Native to Cyprus | Ethnicity Maronite Cypriots | |
 | ||
Region Kormakitis and urban areas in the south Native speakers unclear; 900 "speak the language at different levels" (2011)
no L1 speakers in the south (2011) Language family Afro-Asiatic
Semitic
Central Semitic
Arabic
Mesopotamian
Cypriot Arabic Writing system Greek and Latin
Arabic script (historical) | ||
Cypriot Arabic, also known as Cypriot Maronite Arabic or Sanna, is a moribund variety of Arabic spoken by the Maronite community of Cyprus. Formerly speakers were mostly situated in Kormakitis, but following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, the majority relocated to the south and spread, leading to the decline of the language. Traditionally bilingual in Cypriot Greek, as of some time prior to 2000, all remaining speakers of Cypriot Arabic were over 30 years of age. A 2011 census reported that, of the 3,656 Maronite Cypriots in Republic of Cyprus-controlled areas (the south), none declared Cypriot Arabic as their first language.
Contents
History and classification
Cypriot Arabic was first introduced to Cyprus by Maronites fleeing Syria and Lebanon between the ninth and tenth century. Since 2002, it is one of UNESCO-designated severely endangered languages and, since 2008, it is recognised as a minority language of Cyprus, coinciding with an attempt to revitalise the language that may prove to be futile.
Cypriot Arabic shares a large number of common features with Mesopotamian Arabic; particularly the northern variety, and has been reckoned as belonging to this dialect area. It also shares many traits with Levantine Arabic. It is believed these common features go back to a period in which there was a dialect continuum between the Mesopotamian dialects and the Syrian dialect area.
Phonology
Borg (1997) argues that the sound system of Cypriot Arabic has been heavily influenced by that of Cypriot Greek. Cypriot Arabic has lost all emphatic consonants and stop voicing opposition (though this is subject to debate in literature)—but retained gemination. Geminate voiceless stops surface as aspirates. Furthermore, Old Arabic /q/ merged with /k/, /b/ became /p/, and /d/ merged with /t/.
The consonant phonemes of Cypriot Arabic, according to Borg (1997), are /m n p t k f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ x j l r ʕ/. Affricates [t͡ʃ d͡ʒ] occur as allophones of clusters /tʃ dʒ/. Voiced stops occur as allophones of voiceless stops intervocalically and next to a sonorant or /z/. There are five vowel phonemes, /a e i o u/, and two diphthongs, /aj aw/. Phonological rules observed in Cypriot Arabic include:
Phenomena similar to the first three are also observed in Cypriot Greek.
Vocabulary
Cypriot Arabic has a large number of Syriac and Greek loans.
Writing system
In May 2009, the so-called "Committee of Experts for the Codification of Cypriot Maronite Arabic" submitted to the Cypriot government a proposal for the codification of Cypriot Arabic. It is unclear whether this will be in the Greek or Latin script; both have apparently been suggested. There exists a Cypriot Arabic–Greek translation dictionary, where the Greek alphabet is used for Cypriot Arabic lemmas.
The linguist Alexander Borg, who specialises in the language, devised a Latin-based alphabet that the non-governmental organisation for the revitalisation of the language "Hki Fi Sanna" endorsed in 2007, and some "small texts" have apparently been translated in it.
Examples
All letters loosely represent their IPA values, with some exceptions: