It is the spoken everyday language of most Greek Cypriots. It is also the first language of older Turkish Cypriots from specific villages (e.g. Louroudjina and the Tylliria/Dillirga region) and most other older Turkish Cypriots would speak it as a second language. There is diglossia (in the linguistic sense) between Dhimotiki and the dialect. There are specific settings where speaking Standard Greek is demanded or considered polite, such as in school classes (but not during breaks), in parliament, in the media, and in the presence of non-Cypriot Greeks. Cypriot Greek is common on the internet and on phone text messages.
In general, the stronger the use of dialect in a speaker (closer to the basilect), the more likely he is to be perceived as a villager (????????) or of an uneducated and poor background. This can be particularly stigmatizing within formal and upper class circles.
The social consensus on the High and Low roles of the acrolect and basilect make Cypriot diglossia more like the diglossia of Greece in the mid 19th century (when Dhimotiki was stigmatised), and less like the diglossia of the 20th century (when the consensus had broken down, and Dhimotiki and Katharevousa were competing to become the High language). Cypriot diglossia makes the dialect one of only two Greek dialects currently still widely used; the other, Pontic Greek, is healthier in the former Soviet Union and Turkey than in Greece itself, where its use is increasingly emblematic. Accordingly, Cypriot is the only Greek dialect with a significant presence of spontaneous use online, including blogs and bulletin boards, and even a version of Greeklish reflecting the dialect's distinct phonology.
History and literature
The modern Cypriot dialect is not an evolution of the ancient Arcadocypriot dialect, but evolved from Koine; it belongs to the Southeastern group of Modern Greek dialects, along with the dialects of the Dodecanese and Chios (with which it shares phonological phenomena such as gemination and intervocalic lenition). Cyprus was cut off from the rest of the Greek-speaking world from the 7th to the 10th century A.D due to Arab attacks. It was reintegrated in the Byzantine Empire in 962 to be isolated again in 1191 when it fell to the hands of crusaders. This isolation developed a lot of linguistic characteristics distinct from Byzantine Greek.
In the past hundred years, the dialect has been used in poetry, major poets being Vasilis Michaelides and Dimitris Lipertis. It is also traditionally used for folk songs and poetry, including ?????????? (battle poetry, a form of Playing the dozens) and the tradition of ?????????? (bards). More recently it has been used in Reggae by Hadji Mike and rap by several Cypriot hip hop groups.DNA (Dimiourgoi Neas Antilipsis) a hiphop group from Cypriot released an album named "sihnotites" with 2 tracks in Cypriot. (See also Music of Cyprus).
Locally produced television shows, usually comedies or soap operas, make use of the dialect.
Technical characteristics
Phonology
Double consonants preserved the stressed pronunciation of Ancient Greek.
Double unvoicedplosives (, , ) are pronounced aspirated (, , or depending on the succeeding vowel).
The rest of the double consonants are pronounced as geminates. (e.g. ?? as , ?? as , etc.)
Standard Greek becomes a soft affricate . This sound is usually represented with or the more correct . For example, Standard Greek [ce] meaning "and" becomes Cypriot Greek or . Also Standard Greek ??????? becomes Cypriot Greek . Note however this is not a hard and fast rule (counter-examples include loans from Standard Greek: ??????, ??????, ?????, ???????).
The "palatalization" of kappa after a sigma, i.e. >
Similarly Standard Greek becomes . This sound is usually represented with ?? or the more correct . For example, Standard Greek meaning hand becomes Cypriot Greek or .
Voicing of ?, ? and ? (aspirated consonants in Ancient Greek) before liquids and nasals, to ?, ? and ? respectively. (e.g. ?????? (Cypriot dialect) instead of ?????? (Modern Greek) (= year), ??????? (Cypriot dialect) instead of ???????? (Modern Greek) (= human)).This process is partially reversed in younger speakers due to the influence of Standard Greek.
Deletion of ?, ?, ?, voiced intervocalic fricatives; e.g. ??????????? > ?????????? "little child". In linguistic texts, the deleted fricative is sometimes put in brackets for clarity: ????????(?)??.
: e.g. ???????? > ??????? "human"
Defrication of that function as semi-vowels in Modern Greek to with most of the time modification of the preceding consonant. (e.g. ????? in Standard Greek would be pronounced as ?????? , ?????? in Standard Greek would be pronounced as ??????? ). This is carried further in some parts of Cyprus where speakers use e.g. ??????
Note: The incorporation of this particular type of Turkish morphology is also found in Standard Greek, however as the suffix -????. Cypriot Greek used two ? to phonologically imitate the aspirated k of Turkish.
The suffixes -????/-???/-???(?) for masculine, feminine and neuter respectively, are used to derive diminutives of nouns, in place of Standard Greek -????/-????/-???. The Cypriot Greek suffixes derive from the original -?????/-????/-????(?) with the drop of Intervocalic?.
Vocabulary
The Modern Cypriot lexicon contains loanwords mostly from Italian, Provençal, Turkish and English, and other languages, as well as words unique to Cyprus. Thus typically non-Muslim speakers use standard Muslim expressions such as i(n)shalla(h) or mashalla(h) which have become part of the vocabulary.
The Cypriot lexicon also contains Ancient Greek vocabulary which is no longer used in Standard Greek. Example: ??????????/???? (talk).
Syntax
The verb is: ??? and ?? instead of ????? (Modern Greek). ?? is ambiguous between the negative particle (Standard Greek ???), in front of a verb (e.g. ?? ???????? = ??? ???????? "it doesn't matter"), and the copula (e.g. ?? ???? = ????? ???? "she is well").
"????" used as the Future particle, in contrast to standard Greek "??" (each of these being a different contraction from ????? ??)
Note: ????/?????? and ????/?????? are currently not in use as much as standard Greek ??? and ???. ?????? is a contraction of ?????? ?? etc. Both forms can be used e.g. ?????? ?? ?????? = ?????? ??????.
Besides ?????? as a generic demonstrative, there is also the more specific spatial demonstrative pronoun ???????, -?, -? ('him/her/that there'). (From Standard Greek ???????).
Order of personal pronoun-verb is different than modern Greek, example:
"(He) told me" in Cypriot is "????? ???" instead of standard modern Greek "??? ????"
Spelling
While the ?? spelling is commonly used to represent , it presupposes a following vowel, e.g. ?????. When is found at the end of the word or before a consonant (in loan words), the ?? spelling cannot be used. For example the word < the Turkish ba? meaning "main", cannot be spelled as ????, since that will be interpreted as . Since diacritics are not used outside linguistics, Cypriots will frequently double ? as ?? or recourse to the English spelling instead: ???? or ??sh.
References
Beaudouin, M. 1884: Étude du dialecte chypriote moderne et medieval [Study of the Modern and Medieval Cypriot Dialect] (Paris).
Horrocks, G. 1997: Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers (London), ???. ???. ??? ?. ??????? & ?. ?????????? (????? 2006).
Thumb, A. 1909: Handbuch der griechischen Dialekte [Handbook of Greek Dialects] (Heidelberg).
?????????????, ?. 1994(2): ????????? ??? ???????? ??? ???? ????????? [Dialects and Properties of Neo-Hellenic] (?????).
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