Kohẓen
Documenting Cypriot Arabic (Sanna) and the living heritage of the community that preserves it.
Kohẓen is an independent project dedicated to documenting and helping preserve Cypriot Arabic (Sanna), also known as Cypriot Maronite Arabic. This severely endangered Arabic variety has been maintained by Cyprus’ Maronite community for centuries. Through recordings, working transliterations, English translations and cultural context, we make the language and its speakers’ stories more accessible beyond social media.
Language-led, community-rooted. Sanna is our principal focus.
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Explore Cypriot Arabic (Sanna) through recordings, voices and community stories.
Cypriot Arabic (Sanna)
Cypriot Arabic (Sanna), also known as Cypriot Maronite Arabic, is the severely endangered Arabic variety traditionally spoken by the Maronites of Cyprus, especially in Kormakitis (Kormajit).
It developed locally in Cyprus over centuries and has been shaped by sustained contact with Cypriot Greek and by the community’s wider Eastern Mediterranean history. It is not simply Lebanese Arabic, Syrian Arabic or a modern immigrant variety.
Sanna has largely survived through oral transmission. As fluent everyday use and intergenerational transmission weaken, the loss reaches beyond vocabulary to family memory, humour, prayers, songs, sayings and the particular ways a community understands its past.
Hear Cypriot Arabic
Selected recordings are accompanied by source information, working transliteration and English translation. Credits, interpretations and reuse permissions are identified as provisional where they are still being checked.
Featured example Where we went, we were born
Context: a short passage about place, family and the difficulty of leaving.
Working transcripts may be revised after checking against source audio and linguistic reference material.
The Markin Mass
Context: a childhood recollection of going together to the Markin Mass and celebrating Mass.
This is a working transcript and may be refined after direct checking against the source audio.
They know Sanna, but speak Greek
Context: a speaker reflects on younger generations knowing Sanna while using Greek in everyday speech.
Working wording is shown transparently so that later corrections can be documented rather than silently substituted.
These are working catalogue entries. Kohẓen archive IDs are internal project references, not identifiers assigned by the original speakers, filmmakers or archives.
How Kohẓen documents Sanna
Our priority is to document spoken Cypriot Arabic and the memories, meanings and cultural knowledge carried through it. The work develops as capacity, source access and permissions allow.
Record
Collect speech, phrases and oral histories with speakers and families who choose to participate, and identify relevant existing recordings.
Transliterate and translate
Develop carefully checked working transcripts, English translations and notes that help explain what is being said.
Preserve context
Record source details, uncertainties, permissions and community context so material can be understood and responsibly revisited.
Kohẓen is an independent, developing language documentation and preservation project, not a formal archive, charity or research institution. It aims to complement existing Cypriot Arabic scholarship and community-led work, guided by speakers, permissions, specialist advice and sustainable resources.
Help document Cypriot Arabic
Speak Sanna, know someone who does, or have family recordings or remembered expressions? Introductions, corrections and source material can help us document the language responsibly. Please only offer material you are authorised to share.
We also welcome contact from linguists, community organisations, archives and potential funders interested in endangered languages, Arabic linguistic heritage and responsible community-led preservation.
Material is reviewed and shared when permissions and capacity allow. Kohẓen does not currently operate to a fixed publication schedule.
Keep our voices. Strengthen our community.
A small collection of carefully documented speech can still carry language, memory and community history forward.