge of English words in the Greek language.

The Greek word ‘pandemic’ shot up by 57,000 per cent last year, write Oxford English Dictionary lexicographers, however Mr Babiniotis is concerned that COVID-19 has opened the floodgates for verbal inclusions, with words like “lockdown”, “delivery”, “click-and-collect” and “curfew” entering the Greek language.

“We have been deluged by new terms and definitions in a very short space of time,” Mr Babiniotis told the Guardian’s Observer.

“Far too many of them are entering spoken and written Greek. On the television you hear phrases such as ‘rapid tests are being conducted via drive-through,’ and almost all the words are English. It’s as if suddenly I’m hearing Creole.”

He fears that the resilience which marked the Greek language’s long history of 40 centuries is now at risk, eroded by the English terms which now dominate people’s daily lives. He states that Greeks have a rich language, for instance lockdown “could be perfectly easily translated”.

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Mr Babionitis told the Observer that he never opposed the evolution of language, nor adding new words which convened technological advances.

“I included them in the Lexicon (a 2,500-page dictionary),” he says. “But where possible, I also insisted that if they could be replaced by Greek words they should. I came up with the word diadiktyo for the internet and am glad to say it has stuck.”

Mr Babiniotis told the Observer that there has to be some “moderation”, and he laments the mentality that has enabled English to flourish in places it shouldn’t be. “Ever more shops are carrying English-language signage as a way, I’m afraid, of having greater sales and outreach. Instead of artopoieio, Greek for bakery, we’re seeing shops calling themselves ‘bread factories’, while barbers are now ‘hairdressers’. Next we’ll have ‘hair stylists!’ It won’t stop.”

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Arguments over the language have been plentiful over time, with the struggle over purist Greek (katharevusa) and whether it should prevail over spoken demotiki raged on until 1976, and – more recently – the emergency of “Greenglish” has sparked alarm.