NOTE ON TOPONYMS AND TURKISH PRONUNCIATION

For a large part of the twentieth century, toponyms have played an impor- tant part in signifying space in as ethnic. Contests over toponyms began when British colonial administrators started replacing Ottoman names with British ones. For example, Arabahmet Sokağı became Victoria Street, and newly constructed roads were given the names of British rulers. Start- ing in the 1930s, strug gles to claim space as ethnic began to mean changing Ottoman place names to Greek or Greek toponyms to Turkish. The former was accomplished through municipalities, which had the mandate to change such names and were mostly controlled by the majority Greek Cypriot com- munity. Urban toponyms were Hellenized, so that, for instance, Cenktepe became Akropolis, and Bayraktar Meydanı became Plateia Venizelou, or Venizelos Square. In reaction to the Hellenization of urban space, the Turkish Cypriot leadership of the period de cided in 1958 to choose place names for villages and neighborhoods with Turkish majorities. We explain this pro cess in Chapter 2, along with the toponym changes that Turkified the landscape of north Cyprusafter 1974. Although the Re- public of Cyprus government has never accepted the 1958 toponym changes, in scholarship there is a tendency to view them as semi- legitimate, the result of an attempt to Turkify one’s own environment rather than the result of eth- nic cleansing and Turkification of a territory, as occurredafter 1974. Never- theless, in 2013 the Republic of Cyprus parliament criminalized the use of all names not officially accepted and recorded by the government of Cyprus. According to this law, “anyone who publishes, imports, distributes, or sells maps, books, or any other documents in print or digital form that contain geo graph i cal names and toponyms on the island of Cyprus other than those permitted, commits an ofense punishable with up to three years in prison xvi Toponyms and Turkish Pronunciation or a fine of up to 50,000 euros ($57,500) or both” (U.S. Department of State 2019; also Pancyprian Bar Association 2013). Throughout this work, we have chosen to use the English- language ver- sions of names of towns, cities, and regions, where these exist and are in com- mon use. For instance, the name “” is in common use in En glish for a town that has been known in Turkish as Girne since the Ottoman period. Where common En glish names do not exist, we use Turkish names in cases of historical pre ce dent. This includes both cases where names existed from the Ottoman period in the island and names that were changed by the Turk- ish Cypriot leadership in 1958. An example of the former is the village name Değirmenlik, which exists from the Ottoman period, and which is known in Greek as . An example of the second is the village of Erenköy, which is known in Greek as and acquired its Turkish name in 1958. In addition, there are cases where we use Turkish and Greek names in- terchangeably, particularly when quoting Turkish- language sources or to in- dicate which names are in common use today.

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Turkish is a phonetic language that is written in Latin script and pronounced as it is written. In most cases, pronunciation resembles En glish, with the addition of several letters:

c Pronounced like j in jam ç Pronounced like ch in cheese ğ Soft g, lengthens previous vowel ı Pronounced like e in the or u in duh ö Pronounced like e in her ş Pronounced like sh in shower ü Pronounced like oo in shoot Sovereignty Suspended Rizokarpaso Mediterranean Sea

Kyrenia UN B Z Turkish Cypriot–administered area ✪ Strovolos UN B Mount Polis Olympus Z Area controlled by Cyprus Government D  (Greek Cypriot area) (U.K.) Vasilikos Mediterranean Sea

0 10 20 km A  (U.K.) 0 10 20 mi

Figure 1. Divided map of Cyprus (CIA Factbook, Creative Commons).