Cyprus-Forum.com

[Oracle]

More Cypriot nationals' lifestyles threatened into extinction by Turks' invasion of Cyprus ..

Cyprus Maronites battle to preserve ancestral language

By Simon Martelli (AFP)

NICOSIA — With his twice-weekly lessons, Elias Zonias is fighting to preserve the ancestral language of Cyprus's dwindling Maronite community, described by experts as a "treasure" but now threatened with extinction by rapid demographic change.

Every year the number of children at the island's only Maronite school has been shrinking, he says, highlighting the difficulty of keeping alive his native tongue, a unique form of Arabic that is strongly influenced by the Aramaic spoken by Jesus and his followers.

"I feel that I'm lucky because I'm part of a small group of people who speaks this language well," says Zonias, 41, a cheerful father of three with a passion for photography.

"But we see the problem here in this school. Every year the number of children goes down," he notes, adding that he now has only 20 pupils learning Cyprus Maronite Arabic, or CMA, a language with a non-written, oral tradition.

The Maronite Christian community, inhabiting Cyprus since the 12th century, has been battling to preserve its historic identity since Turkey's 1974 military invasion forcibly partitioned the island into the Greek-speaking south and the Turkish-occupied north.

Forced to take sides, the Maronites opted for the south, leaving behind their traditional agricultural heartland in the north, a move that virtually displaced the entire community.

Kormakitis, the largest of four Maronite villages in the north, is the home of CMA and now a dying community, with fewer than 150 elderly inhabitants and its only school closed for more than 10 years.

When Zonias and others like him arrived in their new schools in the south they had trouble being understood by the other Greek-speaking pupils, few of whom had even heard of their language.

Today, there are 5,000 Cyprus Maronites scattered throughout the island and only about a thousand native speakers of CMA.

Most Maronites tend to marry outside the clan now and very few speak the language to their children, eroding the most distinctive aspect of the community's identity.

Source: 2010 AFP.

[Malapapa]

Forced to take sides, the Maronites opted for the south, leaving behind their traditional agricultural heartland in the north, a move that virtually displaced the entire community.

Kormakitis, the largest of four Maronite villages in the north, is the home of CMA and now a dying community, with fewer than 150 elderly inhabitants and its only school closed for more than 10 years.

Is this the way we should be treating numerical minorities in Cyprus, Cyprus Turks?

[YFred]

Forced to take sides, the Maronites opted for the south, leaving behind their traditional agricultural heartland in the north, a move that virtually displaced the entire community.

Kormakitis, the largest of four Maronite villages in the north, is the home of CMA and now a dying community, with fewer than 150 elderly inhabitants and its only school closed for more than 10 years.

Is this the way we should be treating numerical minorities in Cyprus, Cyprus Turks?

But of course the economic suffocation of the north by the loving roc has no bearing on the matter what so ever, what?

[Malapapa]

Forced to take sides, the Maronites opted for the south, leaving behind their traditional agricultural heartland in the north, a move that virtually displaced the entire community.

Kormakitis, the largest of four Maronite villages in the north, is the home of CMA and now a dying community, with fewer than 150 elderly inhabitants and its only school closed for more than 10 years.

Is this the way we should be treating numerical minorities in Cyprus, Cyprus Turks?

But of course the economic suffocation of the north by the loving roc has no bearing on the matter, what?

Absolutely NOT. You find a way that legitimate Cypriot citizens, living in the north, registered with a recognised body, can trade with the world without infringing on the property and other human rights of fellow legitimate Cypriot citizens, and you won't be suffocated economically.

[YFred]

Forced to take sides, the Maronites opted for the south, leaving behind their traditional agricultural heartland in the north, a move that virtually displaced the entire community.

Kormakitis, the largest of four Maronite villages in the north, is the home of CMA and now a dying community, with fewer than 150 elderly inhabitants and its only school closed for more than 10 years.

Is this the way we should be treating numerical minorities in Cyprus, Cyprus Turks?

But of course the economic suffocation of the north by the loving roc has no bearing on the matter, what?

Absolutely NOT. You find a way that legitimate Cypriot citizens, living in the north, registered with a recognised body, can trade with the world without infringing on the property and other human rights of fellow legitimate Cypriot citizens, and you won't be suffocated economically.

Really, explain why we were not allowed to trade grain grown on pure TC land, because roc had no way of checking it. You really need to live in the real world and see how the roc treats its own citizens. What exactly was stopping them checking?

[growuptcs]

Forced to take sides, the Maronites opted for the south, leaving behind their traditional agricultural heartland in the north, a move that virtually displaced the entire community.

Kormakitis, the largest of four Maronite villages in the north, is the home of CMA and now a dying community, with fewer than 150 elderly inhabitants and its only school closed for more than 10 years.

Is this the way we should be treating numerical minorities in Cyprus, Cyprus Turks?

But of course the economic suffocation of the north by the loving roc has no bearing on the matter, what?

