Cyprus-Forum.com

[Sotos]

Found it! Modern Greek dialects http://macedoniantruth.org/wp-content/u ... /0003a.pdf

[Get Real!]

He can't do that because he doesn't know even ONE such word Cypriot is a dialect of Greek and Greek has many dialects... like many other languages. ALL Greek dialects have some words from foreign languages ... just like there are 1000s of Greek origin words in other languages. What is different from dialect to dialect is a slightly different mix of those foreign languages... like in Corfu they have more words of Italian origin and we have more words of English origin. The other difference is that some dialects still use some more ancient words... lots of the words in the list GR gave earlier are just ancient Greek words which are still used in Cyprus (or where used until recently) but their use was faced out much earlier on the mainland. There was a document posted here some time ago about Greek language and dialects... I will see if I can find it.

The problem with your theory is that the ancient Cypriots had language sussed out some 2,000 years before Greeks!

http://www.ancientscripts.com/ws_timeline.html

The Phoenicians also invented a script much earlier than Greeks but not earlier than Cypriots. Eventually when these two amalgamated into Phoenicia the two scripts merged forming the Cypro-Phoenician script…

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... ian-script

And this was the basis, the very foundation of modern languages. In fact the Cypriot script was the very first alphabet to be used within Europe!

[Tim Drayton]

An interesting thesis about the endeavour to replace the Cypriot dialect of Turkish with standard Turkish:

http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11750/1/pdf_thesis.pdf

[Nikitas]

Time thanks for the link, interesting situation up there. Sounds like a cultural straitjacket is being forced on them.

Not directly relevant to the thread, but for many years I have been pondering the dearth of Turkish Cypriot popular songs, no famous poems, no writing that can be said to transcend the communal division. The TCs regarded their dialect inferior and not worthy of using in books?

Have there ever been pop hits in Turkey using Cypriot dialect? There were several GC dialect pop hits in Greece. Pontian, Cretan, Corfiot, Thessaly, Dodecanesian regional accents and dialects are frequently used though broadcasting uses the Greek equivalent of BBC English. Is it possible that regional accents and dialects have been made extinct in Turkey and now it is the turn of the TC dialect to be extinguished? Strange business. Like so much else up there.

[Nikitas]

Scene from Larnaca car mechanics. The mechanic is trying to explain to the Greek mainlander that his car has problems in the "clutch". No comprende. I intercede and explain that it is his "debraillage". "Finally, exclaims the Greek, someone who speaks Greek!".

Debraillage is French for clutch by the way. Not Phoenician or Palaiocypriot.

[Sotos]

He can't do that because he doesn't know even ONE such word Cypriot is a dialect of Greek and Greek has many dialects... like many other languages. ALL Greek dialects have some words from foreign languages ... just like there are 1000s of Greek origin words in other languages. What is different from dialect to dialect is a slightly different mix of those foreign languages... like in Corfu they have more words of Italian origin and we have more words of English origin. The other difference is that some dialects still use some more ancient words... lots of the words in the list GR gave earlier are just ancient Greek words which are still used in Cyprus (or where used until recently) but their use was faced out much earlier on the mainland. There was a document posted here some time ago about Greek language and dialects... I will see if I can find it.

The problem with your theory is that the ancient Cypriots had language sussed out some 2,000 years before Greeks!

http://www.ancientscripts.com/ws_timeline.html

The Phoenicians also invented a script much earlier than Greeks but not earlier than Cypriots. Eventually when these two amalgamated into Phoenicia the two scripts merged forming the Cypro-Phoenician script…

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... ian-script

And this was the basis, the very foundation of modern languages. In fact the Cypriot script was the very first alphabet to be used within Europe!

