Writing in a non-standard Greek variety: Romanized Cypriot Greek in online chat Christiana Themistocleous University of Reading, Reading, UK

Abstract

1 The new literacy approach and the sociolinguistics of writing The term ‘literacy’ is closely related with the ability of reading and writing and a significant part of academic research has mainly focused upon the cognitive effects of literacy acquisition (among some Olson, 1988; Ong, 1982). A new way of looking at literacy was proposed by Street in 1984, a framework widely known as New Literacy Studies (see also Barton, 1994). This new approach (namely the ‘ideological model of literacy’) does not deny the technical and cognitive effects of literacy but, in addition to these aspects, it also recognizes the importance of culture, power structures and social context in the production of written texts. In other words, literacy is viewed

as a social practice and literacy practices are seen as the cultural ways of using written language (Barton et al., 2000). According to Sebba (2009) there is a link between literacy and writing systems, hence the choice of which script to adopt for writing can be socially embedded. In India, for example, Hindi and Urdu are closely related languages. The former is written in the Devanagari script from left to right whereas the latter uses the Perso-Arabic script from right to left. According to King (2001), this practice can be associated with cultural and religious factors within the social context in India, as speakers of Hindi tend to be Hindus whereas speakers of Urdu are generally Moslems. Similar situations of digraphia, among others, hold for Serbian and Croatian (Magner, 2001) and for Mongolian (Grivelet, 2001).

Writing Systems Research, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2010, 155–168. © The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] doi:10.1093/wsr/wsq008

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Correspondence: Christiana Themistocleous, Department of English Language and Literature, University of Reading Whiteknights, PO Box 218 Reading, RG6 6AA, UK. E-mail: c.themistocleous@reading .ac.uk

Cypriot Greek, a variety of Greek spoken in the island of Cyprus, is relatively distinct from Standard Greek in all linguistic domains. The regional variety does not have a standard, official orthography and it is rarely used for everyday written purposes. Following technological development and the emergence of Computer-mediated Communication, a Romanized version of written CG is now widely used in online text-based communication, among teenagers and young adults (Themistocleous, C. (2008), The use of Cypriot-Greek in synchronous computer-mediated communication (PhD thesis), University of Manchester). In this study, I present the innovative ways that Greek-Cypriots use Roman characters in an effort to represent features of their spoken language in their online writings. By analysing data obtained from channel #Cyprus of Internet Relay Chat, I demonstrate how the choice of writing in CG affects the ways that Roman characters are used. I argue that this practice is not just a response to technological constrains but it actually has a wider social significance.

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Orthography can also be socially embedded. According to Sebba (2007, p. 13): …orthography is part of the ‘technology of a writing system’ but that writing system is itself a symbolic system embedded in a culture, shaping and yet also shaped by a set of cultural practices to which it gives, and by which it is given, meaning. While ‘orthography’ and ‘literacy’ are by no means synonymous, orthography is a fundamental element of written language; therefore, orthography too is situated in social practice. Orthography, too, needs and deserves a ‘practice account’.

(1) De night did cold and di gal dem wi did have wid we couldn't walk fast. Anyway we must have been walking for about fifteen minutes when dis car pull up, it was this youthman ah know and him woman. (extract adapted from Sebba, 2000, p. 178) Within another social context, Androutsopoulos (2000) explored non-standard spellings in media texts, by looking at German punk fanzines (‘fan’ + ‘(maga)zines’). The words in bold in example (2) indicate instances where non-standard spellings are used by the writers, in an effort to represent colloquial speech styles. Androutsopoulos argues that authors in fanzines, and consequently their readers, relate non-standard writings with non-mainstream identity. (2) ‘Schon wieda ein altes Tape’ hör ich die moisten schreien. Abär ich happs leida 156

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The internet is another context that enables users to deviate from standard forms of language. Although official websites and work-related e-mails tend to be written using standard conventions, language use in online chat, social networks, forums and informal e-mails is characterized by linguistic variation, deviation from standard and creative uses of orthography and scripts, usually with the aim to represent casual speech in writing. In the section that follows, I present in more detail findings from studies which report the above mentioned practices.

2 Online orthographies and Romanization The internet was developed in the 1960s, in North America, and at this initial stage English was almost the only language to be used online. With the globalization of the internet, however, although English still remains the dominant language, it ceased to be the only language present online, and nowadays the internet has shifted from being a monolingual network to becoming a multilingual one (Danet and Herring, 2007). Recent research suggests that it is not only languages with institutional status that are evident online, but also, the use of non-standard, regional varieties, and dialects is on the increase. In most cases, these varieties do not have conventional ways of writing; nevertheless, they are widely used in online text-based communication, to represent spoken language. Deuber and Hinrichs (2007) investigated the use of Jamaican Creole and Nigerian Pidgin online. They found that non-standard spellings were frequently used to emphasize local pronunciation and meaning. For instance, in Jamaican Creole, the word ‘yard’ can be used in to refer to ‘house, home country, Jamaica’. When this meaning is intended, internet users misspell the word ‘yard’,

