Cyprus-Forum.com

[boulio]

How did greek cypriots and turkish cypriots communicate before the turkish "peace operation"?

[magikthrill]

from my understanding (grandparents, mom, aunts, uncles etc) it depended on the villages. in my moms village (vasili) for example there was not much communication everyone minded their own business.

in my grandmothers village on the other hand (patriki) i know that many GCs spoke little turkish and few TCs spoke some greek and there was more communication. and coincidentally, this village had no "lost persons" during the "peace operation"

im not sure how true this all is. just from word of mouth.

[mehmet]

My mother's family lived in a mixed village and almost all the Turkish Cypriot's spoke both manguages. I'm not sure about the reverse. In my father's village too, many Turkish Cypriot's spoke Greek but my fathers village was one of those where the population was originally Greek Christians who converted to Islam in Ottoman times so propbably sopke Greek better than Turkish anyway. When my grandmother was suffering from dementia before she die she completely lost her ability to speak in Turkish and only spoke in Greek.

[Bananiot]

You are referring to Louroutzina, aren't you Mehmet? I know some turkish cypriots from this village. They still speak perfect cypriot greek and they overwhelmingly voted for the solution and reunification of our country.

[brother]

My parents speak both as they were in a mixed village but many of the gc did not speak turkish.

[erolz]

my father (and his siblings / cousins) all spoke Turkish and Greek and English.

Generally more TC spoke greek in % terms than Greeks spoke Turkish, at least thats my understanding.

[MicAtCyp]

One of my two grandpas knew better Turkish than Greek. My uncle was partner with a TC in fact after the opening of the gates they met to settle pending matters. They were communicating in English.My mother and father knew very little Turkish.

Anladin mi re bullio?

[boulio]

mehmet you are probably correct about the conversion to islam:


"... for of 30,000 or more inhabitants in Nicosia there are scarcely
4,000 or 5,000 Turks, and there are not 12,000 or 1 3,000 of these in
all the island, most of whom are renegades who have adopted Islam to
enjoy greater quiet; so that it should not be hard to protect the island
from the tyranny of the Turk and to re-establish the Christian faith..."
Girolamo Dandini, Professor of Theology at Perugia,
Sent by Pope Clement VIII as nuncio to Lebanon, visited Cyprus in 1596

[mehmet]

bananiot,

yes I am referring to Lourijina. I thought there was more than one such place where this conversion to Islam occurred. Is it the only one?

[Bananiot]

Probably not, because many turkish cypriot villages retained their greek name which on some occasions refered to a saint, eg st iacovos or ayios Iacovos (near Sigrasi and Tricomo (Iskele).