Language Revitalization, Land and Identity in an Enclaved Arab Community in Cyprus
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Language revitalization, land and identity in an enclaved Arab community in Cyprus MARILENA KARYOLEMOU This article appears in: Endangered languages and the land: Mapping landscapes of multilingualism Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL XXII / 2018) Vigdís World Language Centre, Reykjavík, 23–25 August 2018 Editors: Sebastian Drude, Nicholas Ostler, Marielle Moser ISBN: 978-1-9160726-0-2 Cite this article: Karyolemou, Marilena. 2018. Language revitalization, land and identity in an enclaved Arab community in Cyprus. In S. Drude, N. Ostler & M. Moser (eds.), Endangered languages and the land: Mapping landscapes of multilingualism, Proceedings of FEL XXII/2018 (Reykjavík, Iceland), 14–18. London: FEL & EL Publishing. First published: December 2018 Link to this article: http://www.elpublishing.org/PID/4003 This article is published under a Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial). The licence permits users to use, reproduce, disseminate or display the article provided that the author is attributed as the original creator and that the reuse is restricted to non-commercial purposes i.e. research or educational use. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Foundation for Endangered Languages: http://www.ogmios.org EL Publishing: http://www.elpublishing.org Language revitalization, land and identity in an enclaved Arab community in Cyprus Marilena Karyolemou Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies University of Cyprus • Kallipoleos 75 • 1678 Nicosia • Cyprus [[email protected]] Abstract The Cypriot Maronite Arab community exemplifies how the loss of a land which functions as a vital space for a vernacular minority language spoken and protected within this space, can lead to drastic changes in communicative patterns and subsequently, to an acute language shift and complete language loss. In this presentation I will focus on the following: (a) on the role that the loss of a land may play both for language use and for any efforts to revitalize a language that is severely endangered and on the verge of extinction, and (b) on the way land is perceived in relation to identity and how political and social changes might affect speakers’ perception of what they conceive as “their” land. Keywords: Cypriot Arabic; identity; land; language revival the manner dissimilation rule requesting one in a series Introduction of two stops to change into a fricative, ex. “he wrote” Cypriot Maronites are an indigenous minority com- [kitep] but “I wrote” *[ktupt] becomes [xtuft], “he killed” munity living in Cyprus since medieval times. Although [kitel] but “I killed” *[ktilt] becomes [xtilt] (Borg 1985: they came to Cyprus –a predominantly Greek speaking 18) and the development of an extensive paradigm of island– as medieval immigrants on the footsteps of the geminates in word initial position. These phonological Lusignan kings who established the Latin Kingdom of changes affect the essence of Semitic roots: the root as a Cyprus as early as 1192, they were very soon acclimated stable and unchangeable combination of a series of and, despite historical upheavals and political tribulation consonants does not apply to Sanna (Roth 1972-73). that gradually affected their number and vitality as a Extensive reduction of the nominal paradigm, systematic community, they ended up considering the island as their replacement of broken by external plurals, syntactic new home (Hourani 1998). copying (ex. the order of appearance of nouns and adjec- The Cypriot Maronite Arab community has seen a tives) and semantic adjustment as well as extensive code dramatic shift in the use of its vernacular, after they were switching are some of the consequences of Cypriot expelled from their villages situated in the North West Arabic contact with Cypriot Greek (Borg 1985, 2004; coastal area of Cyprus as a result of the Turkish invasion Güle 2013, 2016). that took place in 1974. Maronites gradually left their Today, Sanna is a mother tongue to a number of elderly villages between 1974 and 1980, not being able to live speakers mostly originating from Kormakitis. The under conditions of restriction, reclusion and inactivity approximate number of speakers – all degrees of that were imposed upon them by the Turkish army and competence considered – vary according to source from Turkish Cypriot administration. a low 900 to a high 1400 (Karyolemou 2010). Most of Spoken in Kormakitis, the bigger and more important of these native speakers age 55+ with the oldest being 100 Maronite villages, Cypriot Arabic or Sanna (‘our years old. In the range of 40-55 years, those people who language’) is an indigenous form of Arabic that diverges were born and raised in Kormakitis are still to be from Classical as well as from other modern varieties of considered native speakers of the language. However, no Arabic due to its early detachment from the Arabic speakers under the