There seems to be a widespread misconception that Cypriots always spoke greek. The fact is that prior to the Greek invasions, the original Cypriots had their own language that was not related to the Greek language.

Eteocypriot is an extinct pre-Indo-European language that was spoken in Cyprus by the pre-Hellenic population until the Iron Age. The name means “true” or “original Cypriot”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eteocypriot_language

by yogiphenomenology

4 comments

  1. We were taught this in school. Multiple times.
    Good post though.

  2. Greece wasn’t always greek either… maybe we should start identifying with the Helladic, Cycladic and Minoan civilisations that flourished before those barbaric greek invasions 😢😢😢😢

  3. People existed on the planet for at least 200.000 years, and in Europe for 50.000.

    The languages we have today are at most a few thousand years old. So there is no place on earth that people always spoke the same language, apart from places which were uninhabited until relatively recently.

    Also we don’t know what languages people spoke in Cyprus before Greek, and more likely they spoke different languages in different eras, since people always had a language, but writing is a comparatively much more recent invention.

    For example we have no clue what language the people of Choirokoitia spoke. None of the modern day languages existed back then, and writing was not invented yet in their era.

    So no, people didn’t always speak Greek in Cyprus, but people spoke Greek in Cyprus for a very very long time – more than 3000 years, which is longer than most other countries spoke the language they speak today.

  4. INDOEUROPEANS GET OUT!! CYPRUS IS RIGHTFUL ETEOCYPRIOT CLAY! THERE ISN’T ENOUGH SPACE FOR THE BOTH OF US ETEOCYPRIOTS #1 ❗❗

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