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--- en:digital:kontrasousta:kontrasousta_language_nvp [2024/08/17 10:57] – no_name12
+++ en:digital:kontrasousta:kontrasousta_language_nvp [2025/04/20 19:33] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 Speakers of Cypriot Greek feel it in their bones that Hellenic Greek was imposed on them through the educational system by the use of force, psychological and quite often physical too (and the theoretical linguist in me also wants to point it out that it wasn’t even imposed with serious pedagogical methods that had any chance to produce learning outcomes). Hellenic Greek, or rather an approximation of it produced by teachers who also never acquired it, is mostly the language of Greek nationalism in Cyprus. For very few Cypriots is Hellenic Greek a native language, one acquired without long-lasting trauma (and those people acquired Hellenic Greek by either living in Greece, or having Hellenic Greek family members, not through the educational system of Cyprus). But that’s not the end of it. Greek in Cyprus claimed a lot more victims.
-Contrary to the bi-communal Imaginary, Cyprus was never reciprocally bilingual (reciprocal bilingualism is by far not the norm, ask a Flemish person for the long version of this). While a lot of different communities lived together in Cyprus, Greek (notably, vernacular Cypriot Greek), was the hegemonic language for a very long time, and it wasn’t threatened by any colonial ruler. You can see in [[en:magazines:entropia:no_9|Issue 9]] of [[en:groups:sispirosiatakton|Syspirosi’s]] [[en:magazines:entropia|Entropia]] Magazine how Cypriot Greek was widely spoken by Turkish Cypriots, while the opposite was rare – very few Greek Cypriots were ever bilingual. In the same issue you can also read how the Greek of the nationalist educational system was imposed upon the Cypriot Maronites, driving their native Sanna, a Levantine Arabic language, to near-extinction. “The Third Motherland” is an excellent documentary that touches upon this issue too.
+Contrary to the bi-communal Imaginary, Cyprus was never reciprocally bilingual (reciprocal bilingualism is by far not the norm, ask a Flemish person for the long version of this). While a lot of different communities lived together in Cyprus, Greek (notably, vernacular Cypriot Greek), was the hegemonic language for a very long time, and it wasn’t threatened by any colonial ruler. You can see in [[en:magazines:entropia:no_9|Issue 9]] of [[en:groups:sispirosiatakton|Syspirosi’s]] Entropia [[en:magazines:entropia|Magazine]] how Cypriot Greek was widely spoken by Turkish Cypriots, while the opposite was rare – very few Greek Cypriots were ever bilingual. In the same issue you can also read how the Greek of the nationalist educational system was imposed upon the Cypriot Maronites, driving their native Sanna, a Levantine Arabic language, to near-extinction. “The Third Motherland” is an excellent documentary that touches upon this issue too.
 So Greek, even Cypriot Greek, is as colonial as English, and we don’t have enough fluent speakers of Sanna to organise with. But Turkish is okay, right? You know it’s not. Turkish was also imposed upon a lot of Turkish Cypriots during the several rounds of nationalist violence. Socially hegemonic as it was, Cypriot Greek was either the only native language of many Turkish Cypriots 50 years ago, or their more fluent language among those available to them. Turkish nationalism, much like Greek, also imposed linguistic homogeneity. There’s also Cypriot Turkish of course, for which I am not qualified to talk, but which seems not to be stubborn enough, unlike Cypriot Greek which simply refuses to die.
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 There is need for translations of written texts, and there’s need for interpretation. Few groups make translations a priority, and even among those who do because it is politically desirable, do not always do it enthusiastically, because translations are hard — a bilingual is not automatically a translator. Interpretation is even harder, it’s an amazing but mentally demanding skill, and those who posses it are disproportionately asked put it in use. Importantly, those translations almost never happen between Greek and Turkish, because, as mentioned before, reciprocal bilingualism is almost non-existent in Cyprus, and Turkish Cypriots who natively know Greek are getting older and older.
-It is a challenge to those who want to reduce the milieu’s reliance on English, especially those who are fluent multilinguals, but also to all of us. Can we succeed where 35-33 failed? Can we develop a robust network of radical translators that will make sure most of our political work is accessible in as many languages relevant to Cyprus we want to target?Will we dedicate time in learning new languages? We need infrastructure, and we need dedication to acquiring the necessary knowledge of both the languages, and techniques. And we need to make promoting early childhood multilingualism a political principle, even if on the face of it looks like a surprising priority for a political movement to have.
+It is a challenge to those who want to reduce the milieu’s reliance on English, especially those who are fluent multilinguals, but also to all of us. Can we succeed where 35-33 failed? Can we develop a robust network of radical translators that will make sure most of our political work is accessible in as many languages relevant to Cyprus we want to target? Will we dedicate time in learning new languages? We need infrastructure, and we need dedication to acquiring the necessary knowledge of both the languages, and techniques. And we need to make promoting early childhood multilingualism a political principle, even if on the face of it looks like a surprising priority for a political movement to have.
 And in the mean time, English is still better than linguistic isolation.