Speech and Writing in Cyprus: Language, Identity, and the British Context

This chapter explores the relationship between Greek Cypriot identity and the two versions of Greek used in Cyprus, Cypriot Greek and the standard Modern Greek, Demotic, and it does so in the light of deconstruction. The chapter makes three proposals: firstly, that the relationship between speech and writing, which provides the foundation for deconstruction, has profound implications for how we understand Cypriot identity in relation to the Cyprus problem; secondly, that writing in Cyprus represents a homogeneous Greek identity, while speech in Cyprus articulates a heterogeneous Cypriot identity; and thirdly, that these politico-linguistic constructions of Cypriot identity have concurrent impacts on Britons of Greek Cypriot descent, children of the colonial history between Cyprus and Britain.