Cypriot Turkish
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Cypriot Turkish Kıbrıs Türkçesi, Kıbrıs ağzı |
||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Cyprus | |
| Region: | Cyprus | |
| Total speakers: | 177,000 [1] | |
| Language family: | Altaic[2] (controversial) Turkic Southern Turkic or Oghuz Turkish group Dialect of Turkish Cypriot Turkish |
|
| Writing system: | Latin alphabet | |
| Official status | ||
| Official language of: | Cyprus, Northern Cyprus | |
| Regulated by: | no official regulation | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | tr | |
| ISO 639-2: | tur | |
| ISO 639-3: | tur | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Cypriot Turkish is a dialect of Turkish spoken by Turkish Cypriots.
Contents |
[edit] Sounds
[edit] 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.
[edit] Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | k | g | q | ɢ | ||||
| Affricate | ʧ | ʤ | ||||||||||
| Fricative | f | v | s | z | ʃ | x | ɣ | h | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||
| Flap/Tap | r | |||||||||||
| Lateral | l | |||||||||||
| Approximant | j | |||||||||||
[edit] 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) | a | ||||
[edit] 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).
[edit] 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 "Gideyeng okula?" (Are you going to School?)
In Cypriot Turkish, reflexive pronoun in third person is different, which is "genni" (him, himself, them, themself).
[edit] 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.
An other subtle difference is the emphasis on verbs.
[edit] 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.
