HISTORY

Greek and Turkish speakers have lived as neighbours for almost a thousand years, sharing harbours, markets, kitchens and music, and each language holds hundreds of words taken from the other. This timeline follows the places and moments where the two peoples met, worked and helped each other, with examples from this dictionary's word list. It also records, briefly and with sources, the wrongs each side did to the other, without verdicts, so that the shared words can be read with the whole history in view.

Each date is checked against the sources listed under it. Events that still divide the two countries are stated as facts, without verdicts.

1. 1071

   Neighbours in Anatolia

   On 26 August 1071 the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan defeated the Byzantine emperor Romanos IV Diogenes at Manzikert (Malazgirt), and most of Anatolia came under Seljuk rule in the years that followed. Oghuz Turkish tribes settled among a Greek speaking population, and Kappler dates close Greek and Turkish contact from this time. He calls the Seljuk centuries the first period of widespread multilingualism in the society of Asia Minor, when Greek, Oghuz Turkish, Persian and Arabic met, and stresses that the retreat of Greek there was gradual.

   1. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Battle of Manzikert' britannica.com
   2. Matthias Kappler, 'A Tale of Two Languages: Tracing the History of Turkish and Greek Language Contacts', Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 21.1 (2011), pp. 95 to 130, pp. 102 to 103 and 111 iris.unive.it

2. 1200s

   Greek verses in Konya

   In thirteenth century Anatolia the poet Jalal al Din Rumi, who died in Konya in 1273, wove short Greek phrases into his Persian verse. His son Sultan Walad (died 1312), the first poet to write in a western Turkish dialect, used Greek more than his father did and wrote whole passages in it. Rumi used the word efendi, from Byzantine Greek aféndis (αφέντης), which shows it was already current in Anatolia. Vryonis gives a full chapter to the Byzantine elements that lived on in Turkish Anatolia.

   WORDS FROM THIS TIME

   αφέντης efendi

   1. Matthias Kappler, 'A Tale of Two Languages: Tracing the History of Turkish and Greek Language Contacts', Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 21.1 (2011), pp. 95 to 130, pp. 103 to 104 iris.unive.it
   2. Orhan F. Köprülü, 'Efendi', TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 10 (1994), pp. 455 to 456 islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
   3. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Rumi' britannica.com
   4. Speros Vryonis Jr, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (University of California Press, 1971), chapter VII archive.apan.gr

3. 1453

   Istanbul, a city of two languages

   On 29 May 1453 Mehmed II took Constantinople after a 55 day siege, and the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, died at the walls. Mehmed invited the scholar Gennadios Scholarios to serve as the first patriarch under Ottoman rule, from 1454 to 1464. Under Ottoman rule the city became, in Kappler's phrase, the 'cradle' of Greek and Turkish bilingualism: the capital where Greek and Turkish speakers mixed with each other and with many other communities.

   WORDS FROM THIS TIME

   μαχαλάς mahalleσοκάκι sokak

   1. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Fall of Constantinople' britannica.com
   2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Constantine XI Palaeologus' britannica.com
   3. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Gennadios II Scholarios' britannica.com
   4. Matthias Kappler, 'A Tale of Two Languages: Tracing the History of Turkish and Greek Language Contacts', Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 21.1 (2011), pp. 95 to 130, p. 118 iris.unive.it

4. Late 1400s to 1700s

   The language of the sea

   The Ottomans became a naval power from the late fifteenth century, and Rona and Dedes note that the Turks learned navigation and fishing from the Greeks. Kahane, Kahane and Tietze's The Lingua Franca in the Levant (1958) traced nearly 900 Turkish nautical terms of Italian and Greek origin, 154 of them Greek. Greek gave Turkish liman (harbour), iskele (landing stage), lodos (south wind) and sünger (sponge), and the vocabulary of fishing stayed largely Greek.

