Cypriot Turkish

Cypriot Turkish is a dialect of Turkish spoken by Turkish Cypriots.

Sounds

Differences from standard ("İstanbul") 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:

• Voicing of some unvoiced stops
• t↔d, k↔g

Standard Turkish kurt ↔ Cypriot Turkish gurd "worm"

• Preservation of earlier Turkic *ŋ

Standard Turkish son ↔ Cypriot Turkish soñ "end, last"

Standard Turkish bin ↔ Cypriot Turkish biñ "thousand"

• Unvoicing of some voiced stops
• b↔p

Standard Turkish Kıbrıs ↔ Cypriot Turkish Kıprız "Cyprus"

• Lenition of final affricates
• ç(ʧ)↔ş(ʃ)

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	t̪	d̪			k	g	q	ɢ
Affricate					ʧ	ʤ
Fricative	f	v	s̟	z̟	ʃ		x	ɣ			h
Nasal	m		n				ŋ
Flap/Tap			r
Lateral			l
Approximant					j

Vowels

	front		central		back
	unrounded	rounded	unrounded	rounded	unrounded	rounded
high	i	y (ü)			ɯ (ı)	u
mid	e (ẹ)	œ (ö)				o
low	æ (e)		ɑ̟

Writing System

Cypriot Turkish is usually written as standard Turkish, using the Turkish latin alphabet. When it is necessary to express sounds not represented in the Turkish alphabet, the following symbols are used: ḳ(q), ġ(ɢ), ḥ or ḫ(x), ñ(ŋ).

Grammar

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

• Standard Turkish "Okula gidecek misin?" in Cypriot Turkish "Gideceng okula?" (Are you going to School?)

In Cypriot Turkish, reflexive pronoun in third person is different, which is "genni" (him, himself, them, themself).

Semantics

Typical question sentences most of the time do not qualify as standard Turkish question. See example above. This is due to question suffixes are most of the time dropped by native Turkish Cypriots.

Another subtle difference is the emphasis on verbs.

See also

• Gibrizlija
• Turkish language
• Cypriot Greek

References

• Erdoğan Saracoğlu (1992). Kıbrıs Ağzı: Sesbilgisi Özellikleri, Metin Derlemeleri, Sözlük. K.K.T.C. Millî Eğitim ve Kültür Bakanlığı. ISBN 975-17-1015-4.
• Yıltan Taşçı (1986). Kıbrıs Ağzı Dil Özellikleri. Lefkoşa: Akar Yayıncılık.

External links

• List of Cypriot Turkish Vocabulary (in Turkish)
• Turkish Cypriot Idioms Search Engine