Cypriot Arabic

Cypriot Arabic
Cypriot Maronite Arabic
Σάννα · Sanna
Native to	Cyprus
Region	Kormakitis and urban areas in the south
Ethnicity	Maronite Cypriots, Lebanese Cypriots
Native speakers	No L1 speakers in the south (2011) 9,800 total speakers (2013 UNSD)
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Semitic Arabic Mesopotamian Qeltu Cypriot Arabic
Writing system	Greek and Latin Arabic script (historical)
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Cyprus
Language codes
ISO 639-3	acy
Glottolog	cypr1248
Linguasphere	12-AAC-ehx
220px   Cypriot Arabic

Kormakitis

Location of Kormakitis in Cyprus, former stronghold of the language

Cypriot Arabic (Arabic: العربية القبرصية‎‎), 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 dispersed, 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, none declared Cypriot Arabic as their first language.

History and classification

Cypriot Arabic was first introduced to Cyprus by Maronites who came mainly from Lebanon and Syria as early as the seventh century, with waves of immigration up to the thirteenth 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.

Cypriot Arabic has in the past been assigned to a Syrian-Lebanese or Levantine Arabic classification, likely owing to the contemporary presence of a large Lebanese-speaking Maronite community on the mainland. However, more recently it has been shown to share a large number of common features with the qeltu or North Mesopotamian Arabic dialects of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, and a pre-Cypriot medieval antecedent has been deduced as belonging to this dialect area. Indications of an Aramaic substrate suggest it was close to the time of the language shift from Aramaic to Arabic; other features are common to those of Syro-Lebanese and Palestinian, which go back to a period in which there was a dialect continuum between the Mesopotamian dialects and the Syrian dialect area.

In the Cypriot stage, the language was extensively restructured through contact with Cypriot Greek, acquiring numerous features and constraints not typical of Arabic. Essentially unintelligible to mainland Arabic speakers, it is characterized as an isolated "peripheral Arabic" along with others such as Maltese. Its Arabic component is a hybrid of dialects from diverse areas and times of Southeastern Anatolia, northern Syria, and Mesopotamia, as well as the Levant, offering unique insights into the historical evolution of Eastern Arabic.

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 stop consonants 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:

• Historical stop + stop clusters are dissimilated to fricative + stop.
• /k x/ are palatalized to [c ç] before /i e j/. /j/ is fully assimilated.
• /j/ between an obstruent and a vowel surfaces as [kj].
• An epenthetic stop occurs between a nasal and a continuant or sonorant. The place of articulation is inherited from the nasal before it and the voicing from the continuant or sonorant that follows.

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 Committee of Experts for the Codification of Cypriot Maronite Arabic submitted an action plan for the codification and revitalisation of the language to the Cypriot government. The Public Foundation for European Comparative Minority Research reported in 2006 that both the Greek and Latin script had been suggested for adoption. The Greek script is used for Cypriot Arabic in a Cypriot Arabic–Greek dictionary.

Alexander Borg, a linguist specialising in the language, created a Latin-based alphabet with elements from Maltese and Greek 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 into it.

Cypriot Arabic Latin Alphabet
A	B	C	D	Δ	E	F	G	Ġ	Ċ	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Θ	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z	Ş
a	b	c	d	ẟ	e	f	g	ġ	ċ	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p	θ	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z	ş

All letters loosely represent their IPA values, with some exceptions:

• c: [ʕ]
• ċ: [tʃ] (biphonemic)
• ẟ: [ð]
• ġ: [dʒ] (biphonemic)
• j: [ʒ]
• ş: [ʃ]
• y: [j]

Examples

Phrases

Ismi o Kumetto. Ayşo ismak l-id?	My name is Kumetto. What is your name?
Ismi l-ana o Pavlo. Ayşo ismik l-idi?	My name is Pavlo. What is your name? (fem.)
L-aẟa aş pikulullu?	What is his name?
L-ism tel l-yapati o Antoni	My father's name is Antoni
Xmenye u tisca aşka pisawnna?	What do eight and nine make?
Pisawnna caşra u sapca.	They make seventeen
Aş xar kan imps? Imps kan Yamuxmis	What day was yesterday? Yesterday was Thursday
Aş xar tte kun pukra? Pukra tte kun Yamussift	What day is tomorrow? Tomorrow is Saturday
Yamuxxat marrux fi li knise	On Sunday we go to church
Kilt xops ma zaytun, xaytċ casel u şraft xlip tel pakra	I ate bread with olives, some honey and drank some cow's milk
Ye	Yes
La	No

See also

• Cypriot Maronite Arabic Swadesh list
• Languages of Cyprus
• Varieties of Arabic

Bibliography

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External links

• Cypriot Maronite Arabic grammar (in Greek), includes a list of published literature on the language