Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- en:magazines:traino:no_10:dialect [2025/02/08 10:41] – no_name12
+++ en:magazines:traino:no_10:dialect [2025/04/20 19:33] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 "One of the most serious intellectual weaknesses of our young people is **linguistic deficiency**. Not only our uneducated but also our educated youth encounter insurmountable difficulties, especially in the spoken word, whose natural rapid rhythm requires a rich linguistic treasury and wide linguistic training. **Linguistically heterogeneous** and uneven full stops, phrases disjointed, sentences incoherent, **unhellenic expressions**, words that are not meant literally, adjectives faded, **vocabulary poor, syntax loose**, all together have created **a meagre discourse without without roundness, without precision,** without grace, in which the rough struggle and the clumsy - most of the times - effort to overcome successive expressive difficulties can be seen".
-And these were written at the time of the EOKA struggle, for today's supposed "golden youth". On the contrary, 200 years ago, when Cypriots had not yet been "nativised" and their language had not yet taken a back seat, Monk Barsky found them completely different: **"Almost everyone in Cyprus is quick in perception and eloquent in speech. "**
+And these were written at the time of the EOKA struggle, for today's supposed "golden youth". On the contrary, 200 years ago, when Cypriots had not yet been "nativized" and their language had not yet taken a back seat, Monk Barsky found them completely different: **"Almost everyone in Cyprus is quick in perception and eloquent in speech. "**
@@ Line 57: / Line 57: @@
 //**The oppression of dialects**//
+All students who speak a national language variant other than the school language are subjected to the brutal condemnation of their mother tongue at their first language lesson, once they are in the classroom. The entire semantic potential, which they possess and thanks to which they have been able to communicate wonderfully with their environment up to that moment, is relegated by the teacher to the category of error ('that's not right'), poor quality ('say it better') and non-language ('that's not what it's called'). This condemnation of his/her mother tongue is for the student a sudden and unjust questioning of his/her ability to handle language and all its intricacies with ease and creativity, it is a denial of his/her undeniable ability to mean and communicate at all levels, from the expression of needs and desires to the delivery, to the transmission of information and expression at the abstract level of imagination.
+Once in the new environment of the school, the student speaker of a (local or social) dialect learns from the teacher that s/he cannot speak, instead of being informed that besides his/her own language there is another variant of the school language, which s/he must learn, because it is more suitable for school and formal communication conditions, and therefore necessary for educational success, but also for social advancement. Instead of this information, which paves the way to the learning of the school language by all students without exception, the teacher, unwittingly and because of language myths, does something extremely violent and absurd; he or she challenges the students' mastery of the language. A logical consequence is what happens daily and systematically in all schools, students self-censor themselves, stop speaking in the classroom and instead of expressing themselves spontaneously, they search each time for what the teacher's accepted formulation would be. Thus, they usually babble like speechless beings, hesitate and start again, and limit themselves imitatively to the ready-made formulations of the textbook. In the classroom, students become mute, while they regain all natural comfort in creative speech once they are outside the school setting and the heavy linguistic censorship of the school.
