to debate in literature)—but retained gemination. Geminate voiceless stop consonants surface as aspirates. Furthermore, Old Arabic merged with , became , and merged with . The consonant phonemes of Cypriot Arabic, according to , are . Affricates occur as allophones of clusters . Voiced stops occur as allophones of voiceless stops intervocalically and next to a sonorant or . There are five vowel phonemes, , and two diphthongs, . Phonological rules observed in Cypriot Arabic include: Historical stop + stop clusters are dissimilated to fricative + stop. are palatalized to before . is fully assimilated. between an obstruent and a vowel surfaces as . An epenthetic stop occurs between a nasal and a continuant or sonorant. The place of articulation is inherited from the nasal before it and the voicing from the continuant or sonorant that follows. Phenomena similar to the first three are also observed in Cypriot Greek. Vocabulary Writing system In May 2009, the Committee of Experts for the Codification of Cypriot Maronite Arabic submitted an action plan for the codification and revitalisation of the language to the Cypriot government. The Public Foundation for European Comparative Minority Research reported in 2006 that both the Greek and Latin script had been suggested for adoption. The Greek script is used for Cypriot Arabic in a Cypriot Arabic–Greek dictionary. Alexander Borg, a linguist specialising in the language, created a Latin-based alphabet with elements from Maltese and Greek that the non-governmental organisation for the revitalisation of the language "Hki Fi Sanna" endorsed in 2007, and some "small texts" have apparently been translated into it. All letters loosely represent their IPA values, with some exceptions: Examples Phrases See also Cypriot Maronite Arabic Swadesh list Languages of Cyprus Varieties of Arabic Notes and references Bibliography </ref> External links Cypriot Maronite Arabic grammar (in Greek), includes a list of published literature on the language Arab diaspora in Europe Arabic, Cypriot Arabic, Cypriot Lebanese diaspora in Cyprus Endangered Afroasiatic languages Maronites Mesopotamian Arabic