I’m sorry if this question is controversial, but I’m just curious. I’m not from Cyprus, Greece or Turkey and I have no connection to any of these places so I do not have ulterior motives…
The Republic of Cyprus has two official languages: Greek and Turkish. However, I read that in the southern part of the island (excluding Northern Cyprus), only 0,2% of the population speak Turkish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Cyprus)
Therefore, when we say that Cyprus has Turkish as it official language, are we talking about the Northern part? Is Turkish official also in the southern part? Or is Greek official in the southern while Turkish is official in the north?
And if that is the case, being that the speakers of Turkish is so low in the south, is Turkish still going to be an official language? Or are there plans to only recognize Greek as official in the south?
https://old.reddit.com/r/cyprus/comments/1crfxej/turkish_language_status_in_cyprus/
Posted by stifenahokinga
3 Comments
> Therefore, when we say that Cyprus has Turkish as it official language, are we talking about the Northern part? Is Turkish official also in the southern part? Or is Greek official in the southern while Turkish is official in the north?
Republic of Cyprus, what you refer to as the south, legally claims a continuity to the 1960 Republic of Cyprus, and that’s why it has Turkish and Greek as its official languages (once it had English but it’s no more the case). The de facto polity in north also has its official language as Turkish.
That being said, the whole north and south situations are new inventions: majority of Turkish Cypriots were what you call south today, and there were hardly any places where any group was concentrated in a large region, even things getting altered a bit with the decades long inter-communal conflict.
>And if that is the case, being that the speakers of Turkish is so low in the south, is Turkish still going to be an official language? Or are there plans to only recognize Greek as official in the south?
Cyprus, officially and legally, bound to reunify. Albeit, there are no plans regarding that.
Cyprus has greek and turkish as an official language. After the invasion in 1974, it was split into the republic of cyprus (what you refer to as the south) and the “republic of north cyprus”, which is illegal, controlled by turkey and not recognized as a country by anyone other than turkey
Before 1974 there were considerable amount of Turkish Cypriots