Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 726

Part of Session 162: Urban linguistic practice and performance in the Greek-speaking city (Other abstracts in this session)

Charting Nicosian: properties and perceptions of an emergent urban dialect variety

Authors: Tsiplakou, Stavroula
Submitted by: Tsiplakou, Stavroula (Open University of Cyprus, Cyprus)

Cypriot Greek stands in a diglossic relationship to Standard Modern Greek; this still by-and-large prevalent (socio)linguistic situation has led to the folk linguistic construction of Cypriot Greek as a unitary variety, usually termed kypriaka ‘Cypriot’ or even xorkatika ‘peasanty’. Recent variationist research (Tsiplakou et al. 2006; Tsiplakou 2009) however indicates that Cypriot Greek is in fact a dialect continuum comprising a host of geographical basilects, which are undergoing heavy levelling, and an emergent koiné, which is divested of identifiable local features (Tsiplakou et al. forthc.). This koinéized variety is sometimes treated as identical to Nicosian, the variety of the capital, and hence it is also termed a ‘metropolitan’ or ‘urban’ koiné (Karyolemou 2000).

In this paper I argue for the availability of an emergent urban variety/register that is (perceived as) distinctly Nicosian, despite its numerous overlaps with the koiné. Based on findings from the ongoing Mapping the Linguistic Landscape of Cyprus project, I show that new Nicosian is not the substratal geographical subvariety of the capital and the surrounding Mesaoria area. Rather, new Nicosian can be viewed as an acrolectal register of the Cypriot Greek koiné in some respects, in the sense that it approximates Standard Greek (the H variety) in certain aspects of its phonology and morphosyntax, notably (a) in the availability of palatal stops in words such as [ce] ‘and’ in lieu of the Cypriot koiné palatoalveolar affricate [t∫]; (b) the avoidance of hardening/stop formation in words such as [erxume] ‘I am coming (Standard Greek: [erxome], Cypriot koiné: [erkume]); (c) Standard Greek future/counterfactual marker [θa] in lieu of the koiné [en:a], etc. Such approximations to Standard Greek are coupled with features such as (a) avoidance of intervocalic fricative elision, e.g. [koruðes] ‘girlies’ in lieu of Cypriot koiné [korues], which gives the impression of ‘carefully enunciated’ speech; (b) aspirated stops in words such as [p^harkaro] ‘I park’ in lieu of Cypriot koiné [parkaro] and (c) an intonation contour with a high-rising terminal in statements (Nicosian ‘uptalk’).

This paper further reports on findings from a perception and a rating experiment, which indicate that Nicosian is indeed perceived as a distinct variety/register but also that attitudes towards it are mixed: while for a subset of the participants Nicosian carries overt prestige, for another subset (mainly non-Nicosian males), Nicosian is ‘affected’, as is also indicated by the slangy term vutyrika ‘Nicosian’/‘poncey’/‘foo-foo’, which indexes both an urban register and (perceptions of) the Cypriot urban lifestyle.

References:

Karyolemou, M. 2000. Κυπριακή πραγματικότητα και κοινωνιογλωσσική περιγραφή. [Cypriot reality and sociolinguistic description]. Studies in Greek Linguistics 20, 203-214.

Tsiplakou, Stavroula. 2009. Code-switching and code-mixing between related varieties: establishing the blueprint. The International Journal of Humanities 6, 49-66.

Tsiplakou, Stavroula, Photini Coutsougera & Pavlos Pavlou. Forthc. A Grammar of Contemporary Cypriot Greek. Muenchen: Lincom Europa.

Tsiplakou, Stavroula, Andreas Papapavlou, Pavlos Pavlou & Marianna Katsoyannou. 2006. Levelling, koineization and their implications for bidialectism. In Frans Hinskens (ed.) Language Variation – European Perspectives, 265–276. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

Charting Nicosian: properties and perceptions of an emergent urban dialect variety