Cyprus-Forum.com

[magikthrill]

alright so all solutions postponed until each community learns the others languages.

of course this probably wont happen so the outcome will be just a solution where the majority of GCs won't be satisfied, ie: potential breakdown.

this is what will happen in the end for sure. im not sure if it will lead indeed to political breakdown but I find it sad that most TCs dont care that their GC counterparts will be getting screwed over in the end. but then again why should they care?

[insan]

alright so all solutions postponed until each community learns the others languages.

of course this probably wont happen so the outcome will be just a solution where the majority of GCs won't be satisfied, ie: potential breakdown. this is what will happen in the end for sure.

I agree with you. Apparently that's what we will end up with. On the other hand I strongly believe that we need at least a 20 years for the transition period to evolve our relationships to a fairly good point. This is only possible if the ruling elites of both sides guide the people of two communities in right direction. It's been almost two years since the gates were open but we haven't felt the hope pumping interaction of two communities yet. In the first year of opening of the gates, US was sending huge amounts of money to NGOs and pro-reunification parties to organize and arrange bi-communal activities for rapproachment and reconciliation of two communities. After the failure of Annan Plan, US stop funding the bi-communal activities. Since then the reunification idea, rapproachment and reconciliation activities are cut like knife.

Now we should question ourselves. Why do we wait the incentives of US sponsored NGOs and political parties to intense the bi-communal activities for rapproachment, reconciliation and reunification? Money? Haven't GCs got enough money to finance their own bi-communal activities for rapproachment, reconciliation and reunification? Or they haven't the will to pay for it. There was a very shocking article about this issue written by a GC collumnist. If I find the link I'll post it here.

im not sure if it will lead indeed to political breakdown but I find it sad that most TCs dont care that their GC counterparts will be getting screwed over in the end. but then again why should they care?

It's not about TCs care or do not care. The point we have reached so far is this. This is the natural consequence of the events of our common history. Under the current circumstances, TC community cannot accept the known demands of GC community. It seems that GC community also is not willing to accept the demands of TC community under the current circumstances. Thus, they should keep exerting effort to convince each other and compromise on something(loose federation, strong federation, confederation or partition) that majority of both sides will approve.

[devil]

If you think that this is the only country in the world with a language barrier, think again. Switzerland has four national languages with geographical regions for each, but that has not stopped reasonable harmony between them, has it? Belgium has two, the UK three (out of 8 native languages), France has 4 (although 3 of them are official regional languages, not national), Canada has 2.

However, the model for language assimilation is Singapore. It has three national native languages: Chinese, Bahasa Malaya and Hindi. At independence, they recognised that this would potentially be a barrier to unity, so they compromised with English as a lingua franca. All official proceedings, reports, laws etc. are only in English and all civil servants work in English. All schools teach English and at least one other language and subjects like maths and science are taught in English. The result, after about 40 years, is a mixed community with good inter-racial communications and almost zero strife. If you have an apartment with Chinese, Malay and Hindu neighbours on the same floor, there is no room for hatred. OK, there are still a few parts of the old city, such as Little India and Chinatown, with predominately monoculture populations, but this is a system that worked extremely well by NOT using a native language for official purposes, without denigrating the languages and cultures of the three individual ethicities, very far different than between Greek and Turkish.

In "South Pacific" there is a song that states you've got to be taught to hate people who are different. How true! Having worked for the UN, I've travelled very widely and have friends in many countries, of many cultures. It took me some time to de-educate myself from the prejudices that I grew up with, which is why I now accept individuals for what they are and not what their background tells them they are. It is not easy, but it is possible.

[erolz]

so they compromised with English as a lingua franca

What a strange expression that is which translates as 'English as the french language'

Anyway I vote for English as the french language for a united Cyprus and this is in no way related to the fact that I currently speak english but not Greek or Turkish

[insan]

If you think that this is the only country in the world with a language barrier, think again. Switzerland has four national languages with geographical regions for each, but that has not stopped reasonable harmony between them, has it? Belgium has two, the UK three (out of 8 native languages), France has 4 (although 3 of them are official regional languages, not national), Canada has 2.

You are right. Those countries(regions) have always been multi-lingual and all gone through some important democratization processes that arouse it's own internal social, economical, psychological, historical, political dynamics. Most of the countries you gave the names were evolved from a confederation.