   WORDS FROM THIS TIME

   λιμάνι limanσκάλα iskeleνότος lodosσφουγγάρι sünger

   1. Bengisu Rona and Yorgos Dedes, 'Languages in Contact: Greek Loanwords in Turkish', Journal of Turkish Studies 31/II (2007), pp. 169 to 208 soas-repository.worktribe.com
   2. Henry Kahane, Renée Kahane and Andreas Tietze, The Lingua Franca in the Levant: Turkish Nautical Terms of Italian and Greek Origin (University of Illinois Press, 1958) iris.unive.it
   3. Matthias Kappler, 'Lingua Franca of the Levant', Encyclopedia of Turkic Languages and Linguistics Online (Brill, 2023) iris.unive.it

5. 1500s to 1800s

   Market, kitchen and household

   Over the Ottoman centuries the Greek of the mainland and Asia Minor filled with Turkish words, many of Arabic or Persian origin. Browning notes that the loans in common Greek are almost all nouns, grouped around home, food, dress, administration and personal life: σοφράς, καφές, κέφι. Because farming and plant words are missing, he concludes the influence worked mainly in towns, not villages. The ledger word τεφτέρι travelled furthest: ancient Greek διφθέρα, a hide prepared for writing, passed through Aramaic, Persian and Arabic to Turkish defter and back into Greek.

   WORDS FROM THIS TIME

   σοφράς sofraκαφές kahveκέφι keyifτεφτέρι defter

   1. Robert Browning, Η ελληνική γλώσσα, μεσαιωνική και νέα, trans. D. Sotiropoulos (Papadimas, 1972), pp. 137 to 138, excerpted on the Portal for the Greek Language, Centre for the Greek Language greek-language.gr
   2. Sevan Nişanyan, Nişanyan Sözlük, entry 'defter' nisanyansozluk.com

6. 1711

   The Phanariots

   Leading Greek families of the Phanar (Φανάρι, Fener), the Greek quarter of Istanbul, served the Ottoman state as dragomans, interpreters who also advised on foreign affairs, from 1669 to 1821. From 1711 to 1821 members of these families were also appointed hospodars, or princes, of Moldavia and Wallachia. Kappler describes them as a class in close contact with Ottoman Turkish culture and language. The first printed Turkish grammar for Greek speakers, by Dimitris Alexandridis, appeared in Vienna in 1812.

   1. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Phanariote' britannica.com
   2. Matthias Kappler, 'A Tale of Two Languages: Tracing the History of Turkish and Greek Language Contacts', Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 21.1 (2011), pp. 95 to 130, pp. 118 to 119 iris.unive.it

7. 1718

   Turkish in Greek letters

   The Karamanlides, Turkish speaking Orthodox Christians of Karaman and Cappadocia in central Anatolia, wrote their Turkish in Greek script. The oldest known text of this kind is a Turkish version of the statement of faith that Patriarch Gennadios wrote at Mehmed II's request in 1455 or 1456. The first printed Karamanlidika book appeared in 1718, and about 750 titles are known up to the 1920s: first church books, many of them printed in Venice, and later newspapers and novels from the presses of Istanbul.

   WORDS FROM THIS TIME

   εκκλησία kiliseπαπάς papaz

   1. Matthias Kappler, 'Karamanlidika', Encyclopedia of Greek Language and Linguistics Online (Brill) iris.unive.it
   2. Matthias Kappler, 'Karamanli', Encyclopedia of Turkic Languages and Linguistics Online (Brill, 2023) iris.unive.it
   3. Matthias Kappler, 'A Tale of Two Languages: Tracing the History of Turkish and Greek Language Contacts', Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 21.1 (2011), pp. 95 to 130, pp. 113 to 114 and 118 iris.unive.it
   4. Evangelia Balta, Beyond the Language Frontier: Studies on the Karamanlis and the Karamanlidika Printing (Gorgias Press, 2011) gorgiaspress.com

8. 1821 to 1832

   Greek independence

   The Greek revolt against Ottoman rule began in 1821, and the sultan recognised an independent Greece in July 1832. Civilians suffered on both sides: when Greek forces took Tripolitsa in 1821, St Clair writes, upwards of ten thousand Turks were killed and the town's Jewish community was also persecuted, and in 1822 Ottoman forces killed or enslaved tens of thousands of the Greeks of Chios. Large Orthodox communities stayed in Istanbul and Anatolia for nearly another century. In 1871 the Istanbul publisher Evangelinos Misailidis printed Temaşa-i Dünya, a free Turkish version, in Greek letters, of a Greek novel.

