Languages of Cyprus

This article is about the modern languages. For the ancient Pre-Indo-European language, see Eteocypriot language.
Languages of Cyprus
Sign in the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia in English, Greek, and Turkish
Official
Vernacular
Minority
Foreign
Signed
Keyboard layout

The official languages of the Republic of Cyprus are Greek and Turkish.[2]: art. 3, § 1  The everyday spoken language (vernacular) of Greek Cypriots is Cypriot Greek, and that of Turkish Cypriots is Cypriot Turkish. For official purposes, the standard languages (Standard Modern Greek and Standard Turkish) are used.

According to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of the Council of Europe, Armenian was recognised as a minority language of Cyprus as of 1 December 2002.

Three "religious groups" are recognised by the constitution; two have their own language: Armenian (the language of Armenian Cypriots) and Cypriot Arabic (the language of Maronite Cypriots). Sometimes Kurbetcha, the language of the Kurbet, the Cypriot Roma, is included alongside the other two in literature, but it is not officially recognised in any capacity.[3]

The 2011 census of the Republic recorded 679,883 native speakers of Greek, 34,814 of English, 24,270 of Romanian, 20,984 of Russian and 18,388 of Bulgarian of a total of 840,407. Following the 1974 Turkish invasion, Cyprus was effectively divided into two linguistically near-homogeneous areas: the Turkish-speaking north and the Greek-speaking south;[4]: 2.2  only 1,405 speakers of Turkish reside in territory controlled by the Republic.[5]

The languages of Cyprus have historically exerted influence on one another; Cypriot Greek and Cypriot Turkish borrowed heavily from each other, and Cypriot Greek has helped shape Cypriot Arabic's phonology.[6]: 84 [7]: 223 

  1. ^ "SPECIAL EUROBAROMETER 386 Europeans and their Languages" (PDF). ec.europa.eu. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-01-06.
  2. ^ The Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus (PDF). 1960. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-03. Retrieved 2013-06-26.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hadjioannou Tsiplakou Kappler 2011 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Euromosaic was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ "Population enumerated by age, sex, language spoken and district (1.10.2011) (sheet D1A)". Population – Country of Birth, Citizenship Category, Country of Citizenship, Language, 2011. CYstat. June 2013.[permanent dead link‍]
  6. ^ Gökçeoğlu, Mustafa; Pehlivan, Ahmet (2006). "Greek in Turkish Cypriot Literature". In Kappler, Matthias (ed.). Intercultural Aspects in and Around Turkic Literatures; Proceedings of the international conference held on October 11–12th, 2003 in Nicosia. Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 83–92. ISBN 9783447052856.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Borg 1997 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).