Cyprus-Forum.com

[Hristos]

What are the major ethnic groups in Cyprus other than Greek-Cypriot and Turk-Cypriot ?

[Noname75]

Arminians, Maronites and Latin are the official minorities (along with Turkish Cypriots). They are about 1% each or less though. Now in Cyprus we have a lot more Biritish, Russians, Shri Lankies etc than those minorities. Foreigners in Cyprus (not including those minorities) are about 10% of the population.

[X-ite]

Does anybody know who the Latins are? I have never come across one of them and I don't know anybody else who did.
Where do they come from and how many are they?

[Piratis]

Upon the establishment of the Cyprus Republic in 1960, many minority religious groups became recognized through constitutional law. Among these groups were the Maronites, the Armenians and the Latins. The Latins, a Roman Catholic religious group, has a history that dates back many centuries.

Today the Latin population is estimated at approximately 1,700 Cypriot nationals, while the number of Latin registered voters is 645.

In 1960, when the Constitution was being drafted, the group wanted to be referred to as a “Roman Catholic religious group”. The Maronites then objected because they too were Roman Catholic. Taking the initiative, Sir Hugh Foot, the last British Governor of Cyprus, suggested they be referred to as “Latins”. The group accepted the compromise.

“When the 1960 Constitution came into force, our religious group numbered 1,100 people, but it steadily decreased because of deaths, mixed marriages and emigration,” Benito, the group’s elected representative said.

“By 1991, when I was elected Representative, there were only 291 group members on our list and it seemed that we were disappearing. Then I discovered by talking to various people that many Roman Catholics, who had obtained citizenship were uninformed about their constitutional right to belong to the Latin religious group.”

Benito Mantovani told The Cyprus Weekly that now, most Roman Catholics who become Cypriot citizens usually leave the section on their application form for enrollment to the electoral register blank. The reason for this is that most of them are not familiar with the term or its connotation. This causes the community to lose potential members.

When Benito Mantovani was elected as the Representative of the Latin community in 1991, he began a campaign to locate and register all the members who were eligible. He took the initiative after speaking with various Roman Catholics who were not properly informed of their right to be members of the Latin religious group. Thus, Mantovani formed an advisory committee and with the help of a cultural committee and several priests from the community, he managed to raise the population to what it is presently, 1,700.

Despite the fact that only about 50 of the original families are still living in Cyprus, this does not stop the Latin community from preserving their culture and religion. The Latin religious group is directly linked with Rome. Churches have been established in Nicosia, Larnaca and the Limassol seafront. They work closely with other religious groups so they may maintain their religion.

The government of Cyprus has arranged it so that the Latin children may attend the traditional schools of Terra Santa and St. Joseph free of charge.

Community social gatherings are constantly being organized, from church services, to monthly dinners, to recreational activities.

A facility, in which computer skills for employment will be taught, opened on September 24, 2000. This facility will offer leisure activities also.

The Latin community has established itself and has created a voice for itself in Cyprus. The representative, Benito Mantovani seems hopeful about the future. He hopes that the presence of the Latins will have a positive impact on the shaping of Cyprus as a whole.

(from: http://kypros.org/UN/pr070900.htm)

For more information go here:
http://kypros.org/PIO/cyprus_today/sep_dec2002/p20.htm

[Turker]

Noname75 wrote

Arminians, Maronites and Latin are the official minorities (along with Turkish Cypriots).

What does it mean? Are Turkish Cypriots Minority? If you accept that, it means you accept "Taksim" of the island. If you don't accept taksim, then you should remember that Turkish Cypriots are ONE OF TWO CONSTITUTENT COMMUNITIES of Cyprus.

[X-ite]

What does it mean? Are Turkish Cypriots Minority? If you accept that, it means you accept "Taksim" of the island. If you don't accept taksim, then you should remember that Turkish Cypriots are ONE OF TWO CONSTITUTENT COMMUNITIES of Cyprus.

No Turker it doesn't mean he wants "Taksim". This is just to show what the Cypriot population is composed of. It has more to do with sociology than politics ( or at least it should, let's keep it scientific...)

[X-ite]

Plus no matter what happens in politics you can't change your numbers.

[Alasya]

Noname75 said

Quote: "Arminians, Maronites and Latin are the official minorities (along with Turkish Cypriots)".


Turkish Cypriots are not a minority. We Turkish Cypriots are a nation, that has slowly evolved over 500 difficult years, older than many Western nations. Like most Turkish Cypriots, I utterly reject the term "minority", it is both demeaning and paints a misinformed picture of who we are as a people, and of the realities of Cyprus. Cyprus is not a Greek island with a Turkish minority, nor is it Bulgaria! We are more like the Gagauz (turkcede Gagavuz), that is to say, we are our own masters, unique with our own identity.

The only other people I can think of in the World who have a similar multiple-identity are the French Canadians, who today call themselves "Quebecois". This was in order to differentiate themselves to the Anglophone Canadians and to create a new name for their existing nation. The French Canadians suffered the same problems as Turkish Cypriots. Sometimes they called themselves French, sometimes Canadian, possibly out of laziness, as "French Canadian" was too long. Other people who didn`t know the French Canadians labelled them as "French" without making any distinction. The Quebecois, which is how they prefer to be known do not see France as a motherland, rather they reject the whole concept of a motherland. Their identity is both linguistic and based on their unique environment-the province of Quebec. Maybe Turkish Cypriots could follow this example to avoid internal and external confusion?