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Writers can use non-standard orthographies to transfer spoken linguistic features, immediacy, and authenticity into their writing (Jaffe, 2000). In addition to this, one is able to express his or her identity, ideology, and affiliation. Sebba (2000) found that British-born Caribbeans use non-standard spellings to represent code-switching in writing and to signal some parts of their texts as natural Creole speech. The example below is a piece of first-person narrative prose, written by a Sixth Form student in a London school. A number of Creole linguistic features are evident in this piece of writing (in bold), which according to Sebba are used to signal ‘Creoleness’.

erst jetzte übba ‘Aggressive Punktapes’ gekriecht. ‘ “An old tape again” I hear most of you complaining. But I've just got it from “Aggressive Punktapes”.’ (Adapted from Androutsopoulos, 2000, p. 522)

Romanized Cypriot Greek in online chat

Still within the Arab online context, Palfreyman and Al Khalil (2007) found that Gulf Arabic, a regional variety characterized by strong Bedouin features, is also used in Roman characters online, although speakers do have the option to use their native writing script. Speakers of East Asian languages seem to result to Romanization as well (Lee, 2007; Su, 2007), similarly to speakers of languages written in the Cyrillic script (Mokroborodova, 2008) (see also Themistocleous, 2010). Androutsopoulos (2009) and Tseliga (2007) investigated the online practices of Greek speakers and in particular, the transliteration of Greek vowels and consonants with Roman characters (note that, based on Coulmas, 2003, p. 31 and Androutsopoulos, 2009, I use the term ‘transliteration’ to refer to the conversion of graphemes from one script to another and the term ‘transcription’ to refer to the written representation of spoken language). This phenomenon is commonly known as ‘Greeklish’. By analysing a number of samples that contain Greeklish, Androutsopoulos makes a distinction between a phonetic transliteration (i.e. the use of Roman characters to represent Greek phonemes e.g. Roman for both omicron and omega <ω>) and an orthographic transliteration (i.e. the representation of Greek characters using visually equivalent Roman characters or graphemicized numbers, e.g. Roman for omega <ω>, Roman for omicron and the number <8> for theta <θ>). Although a few studies have been carried out in order to investigate how Greeklish is used on the internet and perceived by users and non-users (see Koutsogiannis and Mitsikopoulou, 2007 on attitudes towards Greeklish), there are still many issues to further explore. For instance, bearing in mind that the Greek language contains a number of different varieties such as Cretan, Corfiot, Tsakonian, Cypriot Greek, and many more (Kontosopoulos, 2001), it is important to explore how non-standard, regional varieties of Greek are manifested in online environments. So far, there has been no research on how Greek regional varieties are used in text-based CMC or how variation is represented orthographically in the texts of those who use them. In this study, therefore, I focus on the ways that Greek-Cypriots use their regional variety in online chat. Writing Systems Research, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2010, 155–168

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using for instance or . Similar findings were reported with regards to Nigerian Pidgin. For instance, was found to be used for with, for then and for fear. With regards to English, Shaw (2008) found that internet users use non-standard spellings, for example <-in> instead of <-ing> for the endings of the verbs ‘doing’, ‘having’, ‘being’ and ‘going’ and and for ‘you’, to represent colloquial pronunciation. Other examples from studies with similar findings include: Mauritian Creole (Rajah-Carrim, 2008), the vernacular of Mannheim in Germany (Androutsopoulos and Ziegler, 2004) and Occitan, Sardinian, Piemontese, Ladin, and Frisian (Wright, 2006) Writing in the above mentioned varieties usually requires the use of non-standard spellings, in order to represent features of the spoken language. What these languages or varieties have in common is that they are all written using the Roman script. The representation, however, in online environments of non-Roman-alphabeted languages has proved more problematic. During the initial years of the internet, the ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) character set only supported 128 Roman characters. The solution for speakers of non-Roman-alphabeted languages was to employ unconventional writing systems, and in particular the Roman alphabet, in an effort to represent their native language in online discourse. Technological advance, and the emergence of the Unicode character encoding standard, now enables the use of a variety of writing scripts online. The most recent version, namely the Unicode 5.2.0, contains over 100,000 characters and adds 6,648 newly encoded ones (The Unicode Consortium, 2009). Although internet users now have the opportunity to write in their own native script, some still choose to use Roman characters, and symbolic values for Romanization have been developed, relating this way of writing to the ‘code of the Internet’ (Androutsopoulos, 2009). Warschauer et al. (2007) found that a Romanized version of Egyptian Arabic has been gaining ground, especially in informal modes of ComputerMediated Communication (henceforth CMC). Similarly, Berjaoui (2001) found that chatters use Roman characters in an effort to represent features of regional Moroccan Arabic in online chat.