   1. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'War of Greek Independence' britannica.com
   2. William St Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free: The Philhellenes in the War of Independence (Oxford University Press, 1972; Open Book Publishers, 2008), chapter 4, 'Two Kinds of War' books.openbookpublishers.com
   3. William St Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free: The Philhellenes in the War of Independence (Oxford University Press, 1972; Open Book Publishers, 2008), chapter 7, 'Chios' books.openbookpublishers.com
   4. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Chios' britannica.com
   5. Renée Hirschon (ed.), Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey (Berghahn Books, 2003) berghahnbooks.com
   6. Matthias Kappler, 'Karamanlidika', Encyclopedia of Greek Language and Linguistics Online (Brill) iris.unive.it

9. 1830s to 1976

   Words that outlived the purists

   After the Greek kingdom was founded around 1830, purists worked to clear Turkish and Italian words from Greek, and Skopetea finds the demoticists were just as hostile to Turkisms. From 1932 the Turkish language reform sought to replace Arabic and Persian words with 'pure Turkish' ones; Rona and Dedes note Greek loans were not purged in the same way, though Greek village names were widely changed. Law 309/1976 made demotic the language of Greek schools, and everyday words such as τέντζερης (pot), καπάκι (lid) and μεράκι stayed in use.

   WORDS FROM THIS TIME

   τέντζερης tencereκαπάκι kapakμεράκι merakμουσακάς musakka

   1. Ch. P. Symeonidis, 'Ελληνικής και τουρκικής αμοιβαίες επιδράσεις' (1999), pp. 176 to 177, excerpted on the Portal for the Greek Language, Centre for the Greek Language greek-language.gr
   2. Elli Skopetea, '"Ασθενείς" και "ισχυροί" των Βαλκανίων' (1999), pp. 655 to 659, excerpted on the Portal for the Greek Language, Centre for the Greek Language greek-language.gr
   3. Türk Dil Kurumu, 2018 to 2022 Stratejik Plan, section 2.1 'Kurumsal Tarihçe' tdk.gov.tr
   4. Geoffrey Lewis, The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success (Oxford University Press, 1999) academic.oup.com
   5. Bengisu Rona and Yorgos Dedes, 'Languages in Contact: Greek Loanwords in Turkish', Journal of Turkish Studies 31/II (2007), pp. 169 to 208 soas-repository.worktribe.com
   6. L'aménagement linguistique dans le monde, 'Grèce: politique linguistique' (CEFAN, Université Laval), on Law 309/1976 axl.cefan.ulaval.ca
   7. Rena Stavridi-Patrikiou, 'Δημοτικισμός και εξουσία: το χρονικό μιας καταστολής', in Γλώσσα, Εκπαίδευση και Πολιτική (Olkos, 1999), excerpted in the Encyclopaedic Guide to the Language Question, Centre for the Greek Language greek-language.gr
   8. Matthias Kappler, 'A Tale of Two Languages: Tracing the History of Turkish and Greek Language Contacts', Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 21.1 (2011), pp. 95 to 130, pp. 119 and 121 to 122 iris.unive.it

10. 1914 to 1923

    The Greeks of Pontus and Anatolia

    During the First World War and the years after it, Ottoman and then Turkish nationalist forces deported Greek communities of Anatolia and Pontus to the interior, sent their men to labour battalions (amele taburları) and marched families inland, and many died. Andrew Basso, citing Tessa Hofmann, gives about 353,000 Pontic Greek dead, the figure Greece also uses; other estimates differ. Greece's Law 2193/1994 made 19 May the day of remembrance of the genocide of the Greeks of Pontus. Cyprus, Sweden's Riksdag, Armenia and the International Association of Genocide Scholars also call it genocide; Turkey rejects the term.