Absolutely NOT. You find a way that legitimate Cypriot citizens, living in the north, registered with a recognised body, can trade with the world without infringing on the property and other human rights of fellow legitimate Cypriot citizens, and you won't be suffocated economically.

Really, explain why we were not allowed to trade grain grown on pure TC land, because roc had no way of checking it. You really need to live in the real world and see how the roc treats its own citizens. What exactly was stopping them checking?

Only the fact that everyone in the north denies the RoC legitimacy.

[YFred]

Forced to take sides, the Maronites opted for the south, leaving behind their traditional agricultural heartland in the north, a move that virtually displaced the entire community.

Kormakitis, the largest of four Maronite villages in the north, is the home of CMA and now a dying community, with fewer than 150 elderly inhabitants and its only school closed for more than 10 years.

Is this the way we should be treating numerical minorities in Cyprus, Cyprus Turks?

But of course the economic suffocation of the north by the loving roc has no bearing on the matter, what?

Absolutely NOT. You find a way that legitimate Cypriot citizens, living in the north, registered with a recognised body, can trade with the world without infringing on the property and other human rights of fellow legitimate Cypriot citizens, and you won't be suffocated economically.

Really, explain why we were not allowed to trade grain grown on pure TC land, because roc had no way of checking it. You really need to live in the real world and see how the roc treats its own citizens. What exactly was stopping them checking?

Only the fact that everyone in the north denies the RoC legitimacy.

But it didn't stop them taking Orams to court. They also were of the same mind?

[growuptcs]

Forced to take sides, the Maronites opted for the south, leaving behind their traditional agricultural heartland in the north, a move that virtually displaced the entire community.

Kormakitis, the largest of four Maronite villages in the north, is the home of CMA and now a dying community, with fewer than 150 elderly inhabitants and its only school closed for more than 10 years.

Is this the way we should be treating numerical minorities in Cyprus, Cyprus Turks?

But of course the economic suffocation of the north by the loving roc has no bearing on the matter, what?

Absolutely NOT. You find a way that legitimate Cypriot citizens, living in the north, registered with a recognised body, can trade with the world without infringing on the property and other human rights of fellow legitimate Cypriot citizens, and you won't be suffocated economically.

Really, explain why we were not allowed to trade grain grown on pure TC land, because roc had no way of checking it. You really need to live in the real world and see how the roc treats its own citizens. What exactly was stopping them checking?

Only the fact that everyone in the north denies the RoC legitimacy.

But it didn't stop them taking Orams to court. They also were of the same mind?

Yes, your right. Look how far they got denying the RoC legitimacy.

[YFred]

Forced to take sides, the Maronites opted for the south, leaving behind their traditional agricultural heartland in the north, a move that virtually displaced the entire community.

Kormakitis, the largest of four Maronite villages in the north, is the home of CMA and now a dying community, with fewer than 150 elderly inhabitants and its only school closed for more than 10 years.

Is this the way we should be treating numerical minorities in Cyprus, Cyprus Turks?

But of course the economic suffocation of the north by the loving roc has no bearing on the matter, what?

Absolutely NOT. You find a way that legitimate Cypriot citizens, living in the north, registered with a recognised body, can trade with the world without infringing on the property and other human rights of fellow legitimate Cypriot citizens, and you won't be suffocated economically.

Really, explain why we were not allowed to trade grain grown on pure TC land, because roc had no way of checking it. You really need to live in the real world and see how the roc treats its own citizens. What exactly was stopping them checking?

Only the fact that everyone in the north denies the RoC legitimacy.

But it didn't stop them taking Orams to court. They also were of the same mind?

Yes, your right. Look how far they got denying the RoC legitimacy.

So your original excuse was not good enough. Now try another one. How about they don't give a shit about any TCs? Now that is a good prospect.

[Malapapa]

Forced to take sides, the Maronites opted for the south, leaving behind their traditional agricultural heartland in the north, a move that virtually displaced the entire community.

Kormakitis, the largest of four Maronite villages in the north, is the home of CMA and now a dying community, with fewer than 150 elderly inhabitants and its only school closed for more than 10 years.

Is this the way we should be treating numerical minorities in Cyprus, Cyprus Turks?

But of course the economic suffocation of the north by the loving roc has no bearing on the matter, what?

Absolutely NOT. You find a way that legitimate Cypriot citizens, living in the north, registered with a recognised body, can trade with the world without infringing on the property and other human rights of fellow legitimate Cypriot citizens, and you won't be suffocated economically.

Really, explain why we were not allowed to trade grain grown on pure TC land, because roc had no way of checking it. You really need to live in the real world and see how the roc treats its own citizens. What exactly was stopping them checking?

No idea. I'm not the RoC. Is the company registered with a legitimate authority (eg. the TCCC) who can verify no human rights are infringed? If yes and they can verify, my advice is challenge this in the courts because you'll win.