Cypriot Turkish

Cypriot Turkish (Kıbrıs Türkçesi) is a dialect of the Turkish language spoken by Turkish Cypriots both in Cyprus and among its diaspora.

Cypriot Turkish
Kıbrıs Türkçesi
Kıbrısça
Native toNorthern Cyprus, Cyprus
RegionCyprus and Turkish Cypriot diaspora
EthnicityTurkish Cypriots
Turkic
no formal writing (Cypriot people write in Istanbul Turkish)
Official status
Regulated byunregulated (Istanbul Turkish is used in education, broadcast and legal matters)
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
Glottologcypr1251[1]

History

Emanating from Anatolia and evolved for four centuries, Cypriot Turkish is the vernacular spoken by Cypriots with Ottoman ancestry, as well as by Cypriots who converted to Islam during Ottoman rule.[2] It is understood by expatriate Cypriots living in the UK, United States, Australia and other parts of the world.

Cypriot Turkish consists of a blend of Ottoman Turkish and the Yörük dialect that is spoken in the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey. In addition, it has absorbed influences from Greek, Italian and English. Cypriot Turkish is mutually intelligible with Standard Turkish.

Since the 1974 division of Cyprus, Turkish is found almost exclusively in Northern Cyprus, with approximately 300,000 native Turkish speakers (including all dialects of Turkish) as of 2016 and 1,400 speakers in the south as of 2013.[3] Of these, a significant number are immigrants from Turkey who do not speak the Cypriot variety of Turkish. Cypriot Turkish is not used officially in the north, where modern standard Turkish became the de facto official language of schools, government, and the media.[4]

Sounds

Differences between standard Turkish and Cypriot Turkish

Cypriot Turkish is distinguished by a number of sound alternations not found in standard Turkish, but some of which are also quite common in other Turkish vernaculars:

  • Voicing of some unvoiced stops
    • t↔d, k↔g
Standard Turkish taş ↔ Cypriot Turkish daş "stone"
Standard Turkish kurt ↔ Cypriot Turkish gurt "wolf"
Standard Turkish Kıbrıs ↔ Cypriot Turkish Gıprıs "Cyprus"
  • Preservation of earlier Turkic *ŋ
Standard Turkish son ↔ Cypriot Turkish soŋ "end, last"
Standard Turkish bin ↔ Cypriot Turkish biŋ "thousand"
  • Changing 1st person plural suffix
    • z↔k
Standard Turkish isteriz ↔ Cypriot Turkish isterik "we want"
  • Unvoicing of some voiced stops
    • b↔p
Standard Turkish: Arabaya binmek ↔ Cypriot Turkish: Arabaya pinmek "Get in the car"
Standard Turkish hiç ↔ Cypriot Turkish hiş "no, none"

The last two alternations are more specific to Cypriot Turkish and are seen less often in other Turkish vernaculars.

Consonants
Consonant phonemes
  Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive pb t̪d̪ cɟ kɡ   
Affricate       tʃdʒ      
Fricative fv s̟z̟ ʃʒ  ɣ h 
Nasal m n    ŋ   
Flap/Tap    ɾ         
Lateral    lɫ         
Semivowel      j      

Vowels
frontback
unroundedroundedunroundedrounded
high i (i)y (ü)ɯ (ı)u (u)
mid/low ɛ (e)ø (ö)ɑ (a)o (o)

Grammar

Cypriot Turkish is structured as a VO language as opposed to standard Turkish which is an OV language. It is very typical in forming a question.

  • Standard Turkish Okula gidecek misin? is, in Cypriot Turkish, Gideceŋ okula? ("Will you go to school?")

Cypriot Turkish uses the aorist tense instead of the present continuous tense, and very often in place of the future tense as well.

  • Standard Turkish Okula gidiyorum or Okula gideceğim ("I am going to school") are, in Cypriot Turkish, Giderim okula ("I go to school" / "I am going to school" / "I will go to school")

Cypriot Turkish does not use the narrative/indefinite past, and only uses the simple past instead.

  • Standard Turkish Eve gitmiş ("He is reported to have gone home") is, in Cypriot Turkish, not used. Instead Eve gitti or Gitti eve ("He went home") suffices.

Cypriot Turkish also lacks the question suffix of mi.[5] This is similar to colloquial Azerbaijani.

  • Standard Turkish Annen evde midir? ("Is your mother at home?") is, in Cypriot Turkish, Anneŋ evdedir?

In Cypriot Turkish, the reflexive pronoun in third person is different, namely geŋni ("him, himself, them, themself"). In Standard Turkish, this would be kendisini.

Semantics

Typical question usually do not qualify as standard Turkish questions (see the example above) because question suffixes are usually dropped by native Turkish Cypriots. Another subtle difference is the emphasis on verbs.

See also

References
  1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Cypriot Turkish". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. Jennings, Ronald (1993), Christians and Muslims in Ottoman Cyprus and the Mediterranean World, 1571-1640, New York University Press ISBN 0-814-74181-9.
  3. "Turkish". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 6 June 2019. Retrieved 2019-11-03.
  4. Evripidou, Dimitris; Çavuşoǧlu, Çişe (2015). "Turkish Cypriots' Language Attitudes: The Case of Cypriot Turkish and Standard Turkish in Cyprus". Mediterranean Language Review. 22: 119–138. ISSN 0724-7567. JSTOR 10.13173/medilangrevi.22.2015.0119.
  5. Demir, Nurettin. "Kıbrıs Ağızları Üzerine Notlar" (PDF). Journal of Turcology (in Turkish). Çukurova University. Retrieved 14 June 2011.

Bibliography
  • Erdoğan Saracoğlu (1992). Kıbrıs Ağzı: Sesbilgisi Özellikleri, Metin Derlemeleri, Sözlük. K.K.T.C. Millî Eğitim ve Kültür Bakanlığı. ISBN 975-17-1015-4.
  • Yıltan Taşçı (1986). Kıbrıs Ağzı Dil Özellikleri. Lefkoşa: Akar Yayıncılık.
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