Yeni Düzen reports
http://www.yeniduzen.com/detay.asp?a=12936&z=19
that the media regulation body known as the ‘Supreme Broadcasting Board’ has called on the media and press not to give space to “publications and broadcasts which corrupt our beautiful Turkish with the incorrect form of expression known as the Cypriot dialect.” This announcement has provoked uproar from opposition politicians.
Some comments quoted by the newspaper:
Ferdi Sabit Soyer (CTP)
Why should anyone be ashamed of their own country’s dialect?
Serdar Denktaş (DP)
While the Supreme Broadcasting Board bans the Cypriot dialect, it has nothing to say about the use of even more corrupted dialects. What has suddenly happened to make us ashamed of saying oraşta and buraşta [dialect words meaning ‘there’ and ‘here’] or of saying giderkana [dialect form meaning ‘while going’]? What has happened? This is our dialect. Politicians undoubtedly take care to speak correctly but the use of the Cypriot dialect on television programmes is absolutely normal so that this custom may be passed on to new generations.
Mehmet Çakıcı (DTP)
These decisions amount to a policy to destroy Turkish Cypriot culture.