    1. Andrew R. Basso, 'Towards a Theory of Displacement Atrocities: The Cherokee Trail of Tears, The Herero Genocide, and The Pontic Greek Genocide', Genocide Studies and Prevention 10.1 (2016), pp. 5 to 29, pp. 18 to 24 digitalcommons.usf.edu
    2. Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi, The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894 to 1924 (Harvard University Press, 2019) hup.harvard.edu
    3. Erik Sjöberg, The Making of the Greek Genocide: Contested Memories of the Ottoman Greek Catastrophe (Berghahn Books, 2016) degruyterbrill.com
    4. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece, 'Greeks of Minor Asia and Pontus' mfa.gr
    5. Hellenic Parliament, bill submitted by eleven members on 20 May 2025, citing Law 2193/1994, ΦΕΚ Α΄ 32/11.3.1994, Article 1 hellenicparliament.gr
    6. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece, address by Alternate Foreign Minister M. Xenogiannakopoulou to the Hellenic Parliament, 19 May 2011 mfa.gr
    7. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece, speech by Deputy Foreign Minister Amanatidis at a special session of the Hellenic Parliament, 19 May 2016 mfa.gr
    8. Cyprus News Agency, 'Cyprus parliament formally recognises May 19 as Pontic genocide remembrance day', 19 June 2025 cna.org.cy
    9. Sveriges riksdag, motion 2019/20:229, which records the Riksdag decision of 11 March 2010 on the genocide of Armenians, Assyrians, Syriacs, Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks riksdagen.se
    10. Armenpress, 'Armenia's Parliament unanimously adopts Greek and Assyrian genocide recognition statement', 24 March 2015 armenpress.am
    11. International Association of Genocide Scholars, resolution on the genocides of Armenians, Assyrians and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks, 2007 (copy hosted by AGA) aga-online.org
    12. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Türkiye, press statement no. 80, 23 May 2007, on the events organised for the so called Pontian Greek genocide mfa.gov.tr
    13. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Türkiye, statement no. 95, 19 May 2026, on events held and statements made in Greece on 19 May 2026 eu-pr.mfa.gov.tr

11. 1916

    Greek with Turkish grammar

    In 1916 Cambridge University Press published R. M. Dawkins's Modern Greek in Asia Minor, a study of the Greek dialects of Sílli, Cappadocia and Phárasa. It recorded Greek that had absorbed Turkish sounds, word endings and word order after centuries of bilingualism, which Kappler calls a frozen situation of language mixing. Cappadocian was thought extinct by the 1960s, until Mark Janse of Ghent University and Dimitris Papazachariou of the University of Patras found fluent speakers in central and northern Greece in 2005.

    1. R. M. Dawkins, Modern Greek in Asia Minor: A Study of the Dialects of Sílli, Cappadocia and Phárasa (Cambridge University Press, 1916) archive.apan.gr
    2. Matthias Kappler, 'A Tale of Two Languages: Tracing the History of Turkish and Greek Language Contacts', Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 21.1 (2011), pp. 95 to 130, pp. 104 to 108 iris.unive.it
    3. Freie Universität Berlin, lecture announcement: Mark Janse (Ghent University), 'Dead or Alive? The Resurrection of Cappadocian (Asia Minor Greek)', 29 April 2010 geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de

12. 1919 to 1922

    War in Anatolia

    Greek troops landed at Smyrna on 15 May 1919, and that day and the next hundreds of Turks, among them unarmed prisoners, were killed or wounded; an Inter-Allied Commission of Inquiry held the Greek military command responsible, and at Aydın in June it found killing on both sides, with Turkish bands burning the Greek quarter. In 1921 Allied officers found that Greek and Armenian bands, acting on Greek instructions and sometimes helped by Greek regular troops, were destroying Turkish villages around Yalova and Gemlik, as Arnold Toynbee also reported, while a commission at İzmit found crimes by both sides there, with those of Turkish bands the more serious. Retreating to the coast in 1922, the Greek army burned towns and villages in its path.