+Anna Frangondaki, "Language and ideology"</WRAP>
+//**Forms of Resistance: political and cultural autonomy**//
+In the 1950s, however, there was a revival of interest in the written and spoken language of the Cypriot dialect. Beyond folklore, a series of articles by Tefkros Anthias in Haravgi in the late 50s began a small shift in the reappraisal of the Cypriot dialect. During Independence the progressive realisation among Cypriots that they could live without being a province of the national centre certainly gave a boost to the preservation of the Cypriot dialect in some ghettos. From 1960 to 74, however, the Ministry of Education and the army (the mechanisms by which the Greek state implanted its Greek national identity and language) remained in the hands of the Greek embassy. Thus the ridicule of the Cypriot dialect and the inferiority complex of the Cypriots continued. The language was the mechanism through which Athens insisted on submitting to the Cypriots that they were poor natives without culture in the face of the supposed greatness of the Neo-Hellenic Nation. However, the discontent of the Cypriots with the constant interventions of the Athenian state, with the division that existed in Cyprus from 64 to 67, led to the development of what Attalides calls "Cypriot consciousness". A phenomenon articulated in the phrase "Cyprus for Cypriots". The phrase appeared as a slogan on the walls and the development of Cypriot consciousness among Cypriots was one of the charges against Makarios in the period 72-74. After 74, the underground Cypro-centric tendencies appeared more forcefully and openly. The relationship between Cypriot consciousness and the dialect, however, was not direct. The main peak of Cypriot consciousness until recently was to a large extent the political demand for the complete independence of Cyprus. Only on a secondary level did this '"consciousness" emphasise the need for cultural dialogue (not just coexistence) with the Turkish Cypriots. In fact, the Neo- Cypriots of the 1970s remained prisoners of the "nativisation" imposed on them by the national colonialism of the "motherland" state. Only towards the end of the 70s and beginning of the 80s, with the publication of the 'Cypriot History' by K. Graikos, did the process of cultural self-identification of the Cypriot consciousness begin. It is in this context that some articles on the ghettoization and suppression of the Cypriot dialect appeared. Certainly a milestone for such a problematic is the article by Mr. Leontiou, excerpts of which we publish below. Mr Leontiou does not include his text in the effort of cultural self-identification. At one point in his article, in fact, he clearly states that he does not consider the politicization of language as a wise action. The article is a landmark, however, because it uses a modern scientific approach to analyse the self-ridicule, self-deprecation and general schizophrenia that Cypriots experience when they are forced to regard the living language they speak as inferior. He stresses at the outset the vagueness of the distinction between language and dialect and concludes with a more general reference to the oppression of diversity by the homogeneous language of nations.
+{{:wiki:media:magazines:traino:traino10_dialektos1.png?800|}}
+//**Nationalism, authority and language in Cyprus**//
+Towards the end of the 1980s the reappearance of a neo-nationalist discourse promoted by the media group DIAS led to a Modern Greek counter-offensive. The main edge of this linguistic attack was initially the use of English. The observation was of course correct. With the separation of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots after 74, the interaction of Greek and Turkish in the Cypriot dialect definitely (for the time being) stopped and was replaced by the interaction of Greek and English (in the Greek Modern dialect). The evolution was inevitable for 2 reasons: The economic development itself made English the necessary second language of the Cypriots since the island had become a commercial centre. The dialect itself, however, seems to have the tendency that the Helleno-centricists so dislike - the tendency to mix. Another necessary characteristic for a place that has been a geographical crossroads for so many centuries.
+Helleno-centrics, of course, could be understood such things.
+<WRAP center round box 40%> **It is a matter of dignity. We have a language too. We speak it. In the name of 10,000 years of history.**</WRAP>
+The attack, however, was probably driven by two other factors. In part, modern neo-nationalism supports independence, but now sees (like the nationalists of Dextas) that there will be 2 peoples, 2 nations living in Cyprus. So the third language, English, which had been established as the language of communication of the 2 communities must disappear. Let everyone speak their own language the neo-nationalists say in one way or another, there is no need for communication. One of them even suggested that we should build a wall (a la Berlin) in Cyprus to separate the Greeks and the Turks.
+The other reason, and the most essential one, is the authority of language itself. Because the Athenian state was promoting the "nativization" of the Cypriots in order to keep Cyprus dependent, but this process was and is being carried out through local mechanisms and mouthpieces of authority. As P. Loizos observes in his article on the rise of Greek nationalism in Cyprus, the revival of enosis among certain sections of the population such as teachers in the 1970s had to do with their displacement from their position of prestige/status by English university graduates (doctors, lawyers, etc.). In the same way, the Helleno-centric intelligentsia today feels threatened because English is replacing Greek as the language of "civilization". It is English now that is the language that leads to social advancement, on an island where the main income comes from tourism and offshore businesses. Historically, of course, this conflict had begun earlier (at the beginning of the century) and intensified in the 1950s, when the Helleno-centric intelligentsia used the struggle of EOKA to discourage the spread of English. The bourgeoisie always condoned such linguistic purity struggles and encouraged them. But there was a trick here too. The bourgeoisie encouraged the Hellenists to support Greek against English while they themselves sent their children to English-speaking schools. The recent experience of ridiculing Mr Anastasiades (chairman of the House Education Committee) was typical. Anastasiades was at the forefront of the attack on the University of Cyprus. Partly because the university's bibliography is in English and because the university is thus supposed to be 'de-hellenizing' the island. When an angry citizens' reaction against the MP broke out, the 'punch line' that hit home was the revelation that the children of the Greek-boasting MP are studying in England.
