It’s hard to answer this question academically because, as you say, there’s just not a lot of people that work on Cyprus (the entire island only has around 800,000 people).

Although the origins of the presence of Turks on the island has its roots in land grants given to mainlanders by the ottomans after the conquest of the island in the 16th century, there is a distinct Turkish Cypriot identity among Turkish Cypriots, as there is a Greek Cypriot identity. Both groups consider themselves distinct from being either Turkish (=of the republic of Turkey) and Greek (= of the Hellenic Republic). However, they are also slightly different from one another, in that people specifically identify as a Greek- or Turkish Cypriot (as opposed to just being Cypriot). There are/were also small groups of Armenians and Maronites (from Lebanon) on the island; both groups are small (less than 1000 people) and now in the south (Greek Cyprus).

There are now more Turkish Cypriots living outside of Cyprus than on the island—around half a million in Turkey, a quarter million in the UK, and a number in Australia, as opposed to under 150,000 inhabitants of northern Cyprus. In response to the outmigration, the Turkish government encouraged mainland settlers to move to Northern Cyprus after 1974. Many of these were rural, conservative Muslims from eastern Turkey, and there is a general feeling of resentment toward them by Turkish Cypriots, whose culture generally was more secular and distinct from the mainland. There is a general feeling among Turkish Cypriots that the settlers are hastening the decline of Turkish Cypriot culture and language.

This is particularly the case with language: Cypriot Turkish has many distinct features not shared by mainland Turkish, both through its prolonged contact with Cypriot Greek, and through the language reforms that standard (mainland) Turkish went through in the early days of the republic. In both cases, Cypriots can understand the standard dialect of Turkish or Greek, but usually have to switch to the standard variety in order to make themselves understood by people from Turkey or Greece (this is especially the case with people who come from villages in the Troodos mountains, in which each seems to have its own regional dialect).

Cyprus, as you probably know, has had a troubled history for most of the 20th century. Inter-communal fighting persisted from the period before independence in 1960 through to the Turkish invasion of 1974, and finding a solution agreeable to both sides has been difficult — negotiations are still ongoing. There is still a bit of animosity and distrust between the populations given the history of modern violence—especially distrust. One of the sticking points is that Greek Cyprus wants the Turkish military off the island because they don’t trust Turkey, and the Turkish Cypriots are reluctant to be without any protection as they remember when the Cypriot military essentially behaved as a Greek paramilitary force in the 1960s.

It’s anecdotal, but I found that the older generation who remembers life before 1974 to be somewhat softer in their attitudes as opposed to the younger generation who grew up only hearing stories about the violence and thinking of the other side as the enemy. (Full disclosure: I was on Cyprus for a seminar in 2004, which was only about 18 months after it became possible to cross the green line. Things may have changed as there’s now been much more direct contact between Greek and Turkish Cypriots since that happened; I haven’t been back since then).

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot out there that’s about the Cypriot people, as opposed to the conflict, but you can try Papadakis, Yiannis (2005), Echoes from the Dead Zone: Across the Cyprus divide, I.B.Tauris, 2005.