Cyprus-Forum.com

[insan]

Department of Linguistics, UCSD
San Diego Linguistic Papers, Issue 2
(University of California, San Diego)
Year 2006 Paper 2

Linguistic practices in Cyprus and the
emergence of Cypriot Standard Greek

Amalia Arvaniti
University of California, San Diego

“In Cyprus today systematic changes affecting all levels of linguistic analysis are observed in the use of Standard Greek, giving rise to a distinct linguistic variety which can be called Cypriot Standard Greek. The changes can be attributed to the influence of English and Cypriot Greek (the local linguistic variety), and to the increasing use of the Standard in semi-formal occasions. Equally important is the reluctance to recognize the diglossic situation on the island (in which Standard Greek is the H variety and Cypriot Greek the L), for political and ideological reasons. This in turn means that the attention of the Cypriot speakers is not drawn to the differences between Standard Greek as spoken in Greece and their usage of it; thus the differences become gradually consolidated, while
the users remain unaware of them.”

http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewc ... t=ucsdling

Thanks for posting this. I, for one, am very interested in both of the main vernacular languages of Cyprus. However, when clicking on the above link, I get the following:

"ERROR: Page Not Found

The page you requested was not found."

Try this link Tim.

http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3qx6t51c

Thank you, you really are bir tanem.

Thx Tim, u r cherishing me so much, lately.

[Tim Drayton]

I have read the article and found it interesting. I do not have enough knowledge of the subject matter to comment.

[EPSILON]

AMALIA ARVANITI
University of California, San Diego
LINGUISTIC PRACTICES IN CYPRUS AND THE EMERGENCE OF CYPRIOT STANDARD GREEK

“I have shown that in Cyprus today a new form of Standard Greek—Cypriot Standard Greek—is being gradually created; this form is recognizably different from Standard Greek as spoken in Greece. The origin of this phenomenon can partly be attributed to practical needs and changing circumstances. As shown, however, such needs cannot fully explain the emergence of this new variety. Rather, Cypriot Standard Greek appears to be related also to the reluctance of the community to acknowledge the extent of the differences between Standard Greek and Cypriot, because of the implications that their recognition would carry: according to the dominant ideology, language is the main determiner of ethnicity; thus, admitting that Greek and Cypriot are very different from each other and that Cypriot Standard Greek is not the same as Standard Greek would be tantamount to saying that Greeks and Cypriots are ethnically distinct. This reluctance has gradually lead to the emergence of Cypriot Standard Greek, without either the speakers or the commentators being aware that while debating the Cypriot language question Cypriot Standard Greek has been happening to them.”

http://idiom.ucsd.edu/~arvaniti/Arvaniti.MedLR.pdf

Big conclusion: All people of Rhode Island or Kos Island speaking exactly - repeat exactly the Cyprus dialog are Cypriots- not Greeks.

[EPSILON]

AMALIA ARVANITI
University of California, San Diego
LINGUISTIC PRACTICES IN CYPRUS AND THE EMERGENCE OF CYPRIOT STANDARD GREEK

“I have shown that in Cyprus today a new form of Standard Greek—Cypriot Standard Greek—is being gradually created; this form is recognizably different from Standard Greek as spoken in Greece. The origin of this phenomenon can partly be attributed to practical needs and changing circumstances. As shown, however, such needs cannot fully explain the emergence of this new variety. Rather, Cypriot Standard Greek appears to be related also to the reluctance of the community to acknowledge the extent of the differences between Standard Greek and Cypriot, because of the implications that their recognition would carry: according to the dominant ideology, language is the main determiner of ethnicity; thus, admitting that Greek and Cypriot are very different from each other and that Cypriot Standard Greek is not the same as Standard Greek would be tantamount to saying that Greeks and Cypriots are ethnically distinct. This reluctance has gradually lead to the emergence of Cypriot Standard Greek, without either the speakers or the commentators being aware that while debating the Cypriot language question Cypriot Standard Greek has been happening to them.”

http://idiom.ucsd.edu/~arvaniti/Arvaniti.MedLR.pdf

Big conclusion: All people of Rhode Island or Kos Island speaking exactly - repeat exactly the Cyprus dialog are Cypriots- not Greeks.

In addition , any person suceeding to join a foreign, first class ,university is afterwards coming back to tell us who we are. Firstly Mrs Arvanity should study creation and existance of ethnicities and then to open her mouth about such serious subjects.

[Nikitas]

Tim said:

"I have read the article and found it interesting. I do not have enough knowledge of the subject matter to comment."