I say we are a nation, in the sense that we have everything that defines us as a nation. I m not just talking about our parliament, our flag, our constitution (different to Turkey) and our legal system. The above points define us as a nation state, I am referring to our literary tradition, institutions, self-perception, traditions, values and attitudes as well as our unique dialect or language (another debate?). We have our own political parties, schools, universities, poets, composers, writers, musical traditions, and even film makers!

We have a unique dialect, and sub-dialects that is significantly different to Modern Turkish or to other dialects in Anatolia. Sometimes we are incomprehensible to Turks, especially people from Galatia, and Karpaz. Our grammar, phonology, morphology and syntax is different to Modern Turkish and we have thousands of terms that are neither Turkish nor Greek in origin! Cypriot Turkish frequently uses intonation to ask questions, rather than -misin (a Turkish question word), our language has an unmistakable melody, and we use personal pronouns in our statements, that reflect the influence of an indo-European language, possibly Greek. All Turkish Cypriots whether rich or poor, educated or peasant has this common dialect.

We have our own literary tradition (there are books about Turkish Cypriot identity in literature in English by Nese Yasin, Filiz Naldoven, Niyazi Kizrlyurek, Hakki Yucel, Nazif Suleyman, Mustafa Adilooglu, Osman Turkay, and Mehmet Yasin). Kaytarzade Mehmet Nazim was one of the most famous Turkish Cypriot poets in our history.

Now my friend I jope you can understand how population figures mean absolutely nothing to me or indeed to any Turkish Cypriot. In the UK there are around 5 million Scots, 2 million Welsh, out of 60 million people, mostly English. Even in a unitary State like the UK, would it be right to impose majority rule. to have the English nation rule over the Scottish nation? This is what happened since the union of England and Scotland and look where it took the UK. It took the Scottish and Welsh people to demand their own parliaments. Similarly the French Canadians fought for the same rights.

Besides, you cannot rely on population statistics taken from the last census in 1960, forty years ago, and use them so liberally today. I believe Turkish Cypriots are more than 18% today. We are more likely to be between 24-30% of the entire population of Cyprus. But since Cyprus is divided, its not possible to conduct a island wide census, therefore we cannot get an accurate figure.

We Turkish Cypriots are a nation, we are not Turks, and not Cypriots (because there is no pan-Cyprian Cyprus, all we have is a Greek Cypriot state in the South). Either say Turkish Cypriot in one breath without hesitation or we`ll have to find a new name for ourselves to avoid further misunderstanding!

[Alasya]

Did I mention we also have a sense of unity and of belonging. Where ever I travel to in the World and meet a Turkish Cypriot, we always have so much in common, so much to talk about that a mainland Turk and a Greek Cypriot would not be able to penetrate our conversation.

Infact the only charecteristic of a nation that we do not have is a common origin. But in many respects we don`t need to have a common heritage if our people are united today and identify themselves as belonging to one nation.

We are from diverse backrounds. Turkish, Yoruk, Turkmen, Cypriot-Greek, Venetian, Maronite, Sudanese Black Karaman-Greek, Lazi and countless others. But we all identify ourselves as being Turkish Cypriots.

Native Amerindians also assimilated into the French settler population of New France (Quebec), creating a metissage of people of Gallic and American heritage. Similarly many indigenous people to Cyprus were assimilated into the Muslim population of Cyprus during the Ottoman period. There are some very good books covering this.

[Alasya]

The mostly Turkish-speaking Roma Gypsies of Cyprus are yet another minority. Unlike the Maronites and Latins, they chose to be considered as part of / associated with the Turkish Cypriot community in 1960.

There are three groups of Gypsies present on the island, the Ghurbeti or
Turkish-speaking Muslim Gypsies, the Mandi or Greek-speaking Christian
Gypsies and the Romanlar, Turkish-speaking Gypsies from Anatolia. All of
these groups also speak dialects of Ghurbetcha(Khurbetç1), Romançe(Romani)
to a greater or lesser extent. The terms Ghurbetiand Mandiare
self-appellations, others like Kilinjiri, Yiftos, Tsiganos, Khoulliphoiand
even Atsinganibeing ascribed, pejorative terms applied by
Turkish Cypriots and Greek-Cypriots.

The term Gypsy, is for Romany, Sinti, Dom, Lom,
Travellers, Bhurukamin, Yenische, Zabaleen and other peoples who may be
identified by aspects of a Gypsy-likelife-style and culture. We can also refer
to groups such as Tahtacz and Abdallar, both in fact Alawite groups, but
differing in their social relationship to each other and the wider society.
The contentious debate about Alevi identities and Gypsy identity will be
discussed in so far as it is illuminated by particular evidence from
Cyprus. There is anything between 1000 to 1200 Gypsies on the island mostly living in the North according to the DOM Research Center. As I have mentioned earlier, as the last island wide census was 40 years ago, we cannot say with any accuracy how many Gypsies there are. It is made even more complicated by the fact that unlike Greek and Turkish Cypriots who live in a sedentary society, the Roma Gypsies are constantly moving around from North to South. There is not much in the way of research about these people.
The previous and scanty research about the Gypsies of Cyprus has been
either embedded in the colonialist discourse of scientific racism or
hampered by the romanticism of Gypsylorism, almost without exception.