As a Cypriot, Georgia Evagorou’s initial intention with this type and language project was to respond to what she perceived as the failure of the Greek writing system to represent all the common speech sounds of the dialect used by Cypriot communities in informal spoken communication. Both spoken and written modes of communication in Cyprus vary greatly in relation to their use in formal and informal situations, and Evagorou’s research question aimed to discover to what extent language is a factor in the construction of a country’s identity. In order to provide an answer to a number of problems arising from her contextual research, she also decided to make a phonetically more adequate spelling system to refl ect the Cypriot dialect.
This was realized through the design of additional letters that aim to give Cypriots a better form of written script to express their language and their cultural identity more effi ciently. The development
of new glyphs was, then, something of a personal endeavour to refl ect the complexity of the culture, and the social and personal politics of language in Cyprus.
Evagorou’s primary research included a formal investigation into the range of language attitudes and modes in Cypriot culture. This involved a detailed survey of the usage of written forms (including Greek and Latin alphabets) and spoken dialects within a variety of formal and informal situations and contexts.
A total of 1,038 Cypriot language speakers participated in this study, and the results were charted by age, location and the choice of writing system adopted by each user. Evagorou used this data within a series of information design charts to illustrate how people’s speech patterns appear in different social networks, from personal communication between friends and family members to formal business reports, educational contexts and professional environments.
Diglossia
The term diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by the same speech community. Standard Greek and Cypriot Greek are used concurrently by the same speakers within the Greek-Cypriot speech community, but under different circumstances.
Formal communication in Cyprus for both written and spoken
communication uses the Standard Greek language and alphabet.
Informal online communication uses Greeklish, a phonetic version of the Greek language written with the Latin alphabet. The spoken dialect is Cypriot Greek, though this varies in relation to the context of the spoken communication itself – formal situations use Standard Greek, while Cypriot Greek is more often used in social and informal contexts.
Evagorou asked whether the usage of Greeklish might refl ect the fact that it offers Cypriots a better script to express speech sounds used in the Cypriot dialect than the Greek alphabet. Greeklish is characterized by spelling variations, whereby Greek characters are transliterated with more than one Latin equivalent. These transliterations can be of two different types – some are phonetic, attempting to represent Greek sounds/phonemes
with Latin characters, whereas others are orthographic, attempting to maintain Greek orthographic conventions and representing Greek characters with visually equivalent Latin characters.
5. Audience and Message
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Letterform Evolution Through her contextual studies covering secondary research on the subject of Cypriot dialect, writing systems and linguistics, Evagorou found that most studies ignore typography. She even interviewed a number of Cypriot linguistic professors who are working to create the fi rst online Cypriot dictionary, and found that the possibility of collaborating with a typographer was never a
consideration for them. From her own research path, she asserts that the explication of written language needs the expertise of both a typographer and a linguist in order to provide a complete description of its forms and structures together with a satisfactory explanation of its functions and effects.
As a Cypriot and as a professional graphic designer, Evagorou felt that creating new glyphs was
more than playing with type, it was a fundamental attempt at proposing and testing solutions that could give an innovative script to Cypriots to refl ect their spoken language more accurately.
Variations in the development of individual glyphs were each tested with potential user groups, and she was careful to maintain a clear correspondence between the handwritten form and its evolution toward a typographic mark
(above). These new glyphs were then refi ned and their proposed usage and phonetic interpretation demonstrated within more extended typographic compositions (opposite page).
5. Audience and Message
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5. Audience and Message
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Case Study 07: Cypriot Identity
Writing Solutions
Evagorou’s second research direction was to draw upon the range of potential contexts and situations identifi ed within her primary research on the use of different language forms, with a view to designing a possible solution to a number of existing problems. She proposed that the incorporation of new glyphs within the spelling system might bring into effect a better and more appropriate use of the Greek alphabet when representing the Cypriot dialect.
She also recorded a number of negative attitudes toward the use of Greek Cypriot dialect, in particular in relation to perceived levels of educational status or ‘higher’ cultural value – such as in formal situations where Standard Greek is the accepted mode of communication. Some of these attitudes are possibly compounded by the fact that the Cypriot language is not standardized or codifi ed in any way
and does not possess a generally accepted orthographic system. Drawing on her studies into language and spelling reform, phonetics and the development of ligatures and combined characters, Evagorou set out to develop new glyphs to enhance the Greek alphabet with additional characters that can be used to express a number of characteristic Cypriot speech sounds.
The designer’s criteria for these new glyphs included the need for them to be easy to learn, easy to remember, and easy to write. Any new typographic form has to have a handwritten basis: it is vital that letters are as simple as possible and easy to write.
Readability and legibility of the new forms were also important factors that had to be taken into consideration, together with typographic styles and the ways in which the individual characters would operate within the wider written system.
Reformed Characters
Reformed alphabets often attempt to more accurately transcribe the sounds of a spoken language.
Today, the most common system and one of the most successful accomplishments of alphabetic reform for transcribing the sounds of language is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Research into the IPA informed Evagorou’s practical development, with careful consideration given to the
evolution of individual letterforms, their proposed function and usage, and their typographic equivalent.
Evagorou’s Cypriot letters were initially designed individually, one at a time. However, it must always be remembered that letters are rarely treated as individual elements. A single letter that works well may not harmonize in a word.
Letters composed in a word behave differently from when they are
seen in isolation. It was important to constantly review the letters in the context of other letters to test how they would work within a body of text (opposite page).
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5. Audience and Message
Final Books
Evagorou’s research and development resulted in the design of one consonant and six consonant pairs of unique Cypriot glyphs designed to enhance the existing Greek alphabet when used by the Greek Cypriot community.
The fi nal resolution of the project took the form of a key book of the fi nal Cypriot glyphs, together with a series of books outlining the evaluation of each research strand
and the development of each letterform (above). The key book also includes the IPA symbols of each sound and the writing guide for each glyph.
In addition, she designed a book of Cypriot poetry demonstrating the use of Standard Greek forms within an extended text, set opposite the same poems incorporating the new characters (opposite page).
Evagorou felt that this outcome
could be read ‘naturally’ by Greek Cypriot readers, as the letterforms themselves were evolved from familiar forms, and the content of the extended text – the poems – were also highly evocative of the language and culture of Cyprus.
As the designer notes in her research summary: ‘…as the values and identity of Cypriot dialect is inadequately represented when it is written with Greek characters, this
book aims to acknowledge my initial target of providing Cypriots a better script to express their dialect more accurately.’
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