From linguistic liberalism to legal regulation

One of the main difficulties in describing state language policies and planning has to do with the fact that very often one has to decide whether changes observed in state attitude vis-à-vis specific languages indicate the adoption of a new policy or reflect activation processes which tend to unveil previously covert or de facto policies. The interpretation of apparent changes in policy often becomes more difficult because of the existence of divergent, even conflicting, linguistic practices within the same polity. The introduction of legislation aiming to protect the Greek language in Cyprus in the mid 80s can be interpreted as an activation of the Cypriot state de facto policy in favor of the Greek language, a policy that marks the history of the Greek Cypriot community even before the creation of the Cypriot state. The shift from a laissez faire attitude that prevailed in the years after Independence (1960) toward legal intervention in favor of the Greek language in the mid 1980s cannot be understood without reference to a set of interrelated factors that distinguish this period from previous periods of the history of the Cypriot state.