Cypriot Turkish

Cypriot Turkish
Kıbrıs Türkçesi
Native to Northern Cyprus, Cyprus
Native speakers

177,000 all varieties of Turkish in Cyprus (1995)[1]
Turkic
Latin (Turkish alphabet)
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog None

Cypriot Turkish (Turkish: Kıbrıs Türkçesi) is a dialect of the Turkish language spoken by Turkish Cypriots both in Cyprus and among its diaspora.

History

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. 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 spoken to this day in the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey. In addition it has absorbed influences from Greek, Italian and English.

Cypriot Turkish can often be mutually intelligible with Standard Anatolian Turkish, however stronger, more elaborate forms of the dialect may not be understood.

Sounds

Differences between standard Turkish and Cypriot Turkish

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:

Standard Turkish kurt ↔ Cypriot Turkish gurt "wolf"
Standard Turkish taş ↔ Cypriot Turkish daş "stone"
Standard Turkish son ↔ Cypriot Turkish soŋ "end, last"
Standard Turkish bin ↔ Cypriot Turkish biŋ "thousand"
Standard Turkish isteriz ↔ Cypriot Turkish isterik "we want"
Standard Turkish Kıbrıs ↔ Cypriot Turkish Gıprıs "Cyprus"
Standard Turkish hiç ↔ Cypriot Turkish hiş "no, none"

The last two alternations are more specific to Cypriot Turkish.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes
  Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Plosive p b     k ɡ q b    
Affricate                    
Fricative f v ʃ   x ɣ     h  
Nasal m n     ŋ        
Flap/Tap     r                
Lateral     l                
Approximant       j            

Vowels

frontcentralback
unroundedroundedunroundedroundedunroundedrounded
high iy (ü) ɯ (ı)u
mid e (ẹ)œ (ö)  ɯ
low æ (e) ɑ̟ 

Grammar

Cypriot Turkish is structured as VO language as opposed to standard Turkish which is OV language. It is very typical in forming a question.

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

Cypriot Turkish does not use the narrative/indefinite past, and only uses the simple past instead.

Cypriot Turkish also lacks the question suffix of "mi".[2]

In Cypriot Turkish, the reflexive pronoun in third person is different, namely geŋni (him, himself, them, themself). In Standard Turkish, kendisini.

Semantics

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

References

  1. Turkish (Cyprus) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Demir, Nurettin. "Kıbrıs Ağızları Üzerine Notlar" (PDF). Journal of Turcology (in Turkish) (Çukurova University). Retrieved 14 June 2011.

Bibliography

External links

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