Languages of Cyprus

Languages of Cyprus
Official languages	Greek, Turkish
Vernaculars	Cypriot Greek, Cypriot Turkish, Cypriot Arabic
Minority languages	Armenian (recognised), Cypriot Arabic (recognised), Kurbetcha (unrecognised)
Main immigrant languages	English, Romanian, Russian, Bulgarian, sometimes Ukrainian, Croatian, Albanian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Slovene, Serbian, Bosniak, Polish, German and Hungarian.
Main foreign languages	English (80.7%) French (10.8%) German (4.6%)
Sign languages	Cypriot Sign Language

The official languages of the Republic of Cyprus are Greek and Turkish. In the break-away Northern Cyprus, Turkish was made the only official language by the 1983 constitution. The everyday spoken language (vernacular) of the majority of the population is Cypriot Greek, and that of Turkish Cypriots is Cypriot Turkish. For official purposes, the standard languages (Standard Modern Greek and Standard Turkish) are used.

Three "religious groups" are recognised by the constitution; two have their own language: Armenian (the language of Armenian Cypriots) and Cypriot Arabic (the language of Maronite Cypriots). Sometimes Kurbetcha, the language of the Kurbet, the Cypriot Roma, is included alongside the other two in literature, but it is not officially recognised in any capacity.

The 2011 census of the Republic recorded 679,883 native speakers of Greek, 34,814 of English, 24,270 of Romanian, 20,984 of Russian and 18,388 of Bulgarian of a total of 840,407. Following the 1974 Turkish invasion, Cyprus was effectively divided into two linguistically near-homogeneous areas: the Turkish-speaking north and the Greek-speaking south; only 1,405 speakers of Turkish reside in territory controlled by the Republic.

The languages of Cyprus have historically exerted influence on one another; Cypriot Greek and Cypriot Turkish borrowed heavily from each other, and Cypriot Greek has helped shape Cypriot Arabic's phonology.

Greek was originally brought to Cyprus by Greek settlers in the 12th–11th century BCE, but contemporary Cypriot Greek (CG)—the mother tongue of Greek Cypriots—evolved from later Byzantine Koine, under the influence of the languages of the many colonisers of the island. CG differs markedly from Standard Modern Greek (SMG), particularly in its phonology, morphology and vocabulary, and CG may be difficult for speakers of other varieties of Greek to understand or may even be unintelligible to some. CG has a literary tradition that flourished before the Ottoman conquest of 1571.

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