‘It’s strong, it’s bold; you know when a Cypriot is talking! It’s not trying to be pretty – it’s just real’

My sister lives in the States. ‘Say something – anything!’ she’s always being asked. ‘I love your British accent!’

To her, it’s just her voice: the one that orders coffee, calls the cable company, and admonishes her many dogs when they chew the couch. But to Americans, it’s catnip: a passport to instant allure!

In a recent study, the British accent was named one of the sexiest in the world. Well, sort of. Received Pronunciation (the Queen’s English) is up there at number 12; Scouse ranks 32nd; Geordie comes in at 41st.

Welsh is a lowly 45th – which seems strange; its lilting cadence is music to my ears! Scottish comes in at sixth. And Irish (oddly, no distinction between Northern Ireland and Eire) ranks a cool third in the world’s sexiest accents!

Granted, all of this is subjective: what sounds seductive to some is grating to others. And accents do carry cultural baggage: French, in seventh place, conjures romance and mystery – Amélie and Bond villains. South African (which ranks second) is reassuring: an accent that says ‘ignore that charging rhino, I’ve got this.’ And Italian (fourth on the list) suggests long, languid lunches and moonlit Vespa rides…

“In Italy, even when we argue, it sounds like a love song,” laughs Nicosia resident Luca Gallo. “Maybe that’s why people think our accent is sexy – it’s all passion and poetry, even when we’re complaining about the traffic.”

“Me, I find the Swedish accent sexy. It’s calm, it’s confident. I hear it and I think, yes, this person has their life together.”

Luca admits that all English-speakers sound the same to him: he hears little difference between an Australian accent (ranked fifth) or Canadian (ranked 13th). And English-speaking countries certainly appeared on the list quite frequently – an obvious bias for a survey conducted in English, by English speakers, across English-speaking platforms.

Even the top-ranked accent is a version of English, suggesting this was a study built on familiar fantasies – exotic but not too exotic, foreign but not too foreign.

So where does that leave Cyprus?

Well, just two countries in the world speak our language. And while Greece ranked 33rd (billed by researchers as “similar to Spanish, yet not as melodic”), Cyprus didn’t get a look in!

There may be a few reasons for this.

For one, we’re small. While our Hellenic cousin is lauded worldwide for its iconic ruins, whitewashed villages, and cerulean seas, Cyprus is less well-known. Our accent – and the way it sounds to foreign ears – is not as widely circulated or stereotyped in global media; there’s no Zorba the Greek or Nana Mouskouri for us!

There’s also the language factor: thanks to our tourism-driven economy, most visitors see Cyprus as a place where everyone speaks English. And on top of that, we have to include the all-important question: is the Cypriot accent actually sexy?

“Yes!” says Marilena, a 24-year-old student from Limassol. “It’s strong, it’s bold; you know when a Cypriot is talking! It’s not trying to be pretty – it’s just real. To me, that’s sexy.”

“No,” says 47-year-old Yiannis, an IT technician in Larnaca. “The way we speak, our accent – it’s too rough, too loud. We don’t have that soft, romantic sound like the Italians or the Irish. It’s more like shouting than singing!”

Others fall somewhere in the middle.

Emma, a Paphos retiree, finds the Cypriot accent charming – especially in the villages. “There’s something very warm to it,” she says. “After living here for 18 years, I can tell the difference between Greek and Cypriot: our accent is much warmer, much more friendly.”

Russian Natalia (from the country with the world’s 34th sexiest accent, according to the study) lives in Limassol. “I have been to Greece, and the accent here is different. It has attitude – Cypriot is louder, more open. It hugs you with words.”

And 60-year-old Costas, who spent decades in London, suggests “it’s just how we talk – rough, practical, straight to the point. If you want sexy, go to Athens!”

Of course, even within our small island, the Cypriot accent isn’t a single, unified sound. From Paphos to Paralimni, Ayia Napa to Nicosia, accents shift – and so do perceptions.

48-year-old Kyrenian Osman Yıldırım mainly speaks Turkish – the world’s 23rd most sexy accent, according to the study. But he recalls his parents speaking Greek at times. “To me, it felt warm and friendly. But to someone from the south, their accent might sound completely different, almost foreign.”

Meanwhile, on the west coast, the accent changes again. “The way my Paphos yiayia speaks, it’s like singing – but loud, really loud,” laughs Eleni, a 22-year-old student. “I love it, but my friends in Nicosia think she’s yelling.”

“Paphos definitely stretches its vowels,” agrees 54-year-old film-maker Petros. “And, way back when I was in the army, there was a running joke that people from Paralimni couldn’t say the letter f. But I think Limassol, Nicosia, Larnaca all have roughly the same accent. There’s not that much difference across Cyprus.”

At the end of the day, ‘sexiest’ is purely a matter of perception, coloured by everything from familiarity (according to the BBC, non-native English speakers now outnumber native speakers by three to one) to age (in another study, only the over-45s displayed a distinct dislike for vernacular accents such as Multicultural London English), to the latest Netflix hit.

And those perceptions change with time: as everyone watches Bridgerton, my sister’s accent may be having a moment. Next year, we could all be swooning over Egyptian, or Indian, or Brazilian – depending on where Hollywood glamorises next.

In this particular study, it was Kiwi that topped the ranks: an accent that researchers described as “outrageously charming.”

Who knows, perhaps, one day, Cyprus will be added to the list. All we need is a global blockbuster – and a few million people asking us to ‘say something, anything…’