    1. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, vol. IX, notes of a meeting of the Heads of Delegations, Paris, 8 November 1919, Appendix A: report of the Inter-Allied Commission of Inquiry on the Greek occupation of Smyrna history.state.gov
    2. Reports on Atrocities in the Districts of Yalova and Guemlek and in the Ismid Peninsula, Turkey No. 1 (1921), Cmd. 1478 (His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1921) gutenberg.org
    3. Arnold J. Toynbee, The Western Question in Greece and Turkey: A Study in the Contact of Civilisations (Constable, 1922), sections 'Yalova' and 'The Area of the Organised Atrocities', pp. 299 to 319 iris.unina.it
    4. Elçin Macar, 'Greco-Turkish War 1919 to 1922', 1914-1918-online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War (Freie Universität Berlin, 2020) encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net

13. 1922

    The music the refugees carried

    On 9 September 1922 Turkish forces entered Smyrna (İzmir), and from 13 September fire destroyed much of the city. More than a million Orthodox refugees reached Greece. They brought the café aman and its amanedes, widely recorded in Athens in the late 1920s, and with them many Turkish words entered Greek, especially through rebetiko.

    WORDS FROM THIS TIME

    αμάν amanκανονάκι kanunντέρτι dert

    1. Torsten Janson, Biray Kolluoğlu and Ege Mehmet Akman, 'Stirring up the Ashes: Exhibiting the Great Fire of Smyrna in the Context of Turkish Politics of Memory', in E. Themopoulou and H. Georgelin (eds), From Smyrna to Izmir (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Press, 2025), pp. 417 to 447 lucris.lub.lu.se
    2. Biray Kolluoğlu Kırlı, 'Forgetting the Smyrna Fire', History Workshop Journal 60 (2005), pp. 25 to 44 daily.jstor.org
    3. Elçin Macar, 'Greco-Turkish War 1919 to 1922', 1914-1918-online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War (Freie Universität Berlin, 2020) encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net
    4. Renée Hirschon (ed.), Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey (Berghahn Books, 2003) berghahnbooks.com
    5. Gail Holst-Warhaft, 'Amanes: The Legacy of the Oriental Mother', Music & Anthropology 5 (2000), section 2 www2.umbc.edu
    6. Matthias Kappler, 'A Tale of Two Languages: Tracing the History of Turkish and Greek Language Contacts', Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 21.1 (2011), pp. 95 to 130, pp. 121 to 122 iris.unive.it

14. 1923

    The population exchange

    The convention signed at Lausanne on 30 January 1923 made the exchange compulsory for Turkish nationals of the Greek Orthodox religion and Greek nationals of the Muslim religion, about 1.2 million and 400,000 people by common estimates. The test was religion, not language. Turkish speaking Orthodox Karamanlides moved to Greece, where Karamanlidika books and newspapers were still printed into the 1920s. Greek speaking Muslims from Crete settled around Ayvalık and İzmir, where Kappler records that their Greek survives, though close to dying out.

    WORDS FROM THIS TIME

    αρκαντάσης arkadaşκαρντάσης kardeş

    1. Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, Lausanne, 30 January 1923, Articles 1 and 2 (text hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Türkiye) mfa.gov.tr
    2. Erciyes University, Lozan Mübadilleri Projesi, 'Population Exchange' lozanmubadilleriprojesi.erciyes.edu.tr
    3. Bruce Clark, Twice a Stranger: The Mass Expulsions That Forged Modern Greece and Turkey (Harvard University Press, 2006) publishersweekly.com
    4. Renée Hirschon (ed.), Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey (Berghahn Books, 2003) berghahnbooks.com
    5. Matthias Kappler, 'Karamanlidika', Encyclopedia of Greek Language and Linguistics Online (Brill) iris.unive.it
    6. Matthias Kappler, 'A Tale of Two Languages: Tracing the History of Turkish and Greek Language Contacts', Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 21.1 (2011), pp. 95 to 130, p. 124 iris.unive.it

15. 1923 to today

    Those who stayed

    Article 2 of the convention exempted the Greek inhabitants of Constantinople settled there before 30 October 1918 and the Muslims of Western Thrace, and the Treaty of Lausanne gave Imbros (Gökçeada) and Tenedos (Bozcaada) a local administration. The Istanbul Rum community, much reduced by emigration, numbers a few thousand by most estimates. The Muslim minority of Thrace, about 100,000 people of Turkish, Pomak and Roma background, is taught mainly in Turkish, and most of its members also speak Greek.

