Cypriot Greek ( Greek : κυπριακή ελληνική locally [cipriaˈci elːiniˈci] or κυπριακά [cipriaˈka] ) is the variety of Modern Greek that is spoken by the majority of the Cypriot populace and Greek Cypriot diaspora . It is considered a divergent dialect as it differs from Standard Modern Greek in various aspects of its lexicon , phonetics , phonology , morphology , syntax and even pragmatics , not only for historical reasons but also because of geographical isolation, and extensive contact with typologically distinct languages. It is not mutually intelligible with modern Greek, and as there are no rules of distinguishing a language from a dialect, Cypriot is considered a different language and not a dialect of Greek by some linguists.
39-561: Cypriot Greek is not an evolution of ancient Arcadocypriot Greek , but derives from Byzantine Medieval Greek . It has traditionally been placed in the southeastern group of Modern Greek varieties , along with the dialects of the Dodecanese and Chios (with which it shares several phonological phenomena). Though Cypriot Greek tends to be regarded as a dialect by its speakers, it is unintelligible to speakers of Standard Modern Greek without adequate prior exposure. Greek-speaking Cypriot society
78-658: A July 2014 episode of the American TV series The Leftovers , Alex Malaos's character uses the dialect saying " Εκατάλαβα σε " ('I understood'). In the American mockumentary comedy horror television series What We Do in the Shadows , actress Natasia Demetriou , as the vampiric character Nadja, occasionally exclaims phrases in Cypriot. Today, Cypriot Greek is the other only variety of Modern Greek apart from Standard Modern Greek with
117-513: A contrast between [ɾ] and [r] , which Standard Modern Greek also lacks. The table below, adapted from Arvaniti 2010 , p. 4, depicts the consonantal inventory of Cypriot Greek. Stops /p t c k/ and affricate /t͡ʃ/ are unaspirated and may be pronounced weakly voiced in fast speech. /pʰː tʰː cʰː kʰː/ are always heavily aspirated and they are never preceded by nasals, with the exception of some loans , e.g. /ʃamˈpʰːu/ "shampoo". /t͡ʃ/ and /t͡ʃʰː/ are laminal post-alveolars. /t͡s/
156-497: A family-run estate agents, which was written and created by her brother. On 11 May 2020, a special " lockdown " mini-episode was released online due to the COVID-19 pandemic . At the 2020 BAFTA awards Stath Lets Flats won three awards: Best Male Actor in a comedy, Best Writer of a Comedy, and Best Scripted Comedy. In 2019, Demetriou also starred in and wrote the highly acclaimed BBC Three comedy sketch show Ellie & Natasia ,
195-727: A form of playing the Dozens ) and the tradition of ποιητάρηες ( poiitáries , bards). Cypriot Greek had been historically used by some members of the Turkish Cypriot community , especially after the end of Ottoman control and consequent British administration of the island . In 1960, it was reported that 38% of the Turkish Cypriots were able to speak Greek along with Cypriot Turkish . Some Turkish Cypriots of Nicosia and Paphos were also speaking Cypriot Greek as their mother tongue according to early 20th century population records. In
234-500: A glide [j] ( cf. yeísmo ). The circumstances under which all the different variants surface are not very well understood, but [ʝ(ː)] appear to be favoured in stressed syllables and word-finally, and before /a e/ . Pappas 2009 identifies the following phonological and non-phonological influencing factors: stress, preceding vowel, following vowel, position inside word; and sex, education, region, and time spent living in Greece (where [ʎ]
273-413: A nasal, with the nasal becoming homorganic . This process is not restricted to terminal nasals; singleton stops and affricates always become voiced following a nasal. Word-final /n/ is altogether elided before geminate stops and consonant clusters: Like with /n/ , word-final /s/ assimilates to following [s] and [ʃ] producing geminates: Lastly, word-final /s/ becomes voiced when followed by