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3 Writing in Cypriot Greek

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Cypriot Greek (henceforth CG) is a non-standard variety of Greek spoken by approximately 778,700 Greek-Cypriots in the island of Cyprus (Statistical Service of Cyprus, 2006). Due to the lengthy isolation from Greece, the regional variety is relatively distinct from Standard Greek (henceforth SG) in all linguistic domains (Chatzioannou, 1999). The two varieties are used simultaneously by the same speakers, yet, they have different functions: CG is used in informal, oral communication whereas SG enjoys more prestige, serves formal functions and it is the medium of instruction in public primary and secondary education. Attitudinal surveys have revealed that Greek-Cypriots tend to downgrade their regional variety in competence/status-related traits such as intelligence, professionalism, prosperity, and modernity, but at the same time CGspeakers are perceived to be friendly, sincere, kind and humorous (Papapavlou, 1998; Papapavlou and Sophocleous, 2007). With regards to writing, CG does not have a standard official orthography and it is rarely used for everyday written purposes. All kinds of writings are generally produced in SG with the exception of the following cases. Pieces of writing that contain CG linguistic features date back to the medieval period (13th–16th century) (Symeonidis, 2006). Works that have survived include the ‘Assizes of the kingdom of Jerusalem and Cyprus’, ‘Leontios Machairas: Recital concerning the sweet land of Cyprus entitled “Chronicle” ’, ‘The Chronicle of Georgios Voustronios’, ‘Cypriot Love Poems’ and ‘Άνθος Χαρίτων – Fior di Virtù’. More recently, although the majority of regional literature is written in SG, a number of folkloristic works are produced in the regional variety (Papaleontiou, 2008). These include poems and prose pieces, whose focus is mainly related to the history, the culture and the customs of the GreekCypriots. The latter are taught in public schools as part of the Modern Greek course, but only for a limited number of hours each academic year (CG literature is taught for average 6 h out of 58.6 h each academic year) (Ministry of Education and Culture in Cyprus, 2009). It should be noted, however, that medieval texts are not part of the curriculum and are

not taught in schools. A number of CG dictionaries also exist, among some Chatzioannou (2000) and Papaggelou (2001). The use of the regional variety is attested in the press, but only in satirical columns or cartoons, in cases where the writers want to create a sense of jocularity towards political and social issues. CG is also used for advertising local produce. Finally, regional television series are becoming increasingly popular, which means that play scripts are now written in CG. Since CG is not standardized, Greek-Cypriot writers tend to choose their own spelling conventions in their work, in an effort to represent regional linguistic features and sounds that do not exist in SG (i.e. post-alveolar fricatives, post-alveolar affricates and geminates). For the representation of these sounds, writers either follow Greek spelling conventions or they use diacritic marks (e.g. <σχέρι> or <σέɿ ρι> for /ʃéri/ ‘hand’), a practice that can result to the existence of different versions of the same word. The Cypriot poet Vasilis Michailidis, for instance, represents the post-alveolar fricative sound /ʃ/ in three different ways, using <σɿσɿ>, <σɿ>, and <σι>, in his poem Η Ανεράδα ‘The fairy’ (see Papaleontiou, 2008, pp. 38–42). The post-alveolar affricate sound is most commonly represented in regional writings using a combination of the Greek letters <τζ>. Depending on the author's preference, <τζ> may or may not have diacritical marks. For example, <τζ¯> is adopted by Papaggelou (2001) and <τζˇ> is used by Chatzioannou (1999, 2000). Also Vasilis Michailidis uses <τζˇ> whereas the writer Yiannis Stavrinos-Oikonomidis does not use diacritical marks (in Papaleontiou, 2008). As a consequence, when it comes to reading a text in the local variety, Greek-Cypriots have to ‘sound out’ each word, due to the fact that the wordshapes in CG are not as recognizable and familiar as SG words. Empirical research indicates that, following technological development, the regional variety is now widely used in CMC among young Greek-Cypriots (Themistocleous, 2008). This constitutes the first time that CG is used for everyday written communication. In a quantitative study, Themistocleous (2008) found that those who use CG in online chat are mainly teenagers and young adults, both male

Romanized Cypriot Greek in online chat

and female. Informants stated that they use this variety because this is the code that they use in their everyday life, they can express their feelings and way of thinking in a more natural, friendly, and casual way and it is part of their cultural heritage. In other words, writing in CG enables internet users to express solidarity and promote their ethnic and cultural identity within the global network (Themistocleous 2008, 2009). Similarly to their mainland Greek counterparts, Greek-Cypriot internet users also use Roman characters in their online interactions instead of the conventional Greek alphabet.

4 Aim of the study

1. To provide original insights into the ways that regional variation is represented in online writings, using Roman characters and in particular to look at the ways that Greek-Cypriot chatters bring into play Roman characters to represent features of their spoken language. Differences between CG and SG are predominantly manifested in the pronunciation of certain consonants, which do not exist in the standard variety (namely the post-alveolar affricate /ʧ/, the post-alveolar fricative /ʃ/ and geminates). My aim is to shed light to the additional orthographic solutions that Greek-Cypriot chatters reach, when representing sounds that do not exist in Standard Greek (see Androutsopoulos, 2009 for a full description of Greek-to-Roman transliteration of Standard Greek vowels and consonants). 2. To provide further evidence and support to the view that similarly to literacy, orthography is a socially embedded practice (Sebba, 2007).