    1. Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, Lausanne, 30 January 1923, Articles 1 and 2 (text hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Türkiye) mfa.gov.tr
    2. Treaty of Peace, Lausanne, 24 July 1923, Part I, Articles 14 and 37 to 45 (text hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Türkiye) mfa.gov.tr
    3. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Treaty of Lausanne' britannica.com
    4. Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, 'Türkiye: Rum Orthodox Christians' (updated 2018) minorityrights.org
    5. Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, 'Greece: Turks and Pomaks' (updated 2018) minorityrights.org

16. 1942 to 1998

    Minorities under pressure

    In 1942 Turkey's capital tax, the Varlık Vergisi, was assessed far more heavily on Christian and Jewish citizens than on Muslims, and those unable to pay had their property seized and some were sent to labour camps. On 6 and 7 September 1955 organised mobs in Istanbul attacked Greek homes, shops, churches and schools. In 1964 Turkey expelled thousands of Greek nationals; many Istanbul Greeks with Turkish citizenship left with them. In Greece, Article 19 of the Citizenship Code let the state strip citizenship from people not of Greek ethnic origin who left the country; about 60,000, mostly ethnic Turks, lost it before its repeal in 1998.

    1. Seven Ağır and Cihan Artunç, 'Political Economy, Firm Survival and Entrepreneurship in Turkey: The Case of the Wealth Tax (1942)', ERC Working Papers in Economics 17/07 (Economic Research Center, Middle East Technical University, 2017) erc.metu.edu.tr
    2. Dilek Güven, Εθνικισμός, κοινωνικές μεταβολές και μειονότητες. Τα επεισόδια εναντίον των μη Μουσουλμάνων της Τουρκίας (6/7 Σεπτεμβρίου 1955), trans. Sofia Avgerinou (Estia, 2006) archive.apan.gr
    3. Helsinki Watch, Denying Human Rights and Ethnic Identity: The Greeks of Turkey (Human Rights Watch, March 1992), pp. 8 to 12 hrw.org
    4. Human Rights Watch, Greece: The Turks of Western Thrace, vol. 11, no. 1 (D) (January 1999), summary hrw.org
    5. Human Rights Watch, Greece: The Turks of Western Thrace (January 1999), 'Positive Steps by the Greek State' hrw.org
    6. Human Rights Watch, Greece: The Turks of Western Thrace (January 1999), 'Continuing Violations', on Article 19 hrw.org

17. 1960

    Cyprus: two official languages

    Turkish words appear in Cypriot Greek writing from the late sixteenth century, among them kayık (boat), haraç (tax) and rüşvet (bribe). The 1960 constitution of the Republic of Cyprus names Greek and Turkish as its official languages, and in the twentieth century Greek, the island's main everyday language, shaped the syntax of Cypriot Turkish.

    WORDS FROM THIS TIME

    καΐκι kayıkχαράτσι haraçρουσφέτι rüşvet

    1. Matthias Kappler, 'A Tale of Two Languages: Tracing the History of Turkish and Greek Language Contacts', Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 21.1 (2011), pp. 95 to 130, pp. 113 to 116 and 123 iris.unive.it
    2. Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus (1960), Article 3(1), Constitute Project constituteproject.org
    3. Stavroula Varella, Language Contact and the Lexicon in the History of Cypriot Greek (Peter Lang, 2006) peterlang.com

18. 1963 to 1974

    Cyprus divided

    Fighting between the communities broke out in December 1963, often called Bloody Christmas; Turkish Cypriots suffered most casualties, and many moved into enclaves. On 15 July 1974 the National Guard and EOKA B, on orders from the junta in Athens, overthrew President Makarios, and on 20 July Turkey landed troops; after a second offensive in August, Turkish forces held about 37 per cent of the island, as they have since. Greek Cypriots in the north and Turkish Cypriots in the south lost their homes. The European Court of Human Rights finds that Turkey has effective overall control of the north, widely described as occupied, and holds it responsible for human rights violations there; Turkey calls the landing a peace operation.