Tim, Ms Arvaniti's diatribe is reminiscent of those "scientific" opinions of the eugenicists and phrenologists of the early 20th century. It is total bullshit.

You do not need academic criteria to realise it is bullshit. Just think of simple daily events to judge. Greek TV and radio stations have correspondents in Cyprus. These people are Cypriots who give their live reports in what ms Arvanit calls standard Cypriot Greek. The mainland Greek audience has no problem understanding the reports. Apart from the slightly heavier accent there is no difference in language.

Several Greek media have a single man as correspondent in the US, his name is Mihalis Ignatiou. He gives his reports in Standard Cypriot Greek, again with no problem for the simple reason that it is plain Greek.

THe tragedy in all this is that the professors who examine and assess this bullshit most likely gave ms Arvaniti a degree for her work. Presumably they have given qualifications to others with similar standards of knowledge and unleashed a whole bunch of nincompoops on the world. Lord help us.

Ms Arvaniti should look up the very standard Greek word "ntopiolalia"
meaning local vocabulary. Each area of Greece proudly claims it own "ntopiolalia" which often is unintelligible to the rest of the nation. Does that make each area of Greece user of a different form of standard Greek? Obviously not.

[Nikitas]

Here is the first stanza of the 14 Gospels, offered to Ms Arvaniti, to enlighten her about the differences between dialect and standard language. Double consonants are stressed to piss off professor Babioniotis and some words are partially written to protect the guilty:

Pios tropos en kallytteros sertika na g......s
Tjie na tin mpixis to p..... tjie efta voles na h.....s
Tountin kouventan ihantin pentexi okto gam.....es
Potjin tous gaourosporous tous xoprotous gam....es
Potjinous p'on paratiroun me kalli me stolithkia
Ektos pou na tin mpiousin tin v......an os t'arch.....a.

I guarantee Ms Arvaniti that all of this is perfectly understandable to mainlanders! And in reverse, here are some lyrics from a mainland Greek song in a similar vein:

I Nana ixe ena gataki
mavro mavro katsaro
kai to ihe kleidomeno
se kouti metaxoto

Ah Nana mou to gati sou
to gati to katsaro
Tha mpo mes stin kamara sou
kai tha psaxo na to vro!

No Cypriot would have a problem with this!

[Tim Drayton]

The question of what constitutes a separate language is a complex one, and has as much to do with politics as linguistics. There used to be one language known as Serbo-Croat where there now exist Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and even Montenegrian. Yet the language(s) that people speak on the ground is exactly the same and all of these individual languages are, I believe, mutually comprehensible.

[Piratis]

Arcado-Cypriot is an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Cyprus and in Arcadia (area in Peloponnese).

For a serious study on modern Greek dialects (including the Cypriot dialect) you can download Modern Greek dialects - A preliminary classification by the professor Peter Trudgill

[Piratis]

The question of what constitutes a separate language is a complex one, and has as much to do with politics as linguistics. There used to be one language known as Serbo-Croat where there now exist Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and even Montenegrian. Yet the language(s) that people speak on the ground is exactly the same and all of these individual languages are, I believe, mutually comprehensible.

And what they speak in FYROM and they call "Macedonian" is actually a dialect of Bulgarian, a Slavic language which has absolutely nothing to do with the ancient Macedonians. One could also talk of an "Austrian language" while in fact is just German, or "American language" while it is actually English.

So if we wanted we could pretend that we had some different kind of language, and those that do so are indeed politically motivated.

[Tim Drayton]

The question of what constitutes a separate language is a complex one, and has as much to do with politics as linguistics. There used to be one language known as Serbo-Croat where there now exist Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and even Montenegrian. Yet the language(s) that people speak on the ground is exactly the same and all of these individual languages are, I believe, mutually comprehensible.

And what they speak in FYROM and they call "Macedonian" is actually a dialect of Bulgarian, a Slavic language which has absolutely nothing to do with the ancient Macedonians. One could also talk of an "Austrian language" while in fact is just German, or "American language" while it is actually English.

So if we wanted we could pretend that we had some different kind of language, and those that do so are indeed politically motivated.

But it is all about <b>pretence</b>; a lot boils down to how we chose to perceive things. Linguistically, the language spoken in the Netherlands is part of the continuum of north German dialects. People in a region of Germany bordering on the Netherlands use in their daily life a dialect known as Niederrheinisch which is to all extents and purposes identical to the dialect of Dutch spoken by people just across the border from them. The Netherlands has over the millennia developed and promoted its own literary, standard language so as to differentiate itself from Germany.