5 Method The data presented in this study was collected from channel #Cyprus, operating on server Undernet,

1. The majority of the participants are GreekCypriots and an initial investigation showed that chatters use a plethora of CG linguistic features (Themistocleous, 2008). 2. Due to technical limitations, and despite recent technological advances, chatters in #Cyprus are not able to use Greek fonts. In addition to this, #Cyprus imposes the rule that only Greek in ASCII characters and English should be used by chatters (Cyprus IRC, 2006). Since the purpose of the study was to investigate the transliteration practices of Greek-Cypriots using Roman characters, #Cyprus was considered the most suitable source to collect data. The above mentioned restrictions enable the researcher to have a consistent set of data of Romanized CG instead of a mixed set of data, in which some internet users use the Greek alphabet and others use Roman characters. This practice is also Writing Systems Research, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2010, 155–168

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On the basis of the above discussion, the present investigation is concerned with the ways that GreekCypriots use their native language in online chat. Specifically, the aims of this study are as follows:

in the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network. IRC is one of the most popular interactive services on the internet. This system was initially launched in Finland in 1988, but nowadays it is used in over 60 countries around the world (Internet Relay Chat, 2005). It is a form of real-time (synchronous) online chat, mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, also known as channels, or chat rooms (represented with symbol #). In order to join a channel one has to connect to an IRC server and then choose a channel from the IRC network. There are thousands of channels on IRC, of various themes, including age group, region and country, computers, entertainment, sexuality, games, sports, religion, and so on. Anyone can join a given channel and there is no restriction on how many people can take part in a discussion. Channels can be public or private. In the former, participants take part in a multi-party interaction, whereas, in the latter, individuals (usually two) can have a private conversation. IRC participants generally have a nickname. #Cyprus was firstly registered in January 1996 and today it is one of the largest channels on this network, with more than 450 users present at peak hours (Cyprus IRC, 2006). This particular chat room was chosen for investigation for two reasons:

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evident in e-mails, forums, and Facebook (see Sophocleous and Themistocleous, forthcoming, for the use of CG on Facebook).

6 Analysis and findings Table 1 shows the consonant inventory in CG (adapted from Arvaniti, 1999). In my data, I observed that the transliteration schemes for vowels were identical with those reported by Androutsopoulos

Table 1 CG Consonants and their online representation with Roman characters Bilabial

Labio-dental

p



Plosive

Affricate

f < f>

v

Post-alveolar

θ <8>

Tap Lateral approximant

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Velar k

ð

s

z

ps <4>

m

Nasal

Alveolar

t

Fricative

160

Dental

n r < r> l

ʃ ʧ



x ks <3>

γ

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I carried out online participant observation and I collected data on several occasions between 2004 and 2005, by joining #Cyprus. Ethical approval was obtained from the Committee on the Ethics of Research on Human Beings (University of Manchester). Given that #Cyprus is publicly accessible, the ethical approval indicated that no permission was needed to collect and analyse data from this channel. To ensure anonymity, participants’ nicknames were not used in this study and are replaced by , when necessary, in the examples. The data consists of 12 logfiles ranging between 110 KB and 4400 KB. In total, almost 5,500 words make up the corpus of this study. Data were collected on different occasions, in order to document a variety of individuals.

(2009), hence these are not presented here. Below each consonant in Table 1, I present its transliteration in Roman characters (within pointed brackets < >), that I noted in my data. My initial observations are consistent with Androutsopoulos’ (2009) findings, in that some consonants have one representation (e.g. the sounds /p k t f ð s z γ m n r l/) and others have two representations, namely one phonetic and one orthographic (e.g. the sounds /v θ x/). Androutsopoulos (2009) also reports variation in the transliteration of the sounds /γ ð n p r/ but this tendency was not attested in my data. Consonants in bold, namely post-alveolar fricatives and post-alveolar affricates do not exist in SG. These phonemes, and also geminates, are typical characteristics of the regional variety and their use immediately marks a given utterance as CG. In an attitudinal survey, Papapavlou (2001) found that Greek-Cypriots hold negative attitudes towards the use of these variants, suggesting that postalveolar phonemes are stigmatized in Cyprus. Yet, it is striking that although Greek-Cypriots are not always positive towards these sounds, they still use them not only in their everyday speech but, as the data of this survey suggest, young individuals also make conscious attempts to use them in their online interactions.

Romanized Cypriot Greek in online chat

In the section that follows, I explore in more detail the use of these stigmatized phonemes in online chat, by outlining the different mechanisms that GreekCypriots use to represent post-alveolar affricates, post-alveolar fricatives, and geminates online.