312-689: A perceptual study with thirty native speakers of Cypriot Greek, and has found that both closure duration and (the duration and properties of) aspiration provide important cues in distinguishing between the two kinds of stops, but aspiration is slightly more significant. Word-final /n/ assimilates with succeeding consonants—other than stops and affricates—at word boundaries producing post-lexical geminates. Consequently, geminate voiced fricatives, though generally not phonemic, do occur as allophones. Below are some examples of geminates to arise from sandhi . In contrast, singleton stops and affricates do not undergo gemination, but become fully voiced when preceded by
351-676: A second series in 2023. Natasia Charlotte Demetriou was born in London , the daughter of an English mother and Greek-Cypriot father. She was raised in North London . Her younger brother, Jamie Demetriou , is a comedian and actor with whom she often collaborates. She studied acting at the University of Leeds . Prior to becoming a professional comedian, Demetriou worked as a makeup artist, notably working on music videos for Boy Better Know . Demetriou's debut show, You'll Never Have All of Me , won
390-533: A show inspired by social anxiety and being a woman in today's society, with Ellie White . In March 2020, it was reported that BBC commissioned a six-episode series, but it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since March 2019, Demetriou has starred as Nadja, a Greek Romani vampire, in the critically acclaimed FX horror comedy series What We Do in the Shadows . The series was created by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi , based upon their 2014 film of
429-557: A significant presence of spontaneous use online, including blogs and internet forums , and there exists a variant of Greeklish that reflects its distinct phonology . Studies of the phonology of Cypriot Greek are few and tend to examine very specific phenomena, e.g. gemination , "glide hardening". A general overview of the phonology of Cypriot Greek has ever been attempted only once, by Newton 1972 , but parts of it are now contested. Cypriot Greek has geminate and palato-alveolar consonants , which Standard Modern Greek lacks, as well as
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#1732855762345468-517: A uniquely Cypriot name). The 2006 feature film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest features actor Jimmy Roussounis arguing in Cypriot with another crew member speaking Kibrizlija (Cypriot Turkish) about a captain's hat they find in the sea. Peter Polycarpou routinely spoke in Cypriot in his role as Chris Theodopolopoudos in the British television comedy series Birds of a Feather . In
507-786: A voiced consonant belonging to the same phrase, like in Standard Greek: Cypriot Greek has a five-vowel system / i , u , e , o , a / that is nearly identical to that of Standard Modern Greek. Close vowels /i u/ following /t/ at the end of an utterance are regularly reduced (50% of all cases presented in study) to "fricated vowels" (40% of all cases, cf. Slavic yers ), and are sometimes elided altogether (5% of all cases). In glide-less analyses, /i/ may alternate with [k] or [c] , e.g. [kluvi] "cage" → [klufca] "cages", or [kulːuɾi] " koulouri " → [kulːuɾ̥ka] "koulouria"; and, like in Standard Modern Greek, it
546-1040: A word is rare and normally limited to certain verb forms. Because of that possibility, however, when words with antepenultimate stress are followed by an enclitic in Cypriot Greek, no extra stress is added unlike Standard Modern Greek in which stress falls only on one of the last three syllables), e.g. Cypriot Greek το ποδήλατον μου [to poˈðilato‿mːu] , Standard Modern Greek το ποδήλατό μου [to poˌðilaˈto‿mu] "my bicycle". An overview of syntactic and morphological differences between Standard Modern Greek and Cypriot Greek can be found in Hadjioannou, Tsiplakou & Kappler 2011 , pp. 568–9. More loanwords are in everyday use than in Standard Modern Greek. These come from Old French , Italian , Occitan , Turkish and, increasingly, from English . There are also Arabic expressions (via Turkish) like μάσ̌σ̌αλλα [ˈmaʃːalːa] " mashallah " and ίσ̌σ̌αλλα [ˈiʃːalːa] " inshallah ". Much of