    1. Rebecca Bryant, Displacement in Cyprus: Consequences of Civil and Military Strife, Report 2, Life Stories: Turkish Cypriot Community (PRIO Cyprus Centre, 2012), p. 7 prio-cyprus-displacement.net
    2. United Nations, Report by the Secretary-General on the United Nations Operation in Cyprus, S/5950, 10 September 1964 securitycouncilreport.org
    3. Open University of Cyprus, 'Inter-communal conflicts 1963 to 64', public art project publicart.ouc.ac.cy
    4. Nikolaos Prakas, 'A newly formed Cyprus republic in tatters', Cyprus Mail, 17 December 2023 cyprus-mail.com
    5. Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, Cyprus: A Country Study, 'The Greek Coup and the Turkish Invasion' (text hosted by countrystudies.us) countrystudies.us
    6. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Makarios III' britannica.com
    7. Ayla Gürel, in N. Trimikliniotis and B. Sojka (eds), Envisioning a Future: Towards a Property Settlement in Cyprus, Displacement in Cyprus, Report 7 (PRIO, 2012), p. 13 dealingwiththepast.org
    8. European Court of Human Rights, Loizidou v. Turkey (merits), Grand Chamber, 18 December 1996, paras 52 to 57 (summary by the Center for Inter-legality Research, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies) cir.santannapisa.it
    9. European Court of Human Rights, Cyprus v. Turkey, Grand Chamber, 10 May 2001, application no. 25781/94 (excerpts in the ICRC casebook How Does Law Protect in War?) casebook.icrc.org
    10. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Cyprus: Efforts toward reunification' britannica.com
    11. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Türkiye, statement no. 142, 20 July 2024, on the 50th anniversary of 20 July oecd-dt.mfa.gov.tr
    12. Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye, Directorate of Communications, Center for Combating Disinformation, statement on claims that Türkiye is an occupying power in Cyprus, 20 July 2026 iletisim.gov.tr

19. 1979 to 1997

    Writers and musicians for friendship

    The Abdi İpekçi Peace and Friendship Prize, set up in 1979 and named after a Turkish journalist who stood for Greek and Turkish cooperation, was awarded every two years for reporting, poetry, prose, painting and music that promoted reconciliation between Greeks and Turks. In 1986 the composer Mikis Theodorakis came to Istanbul for the first time, and with the musician Zülfü Livaneli founded a Turkish and Greek friendship association. In 1987 Theodorakis gave concerts for peace in Istanbul and Athens, and he and Livaneli kept performing together until 1997.

    1. John Shutt, 'One Greek's quest for Aegean amity', The Christian Science Monitor, 20 August 1987 csmonitor.com
    2. Ayşegül Özbek, 'Composer Mikis Theodorakis dies at 96: "I have lost a great friend in life and arts"', bianet, 2 September 2021 bianet.org
    3. Francesco Martinelli, 'Zülfü Livaneli: "Art reaches the masses flowing like an underground river"', Songlines, 14 November 2022 songlines.co.uk

20. 1999

    Help across the Aegean

    On 17 August 1999 an earthquake near İzmit killed more than 17,000 people in northwest Turkey. Greece sent rescue teams with sniffer dogs, including its EMAK unit, and people in Greece raised money and gave food. On 7 September an earthquake near Athens killed 143 people, and the Turkish team AKUT came to help on its first mission abroad. This mutual help, often called earthquake diplomacy, came as foreign ministers George Papandreou and İsmail Cem were already in talks; Cem later wrote that this solidarity sped up the rapprochement.