6.1 The post-alveolar affricate The use of the post-alveolar affricate sound /ʧ/ is usually attested in CG as a result of palatalization of the consonant /k/, when the latter is followed by the front vowels /i/ and /e/ or a glide. The following examples from CG and SG demonstrate this phenomenon: SG /kerí/ /kítrino/

CG /ʧerín/ /ʧítrino/

English ‘candle’ ‘yellow’

• •

•

A laminal lenis post-alveolar affricate, which in fast speech is weakly voiced: [ʧamé] ‘there’ A fully voiced post-alveolar affricate, produced when the segment is preceded by a nasal: [nʤámin] ‘window’ A slightly aspirated version, which results from the sequence /t/ + /s/: [ʧháin] ‘tea’

In my data, I observed variation in the way that this sound (and its allophones) was transliterated. For the weakly voiced sound, three different transliteration practices were used by chatters, namely , , and . Consider the following examples from the data (notice that the first line of the examples is the actual sentence found in the data, as written by the chatters. To enable comparison between the different transliteration modes, in the second

Representation using exoun dikaiwma na odigoun (1) ara oi genetzes en άρα οι γεναίτζες εν έχουν δικαίωµα να οδηγούν to drive.3PL so the women don't have.3PL. right .SUBJ PRS ‘So women don't have the right to drive’

(2) poskolioumai poda ποσκολιούµαι ποδά this way keep busy.1SG.REFL.PRS ‘I keep myself busy here and there’ (3) en to dikti εν το δίχτυ be.3SG.PRS the net ‘that one is Tarzan’s net’

tou τ ου him.GEN

potzi ποτζεί that way

tarzan Tαρζάν Tarzan

tzino τζείνο that one

Representation using (4) giati ti eni jipano? enydreio me falenes? τζειπάνω; ενυδρείο µε ϕάλαινες; γιατί τι ένι why what be.3SG up there? Aquarium with whales? .PRS ‘why, what is it up there? An aquarium with whales?’

(5) en esso εν έσσω home be.3SG.PRS ‘S/he is at home and [s/he is] lying down’

jiaplonni τζι απλώννει and lie.3SG.PRS

(6) en akrives εν α κ ρ ιβ έ ς be.3PL.PRS expensive daughter ‘those are expensive my girl’

mou µου those

(7) ime είµαι be.1SG.PRS ‘I'm lazy’

kori κόρη my.GEN

jines τζείνες

jegkenis τζεγκένης lazy

Representation using tjiame pou xeris re varta τζιαµαί που β ά ρ τα ξέρεις ρε where know.2SG.PRS hey you put.2SG.IMP there them ‘hey you, eh put them there (= in the place) where you know’

(8) e ε eh

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CG has been subjected to constant cultural and linguistic contact not only with neighbouring countries, but also with European states, for instance Italy, France, and England. Post-alveolar affricates are found in loan words, integrated into CG from Arabic, Turkish, English, Italian, and French (Papapavlou, 1994). For instance, the words /ʧeŋɟénis/ ‘lazy’ and /ʧisvés/ ‘coffee pot’ originate from the Turkish words çingene ‘Gypsy’ and cezve ‘coffee pot’ respectively. These words are not familiar to mainland Greeks. According to Arvaniti (1999) there are three different allophones for the surfaced sound /ʧ/, namely:

line I present the respective word-form in the Greek script. As CG does not have a standard orthography, I follow conventions from Papaggelou (2001). The word in which the target sound is used is in bold and the actual sound is underlined. The last line of each example contains an approximate translation in English):

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(9)

tjini ekatalaven τζείνη εκατάλαβεν she understand.2SG.PST ‘hey you, she understood’

gw touto dierotoume re (10) tje τζαι γώ τούτο διερωτούµαι ρε and me this wonder.1SG.PRS hey you ‘and I'm also wondering the same thing my friend’

re ρε hey you

file ϕίλε friend

(11) efa anamisi piato spagetti jai 2 toast τζαι 2 έϕα ανάµισι πιάτο σπαγέττι τόστ one and a half plate spaghetti and 2 toast eat.1SG.PST ‘I ate one and a half portion of spaghetti and 2 toasts with lountza and cheese’

laloun mou gia to (12) tzai τζαι λαλούν µου για το and about the say.3PL.PRS me.GEN ‘and they say to me that IRC is only [used by] youngsters’

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irc ΙRC IRC

oti ότι that

me µε with

en εν be.3SG.PRS

lountza λούντζα lountza

mono µόνο only

jai τζαι and

tiri τυρί cheese

mitsioi µιτσɿιοί youngsters

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The transliteration with is orthographic and could originate from CG writings. As mentioned in section 3, the post-alveolar affricate sound is most commonly represented in regional writings using a combination of the Greek letters <τζ>, either with or without diacritical marks. Since CG literature is taught in schools, it means that children have some awareness of this spelling convention. Also, cartoons and advertisements in CG are visible in the press and in the streets on a daily basis. This means that Greek-Cypriots are somehow familiar with this particular spelling and therefore use the corresponding Roman characters in their online writings. Considering now the transliteration of the postalveolar affricate using the Roman letter , it could be argued that this is a phonetic transliteration influenced mainly by English. The island of Cyprus was up until 1959 a British colony, with English playing a significant role. English is still dominant in Cyprus today and the majority of the population use English as their second language. In English the letter is used to represent the post-alveolar affricate sound in words like jump, jaguar, January; it is therefore argued that this Roman character provides a ready-made solution for Greek-Cypriot internet users.