585-405: Is diglossic , with vernacular Cypriot Greek (the "low" variety) and Standard Modern Greek (the "high" variety). Cypriot Greek is itself a dialect continuum with an emerging koine . Davy, Ioannou & Panayotou (1996) have argued that diglossia has given way to a "post-diglossic [dialectal] continuum [...] a quasi-continuous spread of overlapping varieties". Cyprus was cut off from the rest of
624-543: Is an English actress, comedian, and screenwriter. She is best known for her roles as Nadja in the FX comedy horror series What We Do in the Shadows (2019–present) and Sophie in the Channel 4 sitcom Stath Lets Flats (2018–2021). In 2022, Demetriou co-wrote and starred in the BBC sketch show Ellie & Natasia , alongside her comedy partner Ellie White . The show was renewed for
663-508: Is commonly written in the Latin script , and English spelling conventions may be adopted for shared sounds, e.g. ⟨sh⟩ for /ʃ/ (and /ʃː/ ). Cypriot Greek demonstrates a prevalence of archaic elements. The following comparisons provide a visual representation of this phenomenon. The tables below do not imply that they were written down the same in Attic Greek but it is simply using
702-463: Is not a feature of any local patois , but rather a supra-local feature." The palatal nasal [ɲ] is produced somewhat longer than other single nasals, though not as long as geminates. /z/ is similarly "rather long". The alveolar trill /r/ is the geminate counterpart of the tap /ɾ/ . In analyses that posit a phonemic (but not phonetic) glide /j/ , palatals and postalveolars arise from CJV (consonant–glide–vowel) clusters, namely: The glide
741-1067: Is not assimilated, but hardens to an obstruent [c] after /p t f v θ ð/ and to [k] after /ɾ/ . At any rate, velar stops and fricatives are in complementary distribution with palatals and postalveolars before front vowels /e i/ ; that is to say, broadly, /k kʰː/ are palatalised to either [c cʰː] or [t͡ʃ t͡ʃʰː] ; /x xː/ to [ ç çː] or [ʃ ʃː] ; and /ɣ/ to [ʝ] . There is considerable disagreement on how to classify Cypriot Greek geminates, though they are now generally understood to be "geminates proper" (rather than clusters of identical phonemes or " fortis " consonants). Geminates are 1.5 to 2 times longer than singletons, depending, primarily, on position and stress. Geminates occur both word-initially and word-medially. Word-initial geminates tend to be somewhat longer. Tserdanelis & Arvaniti 2001 have found that "for stops, in particular, this lengthening affects both closure duration and VOT ", but Davy & Panayotou 2003 claim that stops contrast only in aspiration, and not duration. Armosti 2010 undertook
780-409: Is pronounced [ɲ] when found between /m/ and another vowel that belongs to the same syllable, e.g. [mɲa] "one" (f.). Cypriot Greek has "dynamic" stress . Both consonants and vowels are longer in stressed than in unstressed syllables, and the effect is stronger word-initially. There is only one stress per word, and it can fall on any of the last four syllables. Stress on the fourth-last syllable in
819-454: Is pronounced similarly to /t͡ʃʰː/ , in terms of closure duration and aspiration. Voiced fricatives /v ð ɣ/ are often pronounced as approximants and they are regularly elided when intervocalic . /ʝ/ is similarly often realised as an approximant [j] in weak positions. The palatal lateral approximant [ʎ] is most often realised as a singleton or geminate lateral [ʎ(ː)] or a singleton or geminate fricative [ʝ(ː)] , and sometimes as
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#1732855762345858-399: Is standard). Arvaniti 2010 notes that speakers of some local varieties, notably that of Larnaca , "substitute" the geminate fricative for /ʎ/ , but Pappas 2009 contests this, saying that, " [ʝ(ː)] is robustly present in the three urban areas of Lefkosia, Lemesos and Larnaka as well as the rural Kokinohoria region, especially among teenaged speakers ... the innovative pronunciation [ʝ(ː)]
