A new 3-year project funded by the ESRC
We secured economic support for a three-year project, 'Mapping Prosodic Convergence in the Eastern Mediterranean’, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, UK. The new ESRC project utilises the results obtained through the JFF project, which served as a proof of concept and as a stepping stone, to extend the analysis to a number of key prosodic features in selected languages within the Eastern Mediterranean, investigate speakers' perception of similarities and differences between these languages, develop a 'convergence index' to express the way and degree that languages affect each other, and map this out with example audio files on an online atlas of prosodic convergence in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Our research during the JFF pilot
We selected Cyprus as a case study, given its geohistorical and linguistic complexity. To test the hypothesis that prolonged language contact leads to prosodic convergence:
- We collected original recordings of Cypriot varieties of Greek, Turkish and Arabic, carefully designed to elicit the features of interest
- Using quantitative modelling, we examine intonational contours of these languages, to assess evidence for convergence, when compared with benchmark non-Cypriot varieties. Starting with tunes for polar questions, our first comparison was between Cypriot Greek and Athenian Greek, confirming previously reported phonological similarity between the two, with some phonetic differences in tonal alignment (Grice, Ladd & Arvaniti 2000). We also find these patterns in Cypriot Greek speakers’ L2 English. (English is widely spoken in Cyprus as an L2).
- In a follow-up analysis, we examine polar question tunes in Cypriot Turkish, and find both Greek-like variants (presumably due to contact with Cypriot Greek) and variants that are more like Standard Turkish, with distribution likely conditioned by sociolinguistic factors.
- In a new paper in the Speech Prosody 2024 proceedings, we compare the intonation of polar questions in Cypriot Greek (CYG) and Cypriot Arabic (CYA), a severely endangered peripheral variety of Arabic, the intonation of which has not been formally examined before. The results reveal CYA questions to be phonologically very similar to those in CYG, albeit with differences in their fine phonetic detail and phonologically different from Syrian Arabic questions.
To read more about our project goals and the historic backdrop to the complex linguistic diversity found in Cyprus, please check out this recent presentation, where we also explain our methodology. To read more about our findings, please see our ICPhS2023 and our Speech Prosody 2024 papers.
Next up
CONDUCTING a more detailed prosodic investigation of geographical and cross-generational variants of Cypriot Greek and Cypriot Turkish, and how these may have been shaped by more recent displacements on the island, as a result of the events of 1974.
CONSTRUCTING a digital historical atlas, incorporating audio files and linguistic analyses, to dynamically depict the geo-temporal backdrop to the prosodic variation we find.