Turkish dialect
Cypriot Turkish
(
Kıbrıs Turkcesi
) is a dialect of the
Turkish language
spoken by
Turkish Cypriots
both in
Cyprus
and among
its diaspora
.
History
[
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]
Emanating from
Anatolia
and evolved for four centuries, Cypriot Turkish is the
vernacular
spoken by Cypriots with
Ottoman
ancestry, as well as by Cypriots who converted to
Islam
during Ottoman rule.
[1]
It is understood by expatriate Cypriots living in the UK, United States, Australia and other parts of the world.
Cypriot Turkish consists of a blend of
Ottoman Turkish
and the
Yoruk
dialect that is spoken in the
Taurus Mountains
of southern
Turkey
. In addition, it has absorbed influences from
Greek
,
Italian
and
English
. Cypriot Turkish is mutually intelligible with
Standard Turkish
.
Since the 1974
Turkish invasion of Cyprus
, Turkish is found almost exclusively in
Northern Cyprus
, with approximately 300,000 native Turkish speakers (including all dialects of Turkish) as of 2016 and 1,400 speakers in the south as of 2013.
[2]
Of these, a significant number are
immigrants from Turkey
who do not speak the Cypriot variety of Turkish. Cypriot Turkish is not used officially in the north, where
modern standard Turkish
became the
de facto
official language of schools, government, and the media.
[3]
Phonology
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]
Differences between standard Turkish and Cypriot Turkish
[
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]
Cypriot Turkish is distinguished by a number of sound alternations not found in standard Turkish, but some of which are also quite common in other Turkish vernaculars:
- Voicing of some unvoiced
stops
- Standard Turkish
ta?
↔ Cypriot Turkish
da?
"stone"
- Standard Turkish
kurt
↔ Cypriot Turkish
gurt
"wolf"
- Standard Turkish
patates
↔ Cypriot Turkish
badadez
"potato"
- Preservation of earlier
Turkic
*
ŋ
- Standard Turkish
nasılsın?
↔ Cypriot Turkish
nasılsıŋ?
"how are you?"
- Standard Turkish
bin
↔ Cypriot Turkish
biŋ
"thousand"
- Standard Turkish:
Arabaya binmek
↔ Cypriot Turkish:
Arabaya biŋmek
"getting in the car"
- Changing 1st person plural suffix
- Standard Turkish
isteriz
↔ Cypriot Turkish
isderik
"we want"
- Unvoicing of some voiced stops
- Standard Turkish:
bakla
↔ Cypriot Turkish:
pakla
"broad beans"
- Standard Turkish
hic
↔ Cypriot Turkish
hi?
"no, none"
The last two alternations are more specific to Cypriot Turkish and are seen less often in other Turkish vernacular.
Consonants
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]
Cypriot Turkish consonants are mostly the same as standard Turkish consonants. However, Cypriot Turkish has retained the phonemes
/ŋ/
and
/?/
, whereas standard Turkish lost them.
Vowels
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]
|
front
|
back
|
unrounded
|
rounded
|
unrounded
|
rounded
|
high
|
i
(i)
|
y
(u)
|
?
(ı)
|
u
(u)
|
mid/low
|
?
(e)
|
ø
(o)
|
?
(a)
|
o
(o)
|
Grammar
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Cypriot Turkish is structured as a
VO language
as opposed to standard Turkish which is an
OV language
. It is very typical in forming a question.
- Standard Turkish
Okula gidecek misin?
is, in Cypriot Turkish,
Gideceŋ okula?
("Will you go to school?")
Cypriot Turkish uses the
aorist
tense instead of the present continuous tense, and very often in place of the future tense as well.
- Standard Turkish
Okula gidiyorum
or
Okula gidece?im
("I am going to school") are, in Cypriot Turkish,
Giderim okula
("I go to school" / "I am going to school" / "I will go to school")
Cypriot Turkish does not use the narrative/indefinite past, and only uses the simple past instead.
- Standard Turkish
Eve gitmi?
("He is reported to have gone home") is, in Cypriot Turkish, not used. Instead
Eve gitti
or
Gitti eve
("He went home") suffices.
Cypriot Turkish also lacks the question suffix of
mi
.
[4]
This is similar to colloquial Azerbaijani.
- Standard Turkish
Annen evde midir?
("Is your mother at home?") is, in Cypriot Turkish,
Anneŋ evdedir?
In Cypriot Turkish, the
reflexive pronoun
in third person is different, namely
geŋni
("him, himself, them, themself"). In Standard Turkish, this would be
kendisi
.
Semantics
[
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]
| This section
needs expansion
. You can help by
adding to it
.
(
January 2017
)
|
Typical question usually do not qualify as standard Turkish questions (see the example above) because question suffixes are usually dropped by native Turkish Cypriots. Another subtle difference is the emphasis on verbs.
See also
[
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]
References
[
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]
Bibliography
[
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]
- Erdo?an Saraco?lu (1992).
Kıbrıs A?zı: Sesbilgisi Ozellikleri, Metin Derlemeleri, Sozluk
. K.K.T.C. Milli E?itim ve Kultur Bakanlı?ı.
ISBN
975-17-1015-4
.
- Yıltan Ta?cı (1986).
Kıbrıs A?zı Dil Ozellikleri
. Lefko?a: Akar Yayıncılık.
External links
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