The final representation using is rather surprising. It is possible that this practice is a combination of an orthographic and a phonetic transliteration, which includes the initial letter , that originates from the CG writing tradition, and the from the English phonetic influence. As mentioned above, the post-alveolar affricate also has variants (allophones), namely a laminal lenis sound, which is weakly voiced, a fully voiced sound when the post-alveolar affricate is preceded by a nasal and a slightly aspirated version, which results from the sequence /t/ + /s/. The use of these allophones was also evident in the online interactions of some individuals. In example (11) below, it is clear that the chatter is making a distinction between the two allophones, namely the weakly voiced [ʧ] (in ‘and’) and the fully voiced post-alveolar affricate [ʤ] (in ‘kind of cured meat’). Notice that the former is transliterated phonetically, whereas the latter is transliterated orthographically, with the addition of the letter to emphasize the difference between the voiced and the weakly voiced sounds. Another example shows the use of the weakly voiced [ʧ] (in ‘and’) and the slightly aspirated sound [ʧh] (in ‘youngsters’). Again in example (12) we can see that the writer demonstrates the distinction between the allophones [ʧ] and [ʧh] using different Roman characters and orthographic conventions. In particular, the letter is used instead of to indicate the difference between the weakly voiced and the aspirated sounds.

Romanized Cypriot Greek in online chat

6.2 The post-alveolar fricative Another distinctive feature of CG is the palatalization of the fricative consonants /x/ and /s/ when they precede the front vowels /i/ and /e/ or a glide. The resulting sound is a post-alveolar fricative /ʃ/. Compare the following examples from CG and SG: /x/ > /ʃ/: /s/ > /ʃ/:

SG /xíli/ /xéri/

CG /ʃíli/ /ʃéri/

English ‘lips’ ‘hand’

/foresjá/ /nisjá/

/foreʃá/ /niʃá/

‘costume’ ‘islands’

The data suggest that the post-alveolar fricative is widely used by IRC participants. With regards to the representation of this sound, three different ways were identified in the data: , , and . Representation using na να to

shieresai σˇ αίρεσαι be glad.2SG.SBJV

(14) emas dapano n εµάς δαπάνω εν up here we.GEN be.3SG.PRS ‘it's freezing cold [for us] up here’

shionia σˇ ιονιά freezing cold

Representation using

i η the

rashi ράσˇ η back

sou? σου; you.GEN?

µου my.GEN

(21) opou ena mousiama vriskis ton da-mesa όπου ένα µουσˇ ιαµµά βρίσκεις τον δα-µέσα whatever one linoleum find.2SG.PRS him in-here (= stupid) ‘you can find all kinds of stupid people in here’

Similarly to the phonetic transliteration of the postalveolar affricate by , using to represent /ʃ/ could be an English influence, since the latter exists in words like shower, ship, shame, shut. The segment /ʃ/ is represented in different ways in the Greek-Cypriot literature, depending on the choice of the author (see section 3). In some cases authors use the Greek letters <σι> (Roman equivalent ) as in the word σιονώννω /ʃonónno/ ‘I pour’ or a combination of the letters <σχ> (Roman

(15) esi ti ise? daskalos sto na εσ ύ τι είσαι; δάσκαλος στο να what teacher in to you.NOM be.2SG.PRS? ‘who are you [suppose to be]? A teacher (= expert) for correcting swear words?’

(16) re X troei se Χ τρ ώ ει ρε σε hey X eat.2SG.PRS you.ACC ‘hey X, is your back itchy?’

m

siona (20) tpt σˇ ιόνα τ ί π οτ ε nothing snow-white ‘nothing my snow-white (= beauty)’

diorthonis διορθώνεις correct.2SG.SUBJ

vrishies? βρισˇ ιές; swear words?

equivalent ) as in σχοινίν /ʃinín/ ‘rope’. In both cases, the writers try to represent the palatality of the fricative sound, by combining the fricative /s/ with either a velar sound /x/ or a close front vowel /i/.

Representation using (17) re X stile kamia pic na doume Χ στείλε ρε καµία pic να δούµε hey X send.2SG.IMP one picture to see.1PL.SUBJ ‘hey X, send us a picture to see how ugly you are as well’

(18) esxi tosin ora tzie milas manixos su έσˇ ει τόσην ώρα τζαι µιλάς µανιχός σου time and talk.2SG alone you.GEN have.3SG so .PRS .PRS ‘all this time you have been talking on your own’

inta είντα what

kasxia κάσˇ ια box (= ugly)

ise είσαι be.2SG.PRS

ke κ αι and

esi εσύ you.NOM

Some IRC participants seem to follow this tendency, as in examples (17)–(19) above, in which an orthographic transliteration was used. In other cases, the letter <σ> is used in CG writings either Writing Systems Research, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2010, 155–168

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(13) perkei πέρκει may ‘I hope you are glad’

kamia siggenia me to X? (19) re vlaka esxi ρε βλάκα έσˇ ει καµιά συγγένεια µε το Χ; hey stupid have any kinship with the X you .3SG.PRS ‘hey you stupid, is he a relative with X?’