+The use of language in Cyprus over the last 40 years is the cultural mechanism that sustains class structure, prestige groups and access to authority.
+The basic hypocrisy of Greek nationalism in Cyprus is this: While it is the one that created the legitimacy of authority through language, it dares today to complain about its "unequal" conflict with English. But who destroyed the local culture, who turned our living language into a folkloric exhibit, dear neo-Greeks? The authority structures for the current prevalence of English were set by Greek nationalism with the establishment of "right" and "wrong" languages.
+//**"We are talking" - it is after all a matter of dignity**//
+In 1992 the Helleno-centricists finally turned their fire against the Cypriot dialect as well. Partly, of course, the excuse/trigger was the programme [[https://archive.org/details/xoris_plaisia_panayiotou1992|"Horis Plaisia [Without Constraints]"]] of April 92, where the position was expressed for the first time, on television, that Koine Modern Greek suppresses the Cypriot dialect and that an alphabet of the latter should be written. On a more general level, however, the Cypriot dialect seems to have overcome the crisis of ghettoization and decline diagnosed in the 1980s by K. Leontiou. Apart from the field of revues (which always maintained the Cypriot dialect for the popular audience), Cypriot began to be used in serious theatres (such as those of Y. Neophytou). But the decisive factor was the abolition of the state monopoly on the mass media. The need to make phone calls loosened the language codes - now one can hear the Cypriot dialect even as a semi-public speech (from the radio). That the midnight hours of the radios are flooded with tsiattista is typical. The Cypriot dialect has been for a century now, the hidden language of the night. Even the angry reaction of many to the Babiniotis article was typical. They reacted of course like Hellenized natives but at least they reacted to the "national centre".
+A new urban Cypriot dialect is beginning to take shape with a strong influence from both Greek and English.
+Certainly, of course, the ridicule of the dialect is still here. As is the self-deprecation of Cypriots. That's why they stutter in the face of authority. They don't "know" how to speak according to the official languages. But on the street and in everyday life they defend themselves "as Ajaxes" as M. Christodoulou said. That is why the Helleno-centric "synergy" of authority fights with such passion any trace of the Cypriot dialect. The issue is not just the re-emergence of a neo-katharevousa. The target is the very existence of the Cypriots. It is evident, after all, in the discourse of the Helleno-centricists. "Cypriots are resisting..." "Cypriots don't understand", "it's not just a matter for Cypriots" etc. as if they themselves were born in Kolonaki. Of course, it is also a class issue. That is why the Helleno-striken intellectuals so passionately embrace the nonsense of linguistic purity of Babiniotis and other Greek apostles of conservatism. They are desperately seeking to find a platform on which to base their authority. They will speak as "Greeks" and the rest will be the illiterate who, not knowing the bureaucratic laws of grammar, will be justifiably condemned to silence. And the authority of the Helleno-centric lust for pure words will finally be established in the name of the interests of the "nation".
+That is why Cypriots are resisting. That is why the "popular strata" will never speak the official language. It is class resistance and cultural resistance. Because at the bottom of the issue is not a national matter - it is a matter of dignity. We have a language too. We speak it. In the name of 10,000 years of history.
+<WRAP center round box 90%> **Uses of the Cypriot Dialect and Prospects (Excerpts)**
+//**Kostas Leontiou**//
+----
+**1. Dialect and Language**
+The Cypriot dialect is a subsystem or subset of the system or set "Greek language".
+All the languages of the world are subdivided into numerous dialects.
+The selection or imposition of a dialect as the official language of a country is not based on aesthetic or other criteria, which are, moreover, relative and subjective, but responds to economic and social needs and depends on geographical, political and historical circumstances.
+It should also be stressed that even these criteria and boundaries that define the differences between language and dialect are not stable. A Norwegian can understand a Dane by speaking his own language, while this is much more difficult if not impossible for a Beijing resident expressing himself in standard Mandarin and a Cantonese resident speaking his dialect.
+a) There are no pure-blood dialects, nor pure-blood languages. The much admired French is a mixture of Latin, Germanic and Celtic.
+The "kokoras" [rooster] of pan-Greek is a nomenclature, the roosterof our dialect comes from ancient Greek. "Hourmas" is foreign, "foiniki" is Greek.
+b) All languages evolve. The same is naturally true of dialects.
