Cyprus-Forum.com

[T_C]

There are major flaws in the attitude and application of bilingualism in the Republic of Cyprus by its legislators, which often result in the discreet sacrifice of the Turkish language. This attitude, shaped by an under-lying racism and certain degree of recklessness has best manifested itself during the Republic’s entry into the European Union. Mere errors these are not, but great injustices against a sizeable portion of the Cypriot nation; its Turkish speakers.

It is no conspiracy theory that certain Cypriot legislators with a murky Greek nationalist agenda are using the Cypriot Republic and its institutions to present this state of ours as a monolingual Greek state in various ways. One of the visible ways is by ensuring that imperial spellings of cities and towns now reflect only the Greek spelling and pronunciation. For instance, Famagusta has been ditched for Ammachostos, Limassol is now known on English language maps and signs as Lemesos and even Nicosia is now being referred to as Lefkosia by English speakers.

Using the pretext that it is necessary to rid the island of memories of an unhappy period of imperialist British rule, the name-changes are equally having the result of falsely depicting a second Greece, at the total detriment of the island’s bilingual status. Can you imagine the reaction if Bruxelles was ditched for the Dutch/Flemish name Brussel? Could you imagine the uproar if we took away the name Cymru and left only Wales, just because the English-speakers are in a majority in the UK? Or how about the hornets nest that would be caused if tourists to Switzerland were told that as 80% of the population are German speakers that they should refer to the multi-lingual country as “Die Schweiz?” So why on earth is Cyprus, where Greek and Turkish are both official, any different?

I admit I was left stupefied to hear that when the Republic of Cyprus applied to join the European Union not one politician argued loud enough to include Turkish as one of its official languages. In fact it took a German MEP Cem Ozdemir to raise the issue before the European Commission (Simon Bahceli “MEP urges adoption of Turkish as EU language” dated June 3, 2006, Cyprus Mail). Did those who negotiated Cyprus’ accession simply forget Turkish? Perhaps, they were too busy enjoying all the mussels, frites and chocolates or maybe they lost themselves during a night of abandon in Brussels?

Whatever the case may be, frankly it worries me if it takes a German to remind us that there are two linguistic groups in Cyprus within one nation, and that it is fundamentally wrong to simply disregard the Turkish-speaking community of Cyprus and your own laws on bilingualism.

When I raised this issue to one Greek Cypriot woman, I was informed that it was “not economical to translate thousands of documents into Turkish,” which she pointed out was “expensive.” But an article by Cyprus Mail’s John Leonidou “Language barrier delays Turkish Cypriot voting appeal” dated February 15, 2007 clearly contradicts this view. Leonidou poined out that the failure of the Republic of Cyprus’ courts to translate court documents into Turkish was having the costly effect of delaying legal proceedings in the Supreme Court who received numerous appeals from its Turkish-speaking citizens regarding their right to vote. Without the application of Turkish, not only are the Republic’s claim to be officially bilingual mere theory, but more importantly it is violating the rights of Turkish-speaking Cypriots.

The same pessimists who use economic viability to keep the Turkish language outside of use in the Republic of Cyprus should not forget that the original signs before 1974 were in both languages. By arguing that Greek-English signs have a place as nearly a million Anglophone tourists come and go to Cyprus each year, but that the rights of 140,000 Turkish Cypriots who permanently live there are expendable, these economically minded legislators are unaware that by abandoning the Turkish-language, the Republic is actually creating itself a far greater cost in both material and human costs for itself, most notably; the loss of trust and credibility in the Republic.

By some quirk of Cypriot obsession with food, the language war is now being taken to the Cypriot kitchens, where the new battlefront is soft Cypriot Goats Cheese, Halloumi / Hellim. The Republic recently registered the product to have an EU label as a Cypriot product with “Halloumi” written beside it, again without the accompanying “Hellim” to appear beside it. Defending this error, some far-right Greek Cypriot newspapers have got into the untenable position of arguing that from a linguistic point of view the Turkish word Hellim does not exist. Well, naturally if one consults an Istanbul Redhouse dictionary it does not! Hellim exists in the Cypriot Turkish vernacular.

Of course, you will always be told that, “Well, how about the North? They’ve given towns and villages new Anatolian Turkish names.” My answer is, despite the division encouraged by Greek and Turkish nationalists backed by Greece and Turkey, the Republic of Cyprus, the government of the entire island, is still a bilingual state and is recognised as such. It cannot keep imitating events in the breakaway North or risk abusing its mechanism to show the Greek reaction to Turkish Cypriot separatism. The Republic of Cyprus is the only remains of the once co-existence of Cypriots, and it must live up to its great responsibility. It has no alternative if it is to survive.