C. Themistocleous

6.3 Geminates Geminate consonants are typical of many southeastern Greek varieties and especially of CG (Kontosopoulos, 2001). Although, consonant length in Ancient Greek (AG) was distinctive (e.g. µέλω /mélo/ ‘I am of interest’ versus µέλλω /méllo/ ‘I am going to’), this phonetic feature has been lost

in SG but survived in the local variety in Cyprus (Symeonides, 2006). Notice that words that contain two consecutive consonants in the spelling system of SG do exist (e.g. άλλος /álos/ ‘other’, γράµµα /ɣráma/ ‘letter’, άρρωστος /árostos/ ‘ill’, µέλισσα /mélisa/ ‘bee’), yet these consonants are not pronounced for an audibly longer period of time. Geminate consonants are very common in CG spoken language and they are used in instances where the written language only has a single consonant (i.e. /símmera/ in CG versus /símera/ in SG for σήµερα ‘today’) (Tserdanelis and Arvaniti, 1999). Through the use of geminate consonants, one can also distinguish between the following minimal pairs in CG: /péfti/ ‘Thursday’ versus /ppéfti/ ‘s/he falls’ /kaká/ ‘bad’ versus /kakká/ ‘faeces’ (nursery word) /évalen/ ‘s/he put’ versus /évallen/ ‘s/he was putting’

Gemination of consonants was frequently observed in IRC and this was represented with reduplication of the target consonant. Some examples from the data include the following: kallitera (22) na foresis vraka καλλύττερα να ϕορέσεις βράκα to vraka better wear.2SG.SUBJ ‘you should better wear a vraka (= traditional Cypriot trousers)’

kommati milas tiesto kanena (23) inta κοµµάτι Tiesto είντα µιλάς κανένα Which track Tiesto any one talk.2SG.PRS ‘which track of Tiesto are you talking about, any specific one or all?’ (24) kanei na m κανεί να µου enough to me.GEN ‘that's enough with hitting me!’

fakkas ! ϕακκάς hit.2SG.SUBJ

sigkekrimeno συγγεκριµένο specific

oulla? ούλλα; all

(25) prixtissa πρήχτισσα ‘annoying person’

pleuro πλεύρο side

(26)

kalinikta kai καληνύκτα κ αι good night and ‘goodnight and sleep tight’

(27)

n oulles ttaoukkes tze ta 3 tetarta ton ttaoukkon ούλλες τταούκκες 3 τέταρτα τον τταούκκων εν τζαι τα the 3 quarters of be.3PL.PRS all fat.F.PL.NOM and fat.F.PL.GEN ‘they are all fat and guess what the three quarters of these fat [females] studies’

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ppese ππέσε fall.2SG.IMP

o3a οξά or

guess guess guess

ti τι what

spoudazoun σπουδάζουν study.3PL.PRS

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geminated (e.g. σσεπάζουµαι /ʃepázume/ ‘I cover myself’), or with diacritics (e.g. σɿασɿάρω /ʃaʃáro/ ‘I'm in a hurry’), or even both (e.g. σɿσɿίζω /ʃízo/ ‘I cut’). The orthographic transliteration with a single Roman letter seems to follow this convention. It should be mentioned, however, that diacritic marks were avoided by internet users possibly because they require a number of keystrokes, becoming therefore inconvenient for individuals who wish to type fast. Additionally, the letter <χ> was used in CG medieval writings to represent the post-alveolar fricative /ʃ/, as in the words πεντακόχιες /pendakóʃes/ ‘five hundred’ in Machairas and παχίας /ppaʃás/ ‘pasha’ in Voustronios (Horrocks, 1997, p. 286; Symeonides, 2006, p. 185). The reason for the absence of these representations could relate to the fact that they are less familiar to young GreekCypriots, as CG medieval writings are not taught in schools (see section 3).

Romanized Cypriot Greek in online chat

7 Discussion and conclusions Rather than suppressing their own language to conform to the technological constrains of IRC, Greek-speakers have successfully promoted their language within this global environment. This is achieved with creative uses of Roman characters.