+//**2. Cypriot dialect and education**//
+The Cypriot dialect is treated in a very hostile way by many educators. Dialect-speaking students are often the subject of insults, strong criticism, punishments and ironic comments.
+It is worth noting that many of the teachers who adopt negative attitudes towards the subject come from a petit bourgeois and/or rural background and were once subjected to similar insults. Having linked the issue of removing the dialect to social advancement and success, they are overzealous in practising what they consider a sacred, almost missionary duty, in line with the logic, if we can call it that, of many mechanisms of oppression.
+"I have been tormented, oppressed, I have overcome these stages, now that I too have authority, I will in my turn, oppress, without ever questioning the validity or morality or effectiveness of these methods."
+A mention should be made here of the excellent book "le parler Croquant", which describes and analyses the humiliating way in which traditional education treated the Occitan language in Meridional France (Provence).
+//** 3. Political terminology and Cypriot dialect**//
+In the first place, the "zoppobortos" [crude] and "jijirozabies" [could not locate translation]. The average Cypriot got his semi-official anointing with the first adjective and the Non-Aligned Movement got its baptism by the good bourgeois political leader.
+In the very first steps of our political life, we learned that finding words in the dialect and embellishing with them your otherwise proper text, enclosing them, perhaps for precautionary hygiene reasons - prevention of contagious infectious disease, in the tyranny of quotation marks, that this is chic.
+In the form of anathemas and aphorisms, these adjectives have another mythological explanation. My goodness, this amazing columnist, this wonderful tonguesmith, this superb orator, knows - who would have thought - the language of the common mortals as well, which he uses where and when he must according to doses of a wise prescription offered to the consumer - listener, viewer, reader and which scatter - usually - a few chuckles of amazement and awe for the unexpected and surprising skill.
+Of course, the main task of local speech is to create impressions. The insulting epithets of a despised dialect, this is now the height of degradation.
+//**4. The myth of the Cypriot sketch**//
+A recent statement referring to another statement noted, among other things, the following:
+"Parliamentary sessions are not a Cypriot sketch". Let us analyse and interpret this simple phrase. Its authors will believe and maintain that Parliament is a serious and respectable body. Sessions of the parliament should therefore be accorded the same respect.
+Those who are proud of its prestige will separate it by this negative comparison, with the interpolation of the word "not" from any simile or identification with the Cypriot sketch.
+It is therefore clearly suggested that the Cypriot sketch is not serious. Of course one would say: "It is very often comprised of comedies".
+Yes, but let us not confuse the concepts of ridiculous and comic. Just because it's comical doesn't mean it's dismissible. Proof: They did not cite comedy by Aristophanes, Moliere or even Psathas as examples to be avoided.
+Thus, the widespread impression that the sketch is often a reference point for unflattering comparisons was repeated here.
+But what is finally happening with Cypriot sketches? What is their mythology?
+Its world is static, petrified, standardized, like a typographical cliché. The elements of exaggerated debate, of directed, controlled spontaneity are almost as a rule his trademark brand. Words outdated, forgotten, pulled out of mothballs to alienate and surprise first of all the Cypriots themselves, at least in their astonishing majority.
+Their themes are repeated, modified, revised, corrected, projecting a hermetically sealed microcosm, perpetuated in an inaccessible ghetto, well guarded by the custodians.
+It rarely arrives - and like the echo of another reality that is less pseudo-authentic perhaps, but just as, if not more, genuine.
+The other world that doesn't live in picturesque little villages, the world of districts 1, 2, 3, the world of cities, factories, apartment buildings sprouting like mushrooms, the world that breathes and swims in a polluted environment, the world that doesn't go about its boredom in traditional little coffee shops but in cafés and record stores, this anti-exotic, pedestrian world that expresses itself in a dialect that can only be Cypriot, that has no place in the sketch except rarely or occasionally, like an unwanted musafir. And if one of them enters the well-defined island of the Cypriot sketch, he feels as comfortable, as at ease as a lady with the camellias who, either by mistake or by misunderstanding, finds herself in a karate movie.
+//**5. Primary and secondary problems**//
+The dialect-language-dialect juxtaposition creates many other problems.
+Other Cypriots face problems in expression leading to problems of fluency and articulation.
+This can extend to other areas such as the ability to improvise or to communicate messages simply and clearly (many doctors find that their natives find it difficult to tell them exactly where they are in pain).
