Cypriot Greek
The Cypriot dialect of Modern Greek ( Greek κυπριακά , Kypriaka ) is spoken by over half a million people in Cyprus and by more than a hundred thousand emigrants. It is the everyday language of the Greek population of Cyprus, there is no written form. At public events, in school lessons, in the media and in politics as well as in contact with Greek-speaking foreigners, on the other hand, Standard Modern Greek is used.
History and literature
Today's Cypriot idiom is not a further development of the ancient Greek Arcadian-Cypriot dialect, but rather it originated from the Attic-influenced Koine Greek. Due to frequent military attacks by the Arabs , Cyprus was cut off from the rest of the Greek-speaking world from the 7th to the 10th centuries. Then it was reintegrated into the Eastern Roman Empire . But already in 1191 it fell under the rule of the Crusaders , which resulted in renewed isolation. During these phases of linguistic isolation, some characteristics of medieval Greek were retained that have been lost in standard modern Greek.
The legislation of the medieval Kingdom of Cyprus was written in the Cypriot dialect. Other important medieval sources are the chronicles of Leontios Machairas and George Boustronios as well as a sonnet collection in the style of Francesco Petrarch. Several old songs of the Tsiattista poets have come down to us in writing.
The dialect is also used in contemporary poetry. Poets like Vasilis Michaelides and Dimitris Liperti wrote some of their works in the Cypriot dialect.
Recently, some Cypriot hip hop musicians have discovered the dialect for their spoken singing, e.g. B. HCH, Baomenoi Esso, Fuckit & Archangelos, Sofoz MC and DNA.
Linguistic particularities
The pronunciation is characterized by a number of archaisms: In the Cypriot dialect, in contrast to the standard language, double consonants are pronounced differently than single consonants. Double voiceless plosives like (ττ, ππ, κκ) are pronounced aspirated (/ tʰ /, / pʰ /, / kʰ / or / cʰ /), the remaining double consonants are mined (μμ as / mː / etc.). Another characteristic is the pronounced palatalization : modern Greek / c / becomes / dʒ / z. B. και / ce / ('and'), Cypriot τζιαι / dʒe /.
Participles end in -οντα instead of -οντας, as in Modern Greek. The infinitive, which is no longer used in modern Greek, is still used in a nominalized form (το δειν, the gaze '). Archaic vocabulary can be found e.g. B. in Συντυχάννω or λαλώ instead of the standard language μιλώ ('speak') and the pronunciation ένι or εν of the auxiliary verb είναι ('he / she / it is').
Today's Cypriot vocabulary contains loan words from Turkish , Arabic , English , Italian and other languages, but also some words that are only used in Cyprus.
Individual evidence
- ↑ UNESCO World Heritage Site
- ^ Andreas Andreou: Contemporary Grammar of the Greekcypriot Idiom. [1]