Greek Cypriots

As Greek Cypriots, Greek Cypriots also, Greek Ελληνοκύπριοι that about 580,000 Greek-speaking inhabitants of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus are referred to. Set at 77% the population plural on the island. In addition, there are larger communities in London, Athens and in the USA and in Australia. The ethnic group considers itself linguistically and culturally Greek.

Origin

The origins of the Greek Cypriots are controversial. Greek myths tell of a Greek colonization of the island after the Trojan War. Vassos Karagheorgis and other researchers took a colonization of the island by one or more waves of Mycenaeans in the Peloponnese since about 1200 BC. The other hand, David Rupp, Bernard Knapp and others assume a gradual cultural assimilation of the indigenous population in the early Iron Age.

In 1974 and the consequences

As a result of flight and expulsion of some 160,000 Greek Cypriots from the north of the island in 1974, they live almost exclusively in the Greek -dominated south. In some villages on the Karpaz peninsula remained a small, now essentially obsolete minority of about 700 Greek Cypriots in the otherwise almost exclusively inhabited by Turkish Cypriots as well as immigrants after 1974 from the Turkish mainland and especially from Anatolia Turks field of - internationally unrecognized - Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Language and religion

The Greek Cypriots belong to about 80 % of the Cypriot Orthodox Church and speak Cypriot Greek, a dialect of Modern Greek language. Because of the long political and spatial isolation in the Middle Ages and in modern times could keep from the Middle Ages to today, some linguistic archaisms. Thus, the colloquial language of the Greek Cypriots differs markedly from the Greek high-level language. The latter is used in all formal contexts (education, offices, media) and in writing.

Designation

Occasionally, the Greek Cypriots were referred to as " Cypriots " earlier, the Turkish Cypriots, however, as " Cypriots "; today is generally called " Cypriots " ( " Κύπριοι " ) for both ethnic groups common. However, the dictionary defines ( 24th edition, 2006) " Cypriot " as " Greek Cypriot ", " Cypriot ", however, as " people of Cyprus".

None of these names contains a pejorative nuance.