age of 40 have acquired the language speaking world, subsequent isolation and contact with natively, and competence, under the age of 30, is Cypriot Greek (Borg, 1985, 2004). Sanna has aligned its extremely limited, sometimes not even attaining passive phonetic system and phonology with (Cypriot) Greek knowledge of any degree. Language transmission was with the adoption of a five vowel system comparable to affected by the conditions of modern life as well as by the political events of 1974 when Maronites massively left the Greek system, the collapse and complete loss of their villages to be relocated in the south of the island. length distinctions for vowels and of emphasis for Maronite social networks opened up to the Greek consonants. Among the features that one might consider speaking community they were increasingly interacting as resulting from contact with Cypriot Greek, is the with, mixed marriages increased and intergenerational retention, from the long series of laryngeal and language transmission ceased. According to estimations pharyngeal consonants of Arabic, of only a glottal stop provided by George Skordis (see Karyolemou 2009) of /ʔ/ and a consonant [ħ] which seems to be an uvular the NGO Xki Fi Sanna, in 2075, i.e. one hundred years variant of velar [x] with no phonemic value; the adoption after leaving their villages, there will be no Maronite of several phonotactic rules from (Cypriot) Greek such as speaking Sanna left. 14 The role of Sanna as a medium of communication has agricultural professions but rather became civil servants, been quite restricted: used exclusively as a communal teachers, doctors, lawyers etc. professions that are typical language for intra communication and as the language of of the organization and management of urban life. The intimacy and secrecy, it was never extended to other oral nature of the vernacular made it unsuitable for the domains of use. It was specifically banned from schools communicative needs of an urbanized and where its use was regularly punished by Greek Cypriot technologically advanced society. The new conditions of or Greek speaking Maronite teachers who inflicted life only reinforced the trend towards the abandonment humiliating punishments to monolingual Maronite of the variety, already observed in Kormakitis in the early children who could not speak Greek anyway. Because it 70s (Roth, 1973-75; Borg 1985). was excluded from formal and official communication, Sanna never developed a written form, although it was Their eviction from a land that served for centuries as a occasionally written with the Greek alphabet that the legitimizing space for their language, as a nest where it Maronites were more familiar with. And because was natural to use it on a daily basis, had severe traditionally not all Maronites spoke Sanna, but all consequences for communicative patterns. CMs retained their Catholic faith, religion primed over integrated now in the Greek Cypriot society, could not language as a common denominator among them. use their vernacular on an everyday basis. The lack of provisions for a community based educational system Cypriot Maronites as refugees: and their enrolment into Greek Cypriot education the consequences increased the need for them to integrate quickly and as better as they could to the Greek speaking sphere. Even As refugees, the Cypriot Maronites (CMs) were relocated the creation of a primary public Maronite school in the in various, mostly urban and suburban, areas in the South capital Nicosia in 2002 did not seem to boost the of the island, mainly in the capital city of Nicosia. This enrolment of young Maronites, both because of the relocation had the following consequences: dispersal of families and of the lack of a community (a) A transformation of the rural character of the specific curriculum. The rise in the number of mixed community that both affected the socio-economic marriages (9 out of 10 marriages are today with a non- status of its members as well as communicative Maronite spouse) had as a consequence the exclusion of patterns and the use of the vernacular, leading to an the language from the family sphere, where it was acute language shift and loss within a generation of previously mainly used and protected in favour of the speakers. more dynamic and useful pair Greek Cypriot/Standard (b) A change in the way CMs relate to the land. Greek. Acute language loss has been observed since 1974 Historically, CMs have kept close knit connections –Roth also reports that even before 1974, the language with Lebanon which they consider as their was struggling to survive (Roth 1973-75, 2004). As a homeland. However, the trauma of the loss of their consequence, people under the age of 40 are not to be villages after 1974, and especially of the village of considered neither as native nor as active speakers of the Kormakitis where CA has always been spoken led to language (Karyolemou 2009, 2010, 2012). a reinforcement of their attachment to the Cypriot land that often overrides their devotion to Lebanon.