If hope for restored Cypriot unity is to remain, Cypriot policy makers must avoid and be conscious of abusing powers entrusted to them by a recognised state for short term gains. Exploiting the islands division in order to paint a false image that disregards the multi-cultural and bilingual character of the island is criminal; as such greed and deceit under the flag and name of our Republic are pushing away Turkish Cypriots and will only have serious repercussions to hopes of reconciliation and reunification.

[free_cyprus]

i think we should get rid of turkish and greek language in cyprus and start anew maybe we can speak spanish after fifty years who is going to say we are greeks or turks feck it when will cypriots learn anything in this world are they really that backward in their thinking

[iceman]

Of course, you will always be told that, “Well, how about the North? They’ve given towns and villages new Anatolian Turkish names..

The majority of the Turkish names given to villages are the original Turkish names they had before the British & Greek Cypriots changed after the Ottoman rule..
I have a detailed copy of the very first map prepared by the British dating back to 1882..
This map shows shows each and every village with its original Turkish/Greek name and there is an indication next to its name showing if it was a Greek or Turkish or a mix village..

[free_cyprus]

who gives a shit about names we are not turks or greeks just becouse they came there and murdered our ancesters and made us become cristions and muslims and all of a sudden we have become greeks and turks we are an island of bastards thats what we are the only history cyprus is ever had is one of occupation murder rape and slavery and you have the cheek to write such shit in this forum

[iceman]

we are an island of bastards thats what we are

Speak for yourself...

[free_cyprus]

iceman
i speak for you but your to uneducated to even appriciated it

[polis]

Of course, you will always be told that, “Well, how about the North? They’ve given towns and villages new Anatolian Turkish names..

The majority of the Turkish names given to villages are the original Turkish names they had before the British & Greek Cypriots changed after the Ottoman rule..
I have a detailed copy of the very first map prepared by the British dating back to 1882..
This map shows shows each and every village with its original Turkish/Greek name and there is an indication next to its name showing if it was a Greek or Turkish or a mix village..

What do you mean original Turkish name? Unless the Turks when they first settled in Cyprus established purely Tukish communities, all original names of villages in Cyprus are Greek. Does this make sense to you?

[iceman]

What do you mean original Turkish name? Unless the Turks when they first settled in Cyprus established purely Tukish communities, all original names of villages in Cyprus are Greek. Does this make sense to you?

I mean the Turkish names used bt Turks in the Ottoman days...
The villages occupied by only Greek Cypriots had names in Greek,the villages occupied by Turks had Turkish names and the mix villages had names in Both Greek & Turkish..offcourse some village names were used by both the communities..

[polis]

What do you mean original Turkish name? Unless the Turks when they first settled in Cyprus established purely Tukish communities, all original names of villages in Cyprus are Greek. Does this make sense to you?

I mean the Turkish names used bt Turks in the Ottoman days...
The villages occupied by only Greek Cypriots had names in Greek,the villages occupied by Turks had Turkish names and the mix villages had names in Both Greek & Turkish..offcourse some village names were used by both the communities..

Many of the muslim villages were villages of christians (greek orthodox or catholics) who converted to islam, hence they kept their original Greek names. If you check the official gazette of placenames you will find the villages that had an original Turkish name, like Ortakoy, Beikoi, Gonyeli, Komurcu being registered under those names (check out www.cyprus1974.org for a full list of all official placenames of all communities in the Turkish Occupied areas).

Unless of course you consider Lefke, Lefkosa, Lapta, Girne or Kibris to be original Turkish place names!

[humanist]

turkish cypriot, that is an interesting post you have posted. It raises very valueble issues in relation to language one that I hadn't really though of. I agree that cost in translations is not an excuse and the RoC needs to re-think its policies on that matter asap.

The only reason I can think of that this may not have been done thus far, that the moajority of turkish speaking cypiots are at this stage, are denouncing the RoC as their country by being citizens of the trnc, in which case the population statistics are not 80% to 18% but much less, I have no idea how many turkish speaking cypriots are currently living in the south, however I would love to find that out. The voting issue that you beriefly touched on is yet another interesting topic that I would like some clairification on. Are turkish speaking cypriots living in the RoC able to and do they have equal rights to vote as their greek speaking compatriots? if not why not? is it time that the RoC take action to rectify these issues? I say yes. Mr Papadopoulos I urge that you take immediate action to ensure that all Cypriots ahave equal right in all domains of Cypriot life.