Welcome to Sanna Website!

The revival of Cypriot Arabic is the only systematic and structured attempt to revive a minority language in the wider area of Middle East. The effort has been supported and financed by the Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth of Cyprus since 2013 through the Research Program for the revival and safeguard of Cypriot Arabic. Its main objective is to record and document Cypriot Arabic, an Arabic variety of oral tradition spoken by the inhabitants of Kormakitis village, situated in the area currently under Turkish military control, and to create an Archive of Oral Tradition with data from interviews with members of the Maronite community. The documentation serves the description and teaching of the language and records the experiences of Kormakitis Maronites for the past century or so. ...On our website you will find information about the Ministry’s research program, primary audio-visual material from the interviews, pedagogical material for teaching the language, photographic material, illustrated stories from the Archive, etc. Τhe website also contains information about other research programmes concerning individual actions in relation to the revival of Cypriot Arabic, such as the program MapCyArS: Mapping Cypriot Arabic speakers: An investigation into linguistic demography and the sociolinguistic profile of Kormakiote Maronites, financed by the A. G. Leventis Foundation at the University of Cyprus between 2017-2020, which focuses on the assessment of proficiency in Cypriot Arabic and other endangered oral languages.

In the 87th episode of the Science talks podcast series by the University of Cyprus, entitled Sociolinguistics and Minority Languages (16.10.2024), Professor of Linguistics M. Karyolaimou talks about the research project for the revitalization of Sanna funded by the Cyprus Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth

Short documentary about Sanna and the revitalisation efforts entitled « Foi en l'avenir » created by Yannick Aroussi, Christian Mathieu and Philippe Hervé as part of the Mediterraneo series of interventions, France 3 / Provence-Alpes-Côte d' Azur (17.01.2024)

Last Updated on January 28, 2025