Cyprus-Forum.com

[magikthrill]

hey guys

the Greek Cypriot dialect (as are many Greek island dialects) is quite different from the official dialect of Greee (mainland). I've noticed most of the influences come from Turkish and maybe English (for example Greeks cannot pronounce the "sh" sound very well) .

Officially though Greek is used (writing obviously and also in the media and politics from what ive noticed) even though you can spot a GC no matter how he talks

I was wondering what is the case with Turkish (mainland vs Cyprus). Aside from vocabular are there ways in which words are pronounced colloquially and is the "official" language different from the spoken one the way it is in Cyprus?

[Main_Source]

Some of the GC dialect has Turkish influences and some is a very close dialect to ancient Greek. Although, I know that other Greek islands speak very different to mailand Greeks and have a similar dialect to the GC. Like in Crete, instead of saying 'OXI' or 'OI'...they say 'OSHI'. Thats why, you go to a Greek island and tell them your from Cyprus, they love you.

Some of my TC friends told me they are kinda in the same boat, where the dialect they speak is different to mainland Turks....and like the GC, they speak more of a kinda slang than the people from the mainland.

[metecyp]

magikthrill, what you said about Greek in Cyprus and its relation to Greek in Greece is pretty much the same for Turkish in Cyprus and its relation to Turkish in Turkey.

[insan]

hey guys

the Greek Cypriot dialect (as are many Greek island dialects) is quite different from the official dialect of Greee (mainland). I've noticed most of the influences come from Turkish and maybe English (for example Greeks cannot pronounce the "sh" sound very well) .

This is almost same for TC dialect. Greek(the Greek dialect of Rums) has much influence on TC dialect. A similar sounding dialect can be seen in Aegean region where once mostly Greeks(Rum = Ottoman Greeks) were living.

The most evident influence of English on Tc dialect is the pronounciation of "ing". Most of the motherland Turks who have an average and average- level English cannot pronounce "ing" properly. For instance they pronounce coming as comink.

TCs can properly pronounce "ing" and made this suffix a peculiarity for their dialect. Here's some example:

TC dialect

Geling = It has two meanings depends on how you accentuate it
a) Come on.
b) Are you coming?

Turkish dialect
Gelin = Come on.

Officially though Greek is used (writing obviously and also in the media and politics from what ive noticed) even though you can spot a GC no matter how he talks.

This is also same for TCs. Although TCs read and write Turkish with a an accent and style very similar with mainland Turkish; a TC can easily identify him/her whether he/she is a TC or not. However a mainland Turk that knows nothing or less about TC dialect; generally thinks that he/she is from eastern regions of Turkey. In some multi-national places of Istanbul; such as Laleli, Aksaray, Sultanahmet etc., when a TC enters a shop and ask something to the shop assistant; mostly gets an irrelevant response in English, Yugoslavian or Russian. Because of TC dialect is too unfamiliar to the ears of most of the mainland Turks, they think the TC is one of the foreign tourist who they frequently meet in their district.

I was wondering what is the case with Turkish (mainland vs Cyprus). Aside from vocabular are there ways in which words are pronounced colloquially and is the "official" language different from the spoken one the way it is in Cyprus?

I can say that the colloqquial TC Turkish(particularly in villages) is pronounced %80 different from official Turkish language. In Turkey, there are some regions that people who lives there pronounce the words %99 different than the official language.

Some examples:

TC:

Korkmuyorum ( I don't afraid) = Gorkmuyorum

Black Sea:

Korkmayrum

East Anatolia:

Korkmirem

Aegean:

Korkmuyom

[magikthrill]

insan,

thanks so much for that detailed resposne. exactly what i was looking for. i also supsected since Turkey is such a huge area that differnet places pronounce things differnetly.

the same applies to Greece but the thing is in Greece that the only people I know of who use their dialect extensively (both pronounciation and vocabulary) are some people from Crete. In other parts the only thing that has remained is certain pronounciations as the older generations fade away.

[Svetlana]

Many British people moving to Cyprus, go to evening classes or buy CDs to learn Greek (proper Greek). When they get here, they speak in a Greek which Cypriots find hard to understand - and who promptly reply in English!!!

Lana

[Main_Source]

I dont understand the mainland Greek dialect at all lol. Was going to Cyprus via Athens airport and they had different words for everything.

[tarama]

Many British people moving to Cyprus, go to evening classes or buy CDs to learn Greek (proper Greek). When they get here, they speak in a Greek which Cypriots find hard to understand - and who promptly reply in English!!!

Lana

Dear Svetlana, you are very wrong here. Its not the proper Greek that people don’t understand. It’s the way British people pronounce some words, which is not correct Greek. All GC's know the proper language, especially from ages to 50 and down. A dialect is a flavor on a language, nothing else
Regards

[garbitsch]

WE consider our accent more practical in contrast to standard Turkish. e.g:
Geliyor musun? (Are you coming?) is said in standard Turkish, but "gelecen?" is used by T. Cypriots.
Some Turks consider Cypriot accent as funny, but some think it sounds like the Turkish spoken by gypsies in Istanbul. They usually confuse both dialects. In Turkish Cypriot accent, we use too many Greek idioms and also Italian words, such as gantzelli (cancello) = gate door, gappella (cappella) = hat, bandofla (pantofola) = slippers and bulli (pollo) = chicken. Also Cypriot Turkish does not have question tags (hope i am using this word correctly). Such as:
In Turkey you ask: Evli misin? means "Are you married?" , but in Cypriot you go "Evlisin?", which in fact means "you are married" when it is not used as a question. This is something borrowed from Greek and Italian. My thesis is that, the Italians under Venetian rule had influenced the Greek language and when the Turks came to Cyprus, they were affected by the Greek.
I hope this info is helpful

P.S: When I am in Turkey, I use the standard Turkish, because if I speak in Cypriot accent, everybody starts staring at me, since they think it's a weird language.
Main_Source: Many TCs in London do not understand the Turkish spoken in Turkey either. I mean, there are new words (many usually borrowed from other languages) and they dont know these words. Some get really angry when Turks in Turkey use foreign words.

[efe]

main accents i can think of:

1)istanbul accent (official + considered polite)

2)aegean
- also has sub groups. for ex: izmir (smyrna) people use different words for certain stuff. for tomatoes, istanbul accent: domates, izmir: domat, for corn-> istanbul: misir izmir: dari

3)central anatolian

4)east

5)black sea (made fun of frequently)

6)southeastern (kurdish influence, sounds arabic/persian even to us)
-also has sub groups from city to city. (made fun of constantly)

7)gypsy

cypriot

9)immigrant accent (those people who recently moved from bulgaria, yugoslavia, greece to turkey) (their mother tongue is turkish though)

10) thrace??

did i forget any?