Cypriot Turkish

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.Jennings, Ronald (1993), Christians and Muslims in Ottoman Cyprus and the Mediterranean World, 1571-1640, New York University Press {{ISBN|0-814-74181-9}}. 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 Yörük 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, which is home to approximately 300,000 native Turkish speakers (including varieties of Turkish other than Cypriot) as of 2016 and 1,400 speakers in the south as of 2013.{{cite web |accessdate=2019-11-03 |title=Turkish|url=http://www.ethnologue.com/language/tur |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190606225057/http://www.ethnologue.com/language/tur |archive-date=6 June 2019 |website=Ethnologue}} 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.{{cite journal|first1=Dimitris|last1=Evripidou|first2=Çişe|last2=Çavuşoǧlu|title=Turkish Cypriots' Language Attitudes: The Case of Cypriot Turkish and Standard Turkish in Cyprus|journal=Mediterranean Language Review|date=2015 |issn=0724-7567|pages=119–138|volume=22|jstor=10.13173/medilangrevi.22.2015.0119}}

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
• t↔d, k↔g

::Standard Turkish {{lang|tr|taş}} ↔ Cypriot Turkish {{lang|tr-CY|daş}} "stone"

::Standard Turkish {{lang|tr|kurt}} ↔ Cypriot Turkish {{lang|tr-CY|gurt}} "wolf"

::Standard Turkish {{lang|tr|patates}} ↔ Cypriot Turkish {{lang|tr-CY|badadez}} "potato"

• Preservation of earlier Turkic {{lang|trk|*ñ}}

::Standard Turkish {{lang|tr|nasılsın?}} ↔ Cypriot Turkish {{lang|tr-CY|nasılsıñ?}} "how are you?"

::Standard Turkish {{lang|tr|bin}} ↔ Cypriot Turkish {{lang|tr-CY|biñ}} "thousand"

::Standard Turkish: {{lang|tr|Arabaya binmek}} ↔ Cypriot Turkish: {{lang|tr-CY|Arabaya biñmek}} "getting in the car"

• Changing 1st person plural suffix
• z↔k

::Standard Turkish {{lang|tr|isteriz}} ↔ Cypriot Turkish {{lang|tr-CY|isderik}} "we want"

• Unvoicing of some voiced stops
• b↔p

::Standard Turkish: {{lang|tr|bakla}} ↔ Cypriot Turkish: {{lang|tr-CY|pakla}} "broad beans"

• Lenition of final affricates
• ç ({{IPA|[tʃ]}}) ↔ ş ({{IPA|[ʃ]}})

::Standard Turkish {{lang|tr|hiç}} ↔ Cypriot Turkish {{lang|tr-CY|hiş}} "no, none"

The last two alternations are more specific to Cypriot Turkish and are seen less often in other Turkish vernacular.

Cypriot Turkish consonants are mostly the same as standard Turkish consonants. However, Cypriot Turkish has retained the phonemes {{IPA|/ŋ/}} and {{IPA|/ɣ/}}, whereas standard Turkish lost them.

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 {{lang|tr|Okula gidecek misin?}} is, in Cypriot Turkish, {{lang|tr-CY|Gideceñ okula?}} ("Will you go to school?")

Cypriot Turkish uses the aorist tense instead of the present simple tense, and very often in place of the future tense as well.

• Standard Turkish {{lang|tr|Okula gidiyorum}} or {{lang|tr|Okula gideceğim}} ("I am going to school") are, in Cypriot Turkish, {{lang|tr-CY|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 {{lang|tr|Eve gitmiş}} ("He is reported to have gone home") is, in Cypriot Turkish, not used. Instead {{lang|tr-CY|Eve gitti}} or {{lang|tr-CY|Gitti eve}} ("He went home") suffices.

Cypriot Turkish also lacks the question suffix of {{lang|tr|mi}}.{{cite journal |last=Demir |first=Nurettin |url=http://turkoloji.cu.edu.tr/DILBILIM/nurettin_demir_kibris.pdf |title=Kıbrıs Ağızları Üzerine Notlar |language=Turkish |publisher=Çukurova University |journal=Journal of Turcology |accessdate=14 June 2011 }} This is similar to colloquial Azerbaijani.

• Standard Turkish {{lang|tr|Annen evde midir?}} ("Is your mother at home?") is, in Cypriot Turkish, {{lang|tr-CY|Anneñ evdedir?}}

In Cypriot Turkish, the reflexive pronoun in third person is different, namely {{lang|tr-CY|geñni}} ("him, himself, them, themself"). In Standard Turkish, this would be {{lang|tr|kendisi}}.

{{Expand section|date=January 2017}}

Typical questions 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.

• Languages of Cyprus

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book| title=Kıbrıs Ağzı: Sesbilgisi Özellikleri, Metin Derlemeleri, Sözlük| author=Erdoğan Saracoğlu|publisher=K.K.T.C. Millî Eğitim ve Kültür Bakanlığı|year=1992|isbn= 975-17-1015-4}}
• {{cite book |author= Yıltan Taşçı| title = Kıbrıs Ağzı Dil Özellikleri| publisher = Akar Yayıncılık | year= 1986 | location= Lefkoşa}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20130301042046/http://www.cypnet.co.uk/ncyprus/people/cypturks/language.html List of Cypriot Turkish Vocabulary (in Turkish)]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20121115172456/http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~durduran/cgi-bin/deyim/index.shtml Turkish Cypriot Idioms Search Engine]

{{Languages of Cyprus}}

Category:Turkish language

Turkish, Cypriot

Turkish, Cypriot

Category:Turkish dialects

Category:Subject–verb–object languages

mk:Кипарски Турци