+Many individuals, after painful experiences of expressing themselves in their dialect through insults and belittling, shut themselves down.
+//**6. Instead of an epilogue - Racism and its twin brothers**//
+We know the trope well.
+In the name of a supposed norm, in the name of a coercive homogenization, in the name of the superiority of returning to pure and unadulterated roots, the mentality of seeking the pure standard, the spotless race, the immaculate and untainted language, we know where it has led and will lead when it reigns and triumphs in all its glory:
+To the concentration camps, to the crematoria to slaughter, or to other more refined methods of instant or slow death.
+The famous superiority, the evangelized and much-publicized recreation of the deceptive blond model and prototype that was projected in the wake of the history of the race, the cleansing of the original white original archetype, from all the microbes, the parasites, which deformed and contaminated it, from all the rusts, all the morbid and diseased elements, all the allogonal substances that have altered it, en route, this perfect world, is but the ghastly euphemism for the intolerable black and blackish monotony of pre-passaged uniformity.
+And the ideal communication in the perfect standard, is but the paranoid ranting of the Dictator and the monotonous sound of the cries of a unanimously cacophonous herd, drowning out the cries of pain of all those who do not fit the standards of precursory mediocrity.</WRAP>
+<WRAP center round box 90%> //**The bureaucratic discourse of authority and Cypriot resistance (on the standardization of Cypriot names in the Koine Modern Greek)**//
+----
+**Menelaos Christodoulou:**
+"There has been the appropriate enlightenment, but the agencies are slow to implement it because the importance of standardisation has not been understood. I, who was the secretary of the Cyprus Standardisation Committee, faced a terrible war. The Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works notified community leaders and mayors that during the standardisation of the state presented to the UN, the name of their village would be written on the sign in this way. **Not a single one accepted...**
+**Q..:** Has the standardisation of names already started to be gradually applied to signs?
+**M.C.:** It started but there was a war and the work was constantly stopped. Now it is being implemented, except in cases where the authorities of the different villages object. The standardization of the municipality outside Nicosia is Lakkia, not Latsia, because it is the common historical name, from the word lakkos. Latsia is a Turkish pronunciation, recent. It is like Tzirka. If Tzirka didn't become Kythrea before, should I stop it today? Even the traditional names of Cyprus are **being Cyprified** today and you can hear "Glytziotissa" on the radio and write "Trimithkiotissa" in textbooks.</WRAP>
+<WRAP center round box 90%> //**How to deny 20 centuries of history (from Athens without being Helleno-striken)**//
+----
+He sent me a letter a few days later. "My poor child, Éponine and Azelma together," wrote the sage. "You have asked me repeatedly when a word is Greek. I addressed you in the face and answered: when the Greek people use it, stupid. Forgive me. I didn't understand your agony. I know you live and write in a country where scumbag philologists hit with rods. I know you're terrified that a Bordello, a dilettantism might escape you, and you'll be taken over by these literary shitheads who want to eliminate all Turkish, Frankish, English words and terms from our vocabulary. To deny all these "foreign" words and roots, which abound in modern Greek, is equivalent - in the name of stupid nationalism - to denying twenty centuries of the history of the Greek people. These are the demands of people who have not whispered anything about history. Who have not understood this uninterrupted and rigorous fucking that is the history of the Mediterranean area for thousands of years, with all the peoples who have lent and borrowed, given and taken, slaughtered and butchered, raped and were raped, but who have also hosted each other, danced, feasted and eaten together. Without the thousands of "foreign" words that exist in the modern Greek language, we would not be able to speak. So, let the philologists hellenize 'make-up' and call it 'psimithiosi', let them impoverish the language even more and mind your own business. And if an coat-wearers ever goes to Heaven, let him ask the Almighty to abolish that Persian word. If you finally ask me why they do all this, I'll answer you: Because they deeply and rightly doubt their Greek identity. That is why they are afraid to ask for a Turkish coffee in the coffee shops. But here I will leave you. Speaking of Losers, I feel a sour taste emerging. Au revoir, ma petite."
+**Malvina Karaoli** </WRAP>
+{{tag> Condition:"Needs Translation":"Needs Turkish Translation"
+"Magazines":"Train in the City (Magazine)":"Train in the City - Issue 10"
+"Decade":"Decade 1990-1999"
+Year:"1993"
+Areas:Limassol
+"Subject":"Cypriot dialect"}}