Androutsopoulos (2009) offers a comprehensive account on the transliteration patterns of Greeklish, which he argues is an issue of paramount importance when it comes to the sociolinguistics of written Greek. The first aim of this study was to provide original insights into the ways that regional variation is represented in online writings, using Roman characters. The case of CG is rather interesting, because this variety is relatively distinct from SG and it has numerous characteristics that do not exist in the latter, especially when it comes to pronunciation (Chatzioannou, 1999; Newton, 1972; Symeonides, 2006). Greek-Cypriot internet users have the option to either follow the conventions and transliteration patterns that their mainland-Greek counterparts use, or develop their own. With the examples that I presented in this study, I demonstrate how GreekCypriots achieve further solutions when it comes to Greeklish, by using creative orthographies, which enable them to represent sounds that are not part of the SG phonological inventory. It also becomes clear that the choice of writing in CG affects the ways that Roman characters are used. With respect to these sounds, namely the postalveolar fricative and the post-alveolar affricate (and its allophones), I found that Greek-Cypriots use either phonetic or orthographic transliterations. Phonetic transliterations are evident when solutions are adopted from English, for example the transliteration of the post-alveolar affricate with the Roman letter , and for the post-alveolar fricative. On the other hand, orthographic transliterations are adopted when chatters follow conventions from the CG literary tradition ( for /ʧ/ and or for /ʃ/). A more surprising practice, not evident in previous studies on Greeklish, is the combination of orthographic and phonetic transliterations, namely , for the post-alveolar affricate sound. Another important finding is that Greek-Cypriot chatters represent difference in pronunciation, when it comes to allophones of the post-alveolar affricate. Finally, geminates, another typical feature of CG, are also widely used in online chat and transliterated with reduplication of the target segment. Following Sebba's (2007, p. 32) idea that ‘…where there is variation, there is in practice always social meaning’, I argue that the above mentioned additions Writing Systems Research, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2010, 155–168

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The use of geminate consonants is not consistent in online chat. Some internet users choose to represent gemination, whereas others do not. In addition to this, if a chatter decides to represent gemination he or she might use it in one instance but not in others. For instance, in example (22) above, the writer represents the gemination of /l/ but not of /t/, although both segments are geminated in spoken language. By counting the instances of gemination occurrence, it became apparent from the data that the geminate lateral /ll/ was the most widely used among IRC participants, followed by the stops /tt/, /kk/, /pp/, then by the nasals /nn/, /mm/ and finally by the fricative /ss/. An interesting detail worth mentioning is that Papastavrou (2000), who investigated the dialectal interventions in the writings of Greek-Cypriots, also found that these seven geminates were attested in his data, although other possibilities for gemination also exist (e.g. /θθ/ > /éθ θelo/ ‘I don't want’, /ff/ > /níffi/ ‘bride’, /vv/ > /sivvénni/ ‘it happens’). The Cypriot poet Vasilis Michailidis also writes: ‘γεµάτ’ αθθους τζ’ αγκαθθερά’ /γemát aθθús ʧ agaθθerá/ ‘full with flowers and thorns’, representing the gemination of unvoiced dental fricative /θ/ (in Papaleontiou, 2008, p. 40). Since the absence of the above mentioned sounds is attested in both studies, this could not be a random result. A possible explanation is that the geminate consonants /θθ/, /ff/ and /vv/ have, in general, a lower frequency of acoustic energy. Their production is therefore less noticeable and salient, compared to the geminates /ll/, /tt/, /kk/, /pp/, /nn/, /mm/ and /ss/, which have a higher frequency of acoustic energy. As a result, non-sibilant geminates are less likely to be perceived by speakers and therefore this could account for the absence of these segments from the writings of Greek-Cypriot internet users.

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will spread in off-line writings or whether they will remain as the ‘code of the internet’.

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in the transliteration practices of Greek-Cypriots are socially embedded. Greek-Cypriots create their own regional chat room (namely #Cyprus) in which they use language and orthographic practices differently than the rest of the Greek-speaking population. They seem to shape their written practices to express their culture and the richness of their spoken language. Romanized CG could also be connected with shedding the demonstration of loyalty to the norms imposed by societal institutions, thus a kind of rebellion against standard orthography. In a recent study investigating the use of CG in the domain of education, Pavlou and Papapavlou (2004) found that students are corrected when they use CG linguistic features in their writings. Using CG in school writings is considered to be a ‘mistake’ and the use of ‘correct Greek’ (i.e. Standard Greek following standard spelling conventions) is generally reinforced by teachers. On the contrary, spelling rules are not imposed in the domain of the internet, which means that internet users are free to use whichever orthographic practices they wish. On IRC internet users bring into play creative, expressive and oppositional language, by diverging from the standard ‘correct’ form, formulating therefore their own group. This could be a form of resistance to the domination of SG in Cyprus. In order to become a member of this particular group of individuals who use CG, other chatters, and especially new ones, must first of all learn how to read Romanized CG and then use these new orthographic practices to signal in-group membership. Clearly, when one group of people adopts this new writing system, many individuals may converge in order to become part of this newly developed group. Overall, this research shows the unique ability of the internet to produce changes in sociolinguistic environments. Up until recently the use CG in writing has been restricted to few domains (i.e. folk literature, advertising, script plays and cartoons) and used only by a small proportion of the population. With the emergence of CMC, this non-standard variety is now used by young Greek-Cypriot internet users for everyday written communication. The question that remains is whether these new orthographic practices, which have been developed by internet users,

Romanized Cypriot Greek in online chat

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Writing in a non-standard Greek variety: Romanized ...

Writing in a non-standard Greek variety: Romanized Cypriot. Greek in online chat. Christiana Themistocleous. University of Reading, Reading, UK. Abstract. Cypriot Greek, a variety of .... in online chat, social networks, forums and infor- mal e-mails is .... SG words. Empirical research indicates that, following tech- nological ...
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