what does this mean ???

tommy13


Joined: 29/04/2009
Posts: 979

Message Posted:
25/05/2009 11:20

My father and grandparents , and it seems most of their generation can speak greek, its common place ! However rarely do you find a greek cypriot who can speak turkish . Just wondering if some of you fine , educated forum members could shed some light on to what this could mean ? what could it be indicative of ?

Interested in your ideas

TRNCVaughan


Joined: 27/04/2008
Posts: 4578

Message Posted:
25/05/2009 11:34

It is a sign of the past master/servant roles of the two communities.

Irrespective of what happens in Cyprus, this will never happen again. If GC wants to speak to TC and vice-versa, English will have to be used.

britvic



Joined: 05/09/2008
Posts: 3039

Message Posted:
25/05/2009 11:56

.........it's because trying to speak Turkish gets your tongue in a knot!

tommy13


Joined: 29/04/2009
Posts: 979

Message Posted:
25/05/2009 11:57

so its a sign of some kind of oppression from one side to the other ?

ilovekibris


Joined: 18/05/2009
Posts: 394

Message Posted:
25/05/2009 12:05

yasou tommy13,

you seem to be on the wind-ups this morning.The majority of the Cyprus population has spoken Greek for centuries and it follows that most businesses were GC-run therefore the most workers spoke Greek and obviously TC spoke Greek at work and Turkish among themselves. being bilingual has big advantages if you want to get on in life . You are quite mistaken if you think there werent a large number of GCs who could get by in Turkish as well.

tommy13


Joined: 29/04/2009
Posts: 979

Message Posted:
25/05/2009 12:24

growing up in london , my parents and granparents always spoke in greek to my greek friends , i never had any of my greek friends parents speak turkish to me , so i was curious , as per my post .. if u say their were greeks who got by in turkish , i accept that , must have had turkish speaking greeks since ottomans ruled here for centuries and most businesses were turkish run then ..naturally . yes greek was spoken here for centuries , as it was in the location of turkey , probably greek was spoken in todays area of turkey far longer than turkish has been spoken there .. greek ottomans spoke turkish thereafter , i guess whosoever is ruling rules

Moover321


Joined: 11/04/2009
Posts: 649

Message Posted:
25/05/2009 12:26

1. TC have better language skills than GC



2. Greek was the predominant language of business and TC needed to learn as a matter of necessity.



3. GC were the 'dominant' culture and numerically superior.



4. TC were forced to learn Greek at school and learning Turkish was not a requirement.



5. GC couldn't learn Turkish because it was all Greek to them )



6. GC owned most of the businesses and had most of the Public Sector jobs - therefore for TC to learn Greek was a necessity and not a luxury!



7. Language is a tool of oppression - used effectively it can decimate a culture, people or a nation! In Apartheid South Afrtica the Boer government made Afrikans compuslsory at school and some universities only taught in that language! Upshot if you wanted a further education learn it! They forgot that such also led to the vulgarisation and hatred of the language amongst the oppressed!



Conclusion: Cyprus is an isalnd of two peoples, with three languages and one hope!

Pixie


Joined: 18/03/2009
Posts: 489

Message Posted:
25/05/2009 12:30

My father and mother speak greek as a first language because their village was surrounded by greek villages and my grandparents couldnt speak turkish.These people observed certain customs, such as refraining from eating pork etc, some religious holidays that were handed down to them by tradition, their names were turkish and men were circumcised.

My mother explained to me that she learned turkish from her elder siblings who had learned at school.

My father and some other boys attended a selective turkish school in Lefke he and his friends were ridiculed for having strong greek accents. My father still speaks english and turkish with a very greek sounding accent.

My grandmother never learned more than a few words of Turkish.

I Lived in England and Australia for the first 19 years of my life,on rare occasions, we met a few who could speak turkish.

They learned because they lived in mixed villages or did business with turks.I agree with msg 2 -Turks were the servants...

elko2



Joined: 24/07/2007
Posts: 4400

Message Posted:
25/05/2009 15:19

msg. 7



"4. TC were forced to learn Greek at school and learning Turkish was not a requirement."



I am aware that in some remote villages some Turkish Cypriots attended Greek Cypriot schools and therefore they learnt greek and had no Turkish lessons. However this was an extreme rarity as far as I know.



I went to the Turkish Primary School at Ktima-Paphos and in the last two years we had English lessons as a second languge but it was not much good. We did not have any Greek lessons. I lived in the Turkish quarter and therefore I can hardly speak Greek.



Presumably the prevalent language was Greek because 80% of the popultion were Greek Cypriots.

ismet

tommy13


Joined: 29/04/2009
Posts: 979

Message Posted:
25/05/2009 15:19

yes arbee , the words exchanges are interesting ,,, the ones i know in turkish Kibrislija which i think are greek origin ,are babuch ( slipper/shoes) , ganjelli ( gate ) , kabira ( toast ) , saliangoz ( snail ) , buli (chicken ) , amberebulya( small type of bird ) , garawoli ( ?) , mastoura ( hashish/smoke), jirra ( greek girl) , bastoni ( walking stick) , i may have made some nistakes correct me if i made any errors ...

tommy13


Joined: 29/04/2009
Posts: 979

Message Posted:
25/05/2009 15:48

yes it happens here too offcourse , teh TC's speak the kibrislija dialect of turkish especially in the villiages , its great to listen too ... interesting stuff arbees , definatley a unique feature of the island ! i didnt know u guys use some of them words

Magbs


Joined: 26/02/2009
Posts: 278

Message Posted:
25/05/2009 16:00

"what does this mean?"



IMO nothing. It happens everywhere. There are endless examples around the globe showing that majority-minority linguistic relations are those that usually make the minority bilingual and not vise versa.

Have you ever seen American speaking Spanish? Ok, here and there, but generally no.

Russians studying Ukrainian? Georgian? Tatar?

Turks speaking...Armenian?

99% of people tend to learn second languages for very practical reasons, not becase they want to respect each other.

tommy13


Joined: 29/04/2009
Posts: 979

Message Posted:
25/05/2009 16:21

excellent arbee , i know this place and have many friends from that villiage ,