    1. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Izmit earthquake of 1999' britannica.com
    2. Cihan Dizdaroğlu, Turkish-Greek Relations: Foreign Policy in a Securitisation Framework (Edinburgh University Press, 2023), chapter 5, 'The Root Causes of Rapprochement' cambridge.org
    3. Renato Vidrih, 'The 7 September 1999 Earthquake in Athens', Ujma 14 and 15 (2001), pp. 197 to 201 ojs-gr.zrc-sazu.si
    4. Ilan Kelman, 'Opinion: Turkey-Syria earthquake: how disaster diplomacy can bring warring countries together', UCL News, 7 February 2023 ucl.ac.uk
    5. Nüve Yazgan, 'Rethinking the 1999 Turkish-Greek rapprochement: the leadership, earthquake and civil society triad', Uluslararası Hukuk ve Politika 11.43 (2015), pp. 93 to 129, pp. 105 to 113 and 119 repository.bilkent.edu.tr
    6. James Ker-Lindsay, 'Greek-Turkish rapprochement: the impact of "disaster diplomacy"?', Cambridge Review of International Affairs 14.1 (2000), pp. 215 to 232 researchonline.lse.ac.uk

21. 2003

    Crossing the Green Line

    For almost three decades most Greek and Turkish Cypriots lived apart, either side of a UN buffer zone, and in 1983 the UN Security Council called the north's declaration of statehood legally invalid and asked all states to recognise only the Republic of Cyprus. In April 2003 crossing points opened, and Cypriots could again cross the island with relative freedom. Since 2006 Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot scientists of the Committee on Missing Persons have worked together to find and identify the 2,002 people of both communities who went missing in 1963 and 1964 and in 1974.

    1. United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), 'About the buffer zone' unficyp.unmissions.org
    2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Cyprus: Efforts toward reunification' britannica.com
    3. United Nations Security Council, Resolution 541 (1983), 18 November 1983, paras 2 and 7 (text hosted by Refworld, UNHCR) refworld.org
    4. Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus, 'Who We Are' cmp-cyprus.org
    5. Sigmalive, '1,700 exhumations by Committee on Missing Persons since 2006', 8 April 2025 en.sigmalive.com
    6. Cyprus Mail, 'Guterres praises efforts of missing persons committee', 29 July 2026 cyprus-mail.com

22. 2005

    Television across the Aegean

    In the summer of 2005 the Greek channel MEGA screened the Turkish series Yabancı Damat as Τα σύνορα της αγάπης (The Borders of Love), and it became the hit of the season. Greek newspapers printed lists of Turkish words used in Greek and Greek words used in Turkish, viewers noticed shared gestures and family habits, and sales of Turkish baklava reportedly rose. The series opened the Greek market to Turkish drama; Binbir Gece later drew a 29.6 per cent weekday prime time share.

    WORDS FROM THIS TIME

    σύνορο sınırμπακλαβάς baklava

    1. Penelope Papailias, 'TV Across the Aegean: The Greek Love Affair with a Turkish Serial' (2005), Modern Greek Program, University of Michigan prod.lsa.umich.edu
    2. Eleni Pothou, 'Why so Successful? An Audience Research on the Turkish TV Series in Greece', VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture 9.17 (2020), pp. 62 to 78 viewjournal.eu

23. Today

    Romeyka on the Black Sea

    Trebizond (Trabzon) fell to the Ottomans in 1461, and over time the city became majority Muslim. In the valleys inland, around Of, Çaykara and Tonya, Muslim communities kept speaking Romeyka, a Greek variety, and as Muslims they stayed in 1923. Ioanna Sitaridou of Cambridge has shown that Romeyka keeps the ancient Greek infinitive, lost in all other Greek dialects, and argues that it descends from Hellenistic rather than medieval Greek. A couple of thousand native speakers remain.

    WORDS FROM THIS TIME

    φουντούκι fındıkκεμεντζές kemençe

    1. University of Cambridge, 'Last chance to record archaic Greek language heading for extinction', 3 April 2024 cam.ac.uk
    2. University of Cambridge, 'Against all odds: archaic Greek in a modern world', 1 July 2010 cam.ac.uk
    3. Ioanna Sitaridou, 'The Romeyka Infinitive: Continuity, Contact and Change in the Hellenic Varieties of Pontus', Diachronica 31.1 (2014), pp. 23 to 73 lwc1.benjamins.com
    4. Matthias Kappler, 'A Tale of Two Languages: Tracing the History of Turkish and Greek Language Contacts', Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 21.1 (2011), pp. 95 to 130, p. 124 iris.unive.it