In Cyprus, none of us experienced such natural democratization and civilization processes. Perhaps language barrier wouldn't cause any strife between two communities but also would be a huge obstacle infront of cooperation and close relationships. If you compare the language barriers of other's with Cypriots; I can say that if they have %20 of negative affects of the language barrier; two communities in Cyprus have %80 of negative affects of language barrier. See, the extent of language barrier determines the total negative affects it will create on people's daily life to economy of state, psychology of people and social relationships.

In my opinion two communities need at least a pre-transitional period to overcome their primary difficulties before deciding what type of common state they would be able to build. I think under the current circumstances a confederation or a loose federation would be the most rational.

New Babylon - Multilinguism Today
Classical multilingualism meant that Swiss children have to learn one of the other major languages of the country plus English at school after they had acquired a basic working knowledge of their own mother tongue. This used to be a positive challenge for most students.

Today, immigrants speak a variety of languages (among others Spanish, Turkish, Serbian, Croatian, Portugese). Switzerland's birth rate is very low among the "native" population and rather high among the immigrants. The result is that in Switzerland's major cities about half of the schoolchildren come from families that do not speak the official language of the region at home. Despite of intense special efforts by school authorities and teachers these children are evidently handicapped when confronted with more complex texts at school. Recently Swiss politicians have proposed that children should be obliged to go to nursery-schools from the age of 3 to ensure that all children do learn the official language of the region.

[magikthrill]

New Babylon - Multilinguism Today
Classical multilingualism meant that Swiss children have to learn one of the other major languages of the country plus English at school after they had acquired a basic working knowledge of their own mother tongue. This used to be a positive challenge for most students.

Today, immigrants speak a variety of languages (among others Spanish, Turkish, Serbian, Croatian, Portugese). Switzerland's birth rate is very low among the "native" population and rather high among the immigrants. The result is that in Switzerland's major cities about half of the schoolchildren come from families that do not speak the official language of the region at home. Despite of intense special efforts by school authorities and teachers these children are evidently handicapped when confronted with more complex texts at school. Recently Swiss politicians have proposed that children should be obliged to go to nursery-schools from the age of 3 to ensure that all children do learn the official language of the region.

The way they handle this in Quebec (the French province of Canada) is by forcing all children of parents who are not from Quebec (whether immigrants of ffrom other Canadian provinces) to attend French speaking school, since they most likely already know English and the Quebecoise take quite pride in their language.

[cannedmoose]

the UK three (out of 8 native languages)

Three? We have English and Welsh as official languages, not sure what the other one is... Scots Gaelic isn't recognised. As for 8 native languages blimey, you're testing my knowledge on that one too... let's have a go :

English
Welsh (about 500,000 speakers)
Scots Gaelic (about 20,000 speakers)
Cornish (not many)
Manx (even fewer)
Scouse?
Geordie?
Urdu?

I'd be interested to know what all these languages are...!

Just out of interest, do you know that in the UK it is still legal to kill a Welshman with a bow and arrow anywhere within the city limits of Chester... never been taken off the statute books that one... anyways, I'm off to Chester, wish me luck

[devil]

Sorry, I misled you, I should have said the British Isles, not the UK, for the 8 languages, as some places are not in the UK (e.g., Channel Islands, Man Scilly, Republic of Ireland)

OK

1. English
2. Welsh
3. Scottish Gaelic
4. Irish Gaelic (Erse)
5. Manx
6. Cornish
7. Lallans
8. French (in the Channel Islands)

Lallans is the most interesting one and is spoken in the Scottish borders, where I come from. Unfortunately, over the centuries, it has become diluted with many English words and some experts now count it as an English dialect, but it has a large vocabulary of non-English origin and even a syntax different from English. My mother could never understand it, but I can pick up the gist of a Lallans conversation (or could, when I left Scotland some 55 years ago), without understanding it all. Just one common example:
I cry: I greet
You cried: Tha grat
They have cried: Thae grutten

Actually, it has also been a 2-way transfer, many Lallans words have entered the English language, such as wee, glamour (meaning magic), aye, bonny, canny etc.

Lallans is also known as Scots, but this is un-preferred, as it could cause confusion with Gaelic, which is also sometimes called Scots, by the ignorant. A Lallans dialect, also knows as Scots, is spoken in N. Ireland, carried over by ex-pat settlers from Dumfriesshire and Ayrshire in the 17th/18th c under English incitation. Burns used quite a lot of Lallans vocabulary in his poetry, although his mother-tongue was English.

[devil]

Oh, Gaelic or, as it is known officially, Gàidhlig, is an official language since the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Bill was enacted last year by the Scottish Parliament.

[unnamedman]

I want to learn Gaelic. But I don't think so that i can find a course in Turkey!