GR you can't tell the difference between a script and a language? You post links whose content you can't comprehend and then you make up your own stories about their meaning The timeline of your first link is about scripts, not languages. Furthermore, Linear B which was used to write Greek prior to the Greek Alphabet is as old as the Cypro-Minoan script. Then in your second link it says: "Phoenician colonial scripts, variants of the mainland Phoenician alphabet, are classified as Cypro-Phoenician" and what you read is "the two scripts merged forming the Cypro-Phoenician script". Where did you read about any "merging"? The Cypro-Phoenician script was simply a colonial script, variation of mainland Phoenician alphabet. Dude... you are just MAKING UP STORIES to fill the vast void of your IGNORANCE

[Sotos]

"Phoenician is a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup; its closest living relative is Hebrew, to which it is very similar."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_language

So according to GR our language is not Greek but it is a Semitic language very similar to Hebrew

[Get Real!]

GR you can't tell the difference between a script and a language? You post links whose content you can't comprehend and then you make up your own stories about their meaning The timeline of your first link is about scripts, not languages. Furthermore, Linear B which was used to write Greek prior to the Greek Alphabet is as old as the Cypro-Minoan script. Then in your second link it says: "Phoenician colonial scripts, variants of the mainland Phoenician alphabet, are classified as Cypro-Phoenician" and what you read is "the two scripts merged forming the Cypro-Phoenician script". Where did you read about any "merging"? The Cypro-Phoenician script was simply a colonial script, variation of mainland Phoenician alphabet. Dude... you are just MAKING UP STORIES to fill the vast void of your IGNORANCE

No, sorry… I can’t imagine a people writing up a script but not being able to speak!

Well duh! If you’ve written a script then spoken language is a given!

I think it’s someone else who has serious problems dealing with facts…

At the end of the day Cyprus was part of the Cradle of Civilization at a time when no such thing as Greece or Greeks existed for millenniums, so it’s only natural that language and alphabets were invented by Cypriots, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, etc who were the first civilizations in the region.

Language and Christianity into Europe all came from Cyprus… the facts are there but you must remove your light-blue colored spectacles to see it.

So start using that battiha of yours, Sotos! You *do* know what a battiha is right?

623083410cfc67a9cf8ac67dec3c9474.jpg

[GreekIslandGirl]

Well duh! If you’ve written a script then spoken language is a given!

Not necessarily. There are 'languages' that exist in written form only. The spoken forms were very different. It's believed that Latin was such. It was a writing script based on Greek (via Etruscan) but a different form with different grammar was spoken (Vulgar Latin). The elite spoke Greek (as well as writing Greek, as needed).

[Sotos]

GR you can't tell the difference between a script and a language?

No, sorry… I can’t imagine a people writing up a script but not being able to speak!

So you think that language = script You are so stupid to understand that (a) a language could exist without a script or (b) that the same language can be written with different scripts?

At the end of the day Cyprus was part of the Cradle of Civilization at a time when no such thing as Greece or Greeks existed for millenniums, so it’s only natural that language and alphabets were invented by Cypriots, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, etc who were the first civilizations in the region.

Only you can be so many times wrong in just one sentence

(a) You are again confusing languages with writing systems. Humans had fully developed languages for about 100.000 years.

(b) The people you are referring to didn't have alphabets... they had were syllabaries, hieroglyphics etc ("An alphabet is a standard set of letters (basic written symbols or graphemes) which is used to write one or more languages based on the general principle that the letters represent phonemes (basic significant sounds) of the spoken language. This is in contrast to other types of writing systems, such as syllabaries (in which each character represents a syllable) and logographies (in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic unit)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet

(c) In Europe the most ancient writing system was in Crete, while Linear B which was used to write Greek is as ancient as the Cypro-Minoan script. You posted the link but you couldn't understand it... read it again more carefully this time http://www.ancientscripts.com/ws_timeline.html

So start using that battiha of yours, Sotos! You *do* know what a battiha is right?

Sure I know ... it is from Arabic "pattikh" .. click the small speaker under the Arabic word to listen how it sounds: https://translate.google.com/#en/ar/watermelon