Psycharis was born on 15 May 1854 in Odessa (in modern-day Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire),[1] in a merchant family of Chiot descent.

Because of his stance, in favour of Demotiki, he was heavily criticized by both the conservative political and educational establishment in Greece (most notably professor Georgios Hatzidakis), and he was often under attack by various newspapers.

The vernacular is of low prestige and is discouraged or totally forbidden for written use and formal spoken use, while the obsolete dialect is of high prestige and is used for most written communication and for formal speeches by institutions of authority such as government and religious institutions.

Psycharis also proposed an innovative orthography for Greek that never really caught on, despite being the focus of several serious attempts at implementation continuing into the late 20th century.

[1] They had four children, among which Ernest Psichari, Henriette Revault d'Allonnes [fr] and Corrie Siohan [fr], raised in the Scheffer-Renan Hôtel, the current Musée de la Vie romantique in the heart of the Nouvelle Athènes neighbourhood, in Paris.