Cyprus-Forum.com

[halil]

Historians believe that as far back as 280 BC. there was a town called Ledra in the centre of Cyprus. Then follows a gap in history for more than a thousand years, when it is recorded that a walled city stood in the Mesaoria plain and its name was Lefkosa or Lefkosia. The modern name of Nicosia arose in the 19th century when an English soldier corrupted the word, because he did not listen carefully to the inhabitants' pronunciation (so the story goes). However, the name Nicosia was used in the Middle Ages .
A quick glance at the earlier pages of the source-book, "Excerpta Cypria", will soon show the antiquity of the name Nicosia. The first reference is in the journal of the German Count Wilbrand von Oldenburg who, in the year l211 AD., wrote in good Latin an account of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land when he visited Cyprus on his return journey. In fact he did not get it quite right for he says that "Cossia" was the capital city, but this looks like the first attempt to transliterate the Byzantine Greek into Latin.

The new reference is conclusive and gives us the immense authority of Dante Alighieri, the great and extremely well-informed Italian epic poet who uses "Nicosia e Famagosta" when writing in the "Paradiso" about King Henry II of Lusignan. Dante wrote this in about 1305.

Thereafter we can quote a wide variety of writers in the 14th century, such as the Italian monk, Jacobus de Verona, writing in Latin in 1335, who uses "Nicosia"; the German priest Ludolf von Suchen who uses the slight spelling variation "Nycosia" when wri ting in 1341 also in Latin; the English knight, Sir John Maundeville, writing in French in I 356, and the Italian lawyer, Nicolai de Martoni, writing in Latin in 1394, who both use "Nicosia". There is no need to go on into later centuries, but this eviden ce points clearly to the conclusion that "Nicosia" was the standard Latin name for the city at the time when it had its closest links with the countries of western Europe before the later l9th century. And Latin was of course the language of scholarship f or those countries throughout the medieval period.
This brings up the interesting point that for the past four hundred years every town and many of the villages in Cyprus have each had three names in common usage, usually but not always versions of one another, Greek, Latin and Turkish.
It seems to have been the policy of the British Administration between 1878 and 1960 to adopt the Latin forms as the English names and these have now become standard in English. Thus I think it is important that if we are writing in Greek we use "Lefkosia " and "Kirenia", if in Turkish "Lefkosa" and "Girne", and if in English "Nicosia" and "Kyrenia".

Source:THE ANTIQUITIES OF TURKISH NICOSIA
by William Dreghorn , B.Sc., Ph. D. (Lond.)

[RichardB]

Thanks for the info Halil

i personally tend to use NIcosia when talking to Europeans (non greek or turkish speaking)

Lefkosia when talking to Greek speakers

Lefkosha when in the north

And.............Hora when in the mountains

[BC Numismatics]

Halil,'Nicosia' is the name that is most familiar.There's a similar debate in India,South Africa,& Burma,as there's been a lot of name changes,some of them made without any justification.

I've always hated the names 'Mumbai','Chennai',& 'Kolkata',so,I just refer to them by the names that most people are familiar with - 'Bombay','Madras',& 'Calcutta'.

There's been a real uproar in South Africa over moves to change Pretoria's name to 'Tshwane'.This has been taken to court,& will end up being decided in the Constitutional Court of South Africa in Johannesburg.

Aidan.

[halil]

Thanks for the info Halil

i personally tend to use NIcosia when talking to Europeans (non greek or turkish speaking)

Lefkosia when talking to Greek speakers

Lefkosha when in the north

And.............Hora when in the mountains

RichardB,
you can read more about ancient Nicosia from below link.İt is very interesting and informative book.

HISTORY OF NICOSIA
It is very likely that Paleolithic Man arrived in Cyprus a few hundred thousand years ago, but up to the present no definite sites have been located. About eight thousand years ago the Neolithic people came to the island probably from an area between sout h eastern Turkey and Syria. They led a settled life and were the first to build villages in this island. A few thousand years later, some Bronze age folk had a small settlement on the banks of the Pedhios River near Nicosia, but of course the only records are in the form of pottery and artifacts. About 800 B.C. mention is made of a town called Ledra in central Cyprus, although there is no archaeological evidence. Towns were established on the coast, but inland, the sites were on river banks at good crossi ng points. The river which flows through Nicosia is not a perennial one and it is better described as a wadi. There are no rivers in Cyprus which flow all the year round.

more to read at link:
http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~durduran/drnic1.html

[BC Numismatics]

Halil,isn't there a suburb of Nicosia called Ledra? I've heard of the famous Ledra Palace Hotel,which is (or was) in use as a British Army barracks.

Aidan.

[RichardB]

Not a suburb Aidan but one of the main shopping areas is Ledra St

And the Ledra Palace hotel now houses the UN and is probably the most used crossing point into the North

[DT.]

Halil,isn't there a suburb of Nicosia called Ledra? I've heard of the famous Ledra Palace Hotel,which is (or was) in use as a British Army barracks.

Aidan.

used by the UN not the British. Was a hotel before the invasion.

[boomerang]

Source:THE ANTIQUITIES OF TURKISH NICOSIA

hmmmmm....the turkish antiquities of nicosia?

and you say you are not under occupation?...fucking hell

[BC Numismatics]

There's no such thing as 'Greek Nicosia' or 'Turkish Nicosia'.

DT.,where in Nicosia was the British Army garrison stationed? I've got a 50 Pence postal order that was issued at a British Field Post Office in Nicosia in 2005.You can look here; www.zeno.ru .Look under 'Paper Money' to find it.

Aidan.

[halil]

Halil,isn't there a suburb of Nicosia called Ledra? I've heard of the famous Ledra Palace Hotel,which is (or was) in use as a British Army barracks.

Aidan.

Aidan ,
British troopes are at the moment stationed around ledra palace but this unit is under the UN's.Nothing to do with British forces in Cyprus.