ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses Turkish-language classes in order to investigate the discursive, subtle re-negotiation of the relationship between us and the others that took place during the lessons. It focuses on the complicated inter-ethnic relations in Cyprus and reveals the difficulties in constructing a legitimate representation of the people whose language was taught in the classroom. The chapter discusses the interplay of language, education and ethnic identity in the Greek Cypriot community as well as the impact of nationalist ideologies on the development of Greek-Turkish bilingualism. It examines the limitations and potential of Other-language teaching and learning in changing inter-ethnic relations. Language played an important role in the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities developing an ethnolinguistic identity, as it could confirm sameness with their motherland and difference to the other Cypriot community. Before the establishment of the nationalist discourse, the local variety of Greek, which was the language of the majority, had become the lingua franca in Cyprus.
