The Kurdish language, which is the 59th-most used in the world, is primarily spoken in the four parts of Kurdistan which include areas of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Although exact numbers are unknown, estimates put Kurdish populations worldwide at just over 30 million. About half are in Turkey, with 6 million in Iran, over 5 million in Iraq, and less than 2 million in Syria prior to the civil war. Millions of Kurdish speakers also live in diaspora in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Germany, as well as in Europe and North America.
Over the years, Kurds, geographically surrounded by large Arab, Turkish and Persian populations, have struggled to defend the identity of their language, which is classified by scholars as Indo-European.
In Iraq, the Kurdish language is recognized as the second official language and the Kurdistan Regional government uses it as the language of education and politics.
Some of the many Kurdish language dialects are on the verge of disappearing including Hawrami. And in an effort to raise awareness regarding this danger, a number of intellectuals staged a gathering calling on the government to put one of those dialects into the curriculum of elementary schools.
Dr. Najih Golpy organized a gathering today in the Kurdish city of Halabja regarding the Hawrami dialect, which is mostly spoken in the areas along the Iran-Iraq border.
"Language is an identity for every individual, communities and nations,” Golpy told Rudaw. “We, as Hawramis, feel like our language is slowly going to disappear and therefore today we are a number of intellectuals and loyal people holding a gathering calling for the protection of the language."
“Our demand is for the government to put some books for elementary curriculums into Hawrami. Every kid must know and practice their mother tongue so as to prevent it from diminishing. The disappearance of language means the diminishment of a culture, of a history, of art, music and other things.”
As the Kurdistan Region has enjoyed greater autonomy from Iraq, so too has its education system which has published books in the Sorani and Badini dialects. Additionally, students in the region are taught Arabic and English.
In the southern city of Kirkuk, the administration’s municipality marked the occasion by issuing an official written paper in the Kurdish language.
Kirkuk Central Mayor Kamil Salaiy commended recognition of the day and announced that the Kurdish language will now be used to “issue their written documents and statements for other apparatus and in the provincial council.”
However, just to the south, in the ethnically-mixed town of Tuz Khurmatu using Kurdish for public purposes remains impractical.
“If the banners were in Kurdish, nobody would understand it since more people here know Arabic and our schools nowadays are all in Arabic,” said Shamil Kamil, a Kurdish resident of the town.
In Tuz Khurmatu as many as 8,000 Kurdish students in 53 schools learn in the Kurdish language; however, the town’s only cultural center is located in a Turkman area, where many Kurds now say they are unable to visit, as it’s now under the authority of Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary forces.
The language in the north
The Kurdish language is at risk of diminishing in northern Kurdistan, an area home to more Kurds than any other region. The language is studied in just a handful of universities and schools in the largest Kurdish city of Amed, and it is not permitted to be used as the main teaching language for primary students in public schools.
In 2014, Handan Caglayan, an independent researcher and writer whose father is Kurdish and mother Turkish, published her findings on the death of the Kurdish language in Turkey in a book entitled ‘Same Home Different Languages, Intergenerational Language Shift Tendencies, Limitation, Opportunities: The Case of Diyarbakir.’
Among the observations and findings, she had noted that Kurds in Turkey were losing 17 percent of their population, each generation, to Turks as children abandon Kurdish for Turkish because of the money, jobs and success