Cypriot Greek

It is considered a divergent dialect as it differs from Standard Modern Greek[note 2] in various aspects of its lexicon,[2] phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and even pragmatics,[3] not only for historical reasons but also because of geographical isolation, and extensive contact with typologically distinct languages.

[5] It has traditionally been placed in the southeastern group of Modern Greek varieties, along with the dialects of the Dodecanese and Chios (with which it shares several phonological phenomena).

[9] Davy, Ioannou & Panayotou (1996) have argued that diglossia has given way to a "post-diglossic [dialectal] continuum [...] a quasi-continuous spread of overlapping varieties".

Some of these are: the legal code of the Kingdom of Cyprus, the Assizes of Jerusalem; the chronicles of Leontios Machairas and Georgios Boustronios; and a collection of sonnets in the manner of Francesco Petrarca.

In the past hundred years, the dialect has been used in poetry (with major poets being Vasilis Michaelides and Dimitris Lipertis).

More recently, it has been used in music, e.g. in reggae by Hadji Mike and in rap by several Cypriot hip hop groups, such as Dimiourgoi Neas Antilipsis (DNA).

Locally produced television shows, usually comedies or soap operas, make use of the dialect, for example with Vourate Geitonoi (βουράτε instead of τρέξτε) or Oi Takkoi (Τάκκος being a uniquely Cypriot name).

Peter Polycarpou routinely spoke in Cypriot in his role as Chris Theodopolopoudos in the British television comedy series Birds of a Feather.

In a July 2014 episode of the American TV series The Leftovers, Alex Malaos's character uses the dialect saying "Εκατάλαβα σε" ('I understood').

In the American mockumentary comedy horror television series What We Do in the Shadows, actress Natasia Demetriou, as the vampiric character Nadja, occasionally exclaims phrases in Cypriot.

Studies of the phonology of Cypriot Greek are few and tend to examine very specific phenomena, e.g. gemination, "glide hardening".

[18] The circumstances under which all the different variants surface are not very well understood, but [ʝ(ː)] appear to be favoured in stressed syllables and word-finally, and before /a e/.

[19] Arvaniti 2010 notes that speakers of some local varieties, notably that of Larnaca, "substitute" the geminate fricative for /ʎ/,[20] but Pappas 2009 contests this, saying that, "[ʝ(ː)] is robustly present in the three urban areas of Lefkosia, Lemesos and Larnaka as well as the rural Kokinohoria region, especially among teenaged speakers ... the innovative pronunciation [ʝ(ː)] is not a feature of any local patois, but rather a supra-local feature.

[22] At any rate, velar stops and fricatives are in complementary distribution with palatals and postalveolars before front vowels /e i/;[16] that is to say, broadly, /k kʰː/ are palatalised to either [c cʰː] or [t͡ʃ t͡ʃʰː]; /x xː/ to [ç çː] or [ʃ ʃː]; and /ɣ/ to [ʝ].

Much of the Cypriot core vocabulary is different from the modern standard's, e.g. συντυχάννω [sindiˈxanːo] in addition to μιλώ "I talk", θωρώ [θοˈɾo] instead of βλέπω "I look", etc.

[note 5] Despite the centuries-long existence of Greek Cypriot literature, the dialect wasn't widely written until the rise of computer-mediated communication in the 2000s.

19 Σφάξε μας ούλους τζι ας γενεί το γαίμαν μας αυλάτζιν, κάμε τον κόσμον ματζιελλειόν τζαι τους Ρωμιούς ταούλλια, αμμά ξέρε πως ύλαντρον όντες κοπεί καβάτζιν τριγύρου του πετάσσουνται τρακόσια παραπούλια.

Είσαι πολλά πικράντερος, όμως αν θεν να σφάξης, σφάξε τους λας που πολεμούν αλλού αρματωμένοι.

27 «Εγιώ, αφέντη, μανιχά άκουσα να λαλούσιν, πως ήρτεν ένας τοπκιανός καλόηρος που πέρα τζι έφερεν κάμποσα χαρκιά πο τζιει που πολεμούσιν τζι έδωκεν τα τζαι χάθηκεν, δεν έμεινεν με μέραν, τζαι τζιείνα ούλλα τα χαρκιά πως ήταν του πολέμου.

19 Slaughter us all, let our blood become a stream, Turn the world a slaughterhouse and the Romans herds of sheep But know that when a stump is cut at the base, Around it, three hundred new sprouts will burst forth.