897-618: Is the Idalion Tablet . A significant literary source on the vocabulary comes from the lexicon of 5th century AD grammarian Hesychius . The prevailing dialect spoken in southern Greece (including Achaea, the Argolid, Laconia, Crete, and Rhodes) at the end of the Bronze Age, was Proto-Arcado-Cypriot. The Mycenaean and Arcado-Cypriot dialects belong to the same group, known as Achaean. Certain common innovations of Arcadian and Cypriot, as attested in
936-662: The Skinny Debutant Award at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe . She was a longtime member of sketch comedy troupe Oyster Eyes and has written for Anna & Katy and The Midnight Beast . Demetriou made her TV debut in 2013. In 2015, she was in the comedy sketch show pilot of People Time on BBC Three with Ellie White , alongside her brother Jamie Demetriou , with Claudia O’Doherty , Liam Williams , Alistair Roberts and Daran Johnson. In 2018, she played sister to her real life brother Jamie Demetriou's Stath in Channel 4 sitcom , Stath Lets Flats , about
975-467: The Cypriot core vocabulary is different from the modern standard's, e.g. συντυχάννω [sindiˈxanːo] in addition to μιλώ "I talk", θωρώ [θοˈɾo] instead of βλέπω "I look", etc. A historically interesting example is the occasional use of archaic πόθεν instead of από πού for the interrogative "from where?" which makes its closest translation to the English "whence" which is also archaic in most of
1014-471: The English speaking world. Ethnologue reports that the lexical similarity between Cypriot Greek and Demotic Greek is in the range of 84–93%. There is no established orthography for Cypriot Greek. Efforts have been made to introduce diacritics to the Greek alphabet to represent palato-alveolar consonants found in Cypriot, but not in Standard Modern Greek, e.g. the combining caron ⟨ˇ⟩ , by
1053-651: The Greek-speaking world from the 7th to the 10th centuries AD 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 the Crusaders . These periods of isolation led to the development of various linguistic characteristics distinct from Byzantine Greek . The oldest surviving written works in Cypriot date back to the Medieval period . Some of these are:
1092-569: The Greeks on their return home carried Agapenor and the Arcadian fleet to Cyprus, and so Agapenor became the founder of Paphos , and built the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Palaepaphos (Old Paphos). The establishment happened before 1100 BC. With the arrival of Dorians in the Peloponnese, a part of the population moved to Cyprus, and the rest was limited to the Arcadian mountains. According to John T Hooker,
1131-605: The ancient αγρίζω, from άγριος. pronunciation κανένας δεν εβρέθηκεν για να την ι-ξηλείψη, κανένας, γιατί σιέπει την που τα 'ψη ο Θεός μου. Η Ρωμιοσύνη εν να χαθή, όντες ο κόσμος λείψει! 19 Σφάξε μας ούλους τζι ας γενεί το γαίμαν μας αυλάτζιν, κάμε τον κόσμον ματζιελλειόν τζαι τους Ρωμιούς ταούλλια, αμμά ξέρε πως ύλαντρον όντες κοπεί καβάτζιν τριγύρου του πετάσσουνται τρακόσια παραπούλια. Το 'νιν αντάν να τρώ' την γην, τρώει την γην θαρκέται μα πάντα τζιείνον τρώεται τζαι τζιείνον καταλυέται. Arcadocypriot Greek Arcadocypriot , or southern Achaean ,
1170-677: The authors of the "Syntychies" lexicographic database Archived 2021-04-13 at the Wayback Machine at the University of Cyprus . When diacritics are not used, an epenthetic ⟨ι⟩ —often accompanied by the systematic substitution of the preceding consonant letter—may be used to the same effect (as in Polish ), e.g. Standard Modern Greek παντζάρι [paˈ(n)d͡zaɾi] → Cypriot Greek ππαντζ ι άρι [pʰːaˈnd͡ʒaɾi] , Standard Modern Greek χέρι [ˈçeɾi] → Cypriot Greek σι έρι [ˈʃeɾi] . Geminates (and aspirates ) are represented by two of
1209-774: The collapse of the Mycenaean world, communication ended, and Cypriot was differentiated from Arcadian. It was written until the 3rd century BC using the Cypriot syllabary . Tsan was a letter in use only in Arcadia until around the 6th century BC. Arcadocypriot kept many characteristics of Mycenaean, early lost in Attic and Ionic, such as the /w/ sound ( digamma ). ποσκατυβλάψη poskatublapse (Attic proskatablapsei ) Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Natasia Demetriou Natasia Charlotte Demetriou
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1248-516: The first millennium BC, indicate that they represent vernaculars that had slightly diverged from the Mycenaean administrative language, sometime before a migration to Cyprus; possibly during the 13th or 12th century BC. Pausanias reported: Agapenor , the son of Ancaeus , the son of Lycurgus , who was king after Echemus , led the Arcadians to Troy . After the capture of Troy the storm that overtook
1287-492: The late 1970s, Minister of Education Chrysostomos A. Sofianos upgraded the status of Cypriot by introducing it in education. More recently, it has been used in music , e.g. in reggae by Hadji Mike and in rap by several Cypriot hip hop groups, such as Dimiourgoi Neas Antilipsis (DNA). Locally produced television shows, usually comedies or soap operas, make use of the dialect, for example with Vourate Geitonoi ( βουράτε instead of τρέξτε ) or Oi Takkoi ( Τάκκος being
1326-532: The legal code of the Kingdom of Cyprus , the Assizes of Jerusalem ; the chronicles of Leontios Machairas and Georgios Boustronios ; and a collection of sonnets in the manner of Francesco Petrarca . In the past hundred years, the dialect has been used in poetry (with major poets being Vasilis Michaelides and Dimitris Lipertis ). It is also traditionally used in folk songs and τσιαττιστά ( tsiattistá , battle poetry,
1365-424: The modern Greek alphabet's pronunciation system applied on attic Greek for comparison purposes. The classical attic Greek X was pronounced as an aspirated Κ similar to the English K. Θ = aspirated Τ, Γ = ΓΚ/ΓΓ and Β = ΜΠ. In classical attic Greek Η was pronounced a long Ε and not like the modern Greek I, Y pronunciation έρκουμαι αγκρίζω is often confused for an English loan word but it's actually derived from
1404-520: The preferable explanation for the general historico-linguistic picture is that in the Bronze Age , at the time of the great Mycenaean expansion, a dialect of a high degree of uniformity was spoken both in Cyprus and in the Peloponnese but that at some subsequent epoch the speakers of West Greek intruded upon the Peloponnese and occupied the coastal states, but made no significant inroads into Arcadia. After
1443-452: The same letter, e.g. σή μμ ερα [ˈsimːeɾa] "today", though this may not be done in cases where the spelling would not coincide with Standard Modern Greek's, e.g. σήμμερα would still be spelt σήμερα . Despite the centuries-long existence of Greek Cypriot literature, the dialect wasn't widely written until the rise of computer-mediated communication in the 2000s. Online and in text messaging , Cypriot Greek, like Standard Modern Greek,
1482-697: The same name . The mockumentary follows three vampires (Laszlo, Nadja, and Nandor) living in a house in Staten Island and trying to cope with modern-day New York City, along with an energy vampire (Colin) and Nandor's human familiar (Guillermo). The show co-stars Kayvan Novak , Matt Berry , Harvey Guillén and Mark Proksch . The second season of ten episodes debuted in April 2020. Starting 18 May 2020, Demetriou and Vic Reeves co-hosted Netflix 's unscripted reality competition show The Big Flower Fight . The eight-part series sees 10 pairs of contestants in
1521-549: Was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia in the central Peloponnese and in Cyprus . Its resemblance to Mycenaean Greek , as it is known from the Linear B corpus, indicates that they are closely related to it, and belong to the same dialect group, known as Achaean. In Cyprus the dialect was written using solely the Cypriot syllabary . The most extensive surviving text of the dialect
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