The Cypriot dialect of Greek is spoken by more than half a million people in Cyprus and several hundred thousands abroad. It is never used in formal writing but is the spoken everyday language of most Greek-Cypriots. There are specific settings where speaking Standard Greek is demanded or considered polite, such as in school classes (but not during breaks), in parliament, in the media, and in the presence of Greek-speaking foreigners. There is diglossia (in the linguistic sense) between Dhimotiki and the dialect. In linguistics, diglossia is a situation where, in a given society, there are two (often) closely-related languages, one of high prestige, which is generally used by the government and in formal texts, and one of low prestige, which is usually the spoken vernacular tongue. ... Modern Greek (Νεοελληνική) is a dialect family that refers to the fifth stage of the evolution of the Greek language (the first four being Mycenean, Ancient Greek, Post-Classical or Hellenistic Greek and Medieval Greek), and it includes every dialect and idiom of Hellenic speech that exists in the world today. ...

History and literature

The modern Cypriot dialect is not an evolution of the ancient Arcadocypriot dialect, but evolved from koine. Cyprus was cut off from the rest of the Greek-speaking world from the 7th to the 10th century A.D due to Arab attacks. It was reintegrated in the Eastern Roman Empire in the 10th century to be isolated again in 1191 when it fell to the hands of crusaders. This linguistic isolation preserved a lot of Attic Greek characteristics that were lost in Modern Greek. Arcadocypriot was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia and Cyprus. ... The word koine has several meanings: Koiné (Κοινή), a Greek dialect that developed from the Attic dialect (dialect of Athens) and became the spoken language of Greece at the time of the Empire of Alexander the Great. ... Attic Greek is the ancient dialect of the Greek language that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. ... Modern Greek (Νεοελληνική) is a dialect family that refers to the fifth stage of the evolution of the Greek language (the first four being Mycenean, Ancient Greek, Post-Classical or Hellenistic Greek and Medieval Greek), and it includes every dialect and idiom of Hellenic speech that exists in the world today. ...

The legislation of the Kingdom of Cyprus in the Middle Ages was written in the dialect. Other important medieval works are the chronicles of Leontios Makhairas and George Boustronios, as well as a collection of sonnets in the manner of Francesco Petrarca. Lusignan castle of Kantara in the Pentadactylos mountains The Kingdom of Cyprus was a Roman Catholic Crusader kingdom on the island of Cyprus in the late Middle Ages. ... Little is known about this medieval cypriot historian other than what is written in his chronicle (written in the cypriot dialect ) . His chronicle documents events from the visit of saint Helena in Cyprus to the times of the kingdom of Cyprus External links http://ptolemy. ... From the c. ...

In modern times, the dialect has been mainly used in poetry, including works by such major poets as Vasilis Mihailidis and Dimitris Lipertis.

Characteristics

In the dialect, double consonants are pronounced differently from single consonants (unlike Standard Modern Greek). Another characteristic is extensive Palatalisation : standard greek k becomes dj when /e/ or /i/ is following. Example: Standard Greek και /ke/ (=and) Cypriot τζιαι /dje/. Note however this is not a hard and fast rule (counter-examples: κηδεία, κέρδος, άκυρο, ρακέττα). Sindihaneis/laleeis (Cypriot)=milas (Greek). Greek=Ellinas(proper Greek)=Kalamara(Cypriot). Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ...

The Modern Cypriot lexicon contains loanwords from Turkish, Arabic, English, Italian and other languages, as well as words unique to Cyprus. A lexicon is a list of words together with additional word-specific information, i. ... A loanword (or a borrowing) is a word taken in by one language from another. ... Arabic (العربية al-arabiyyah, or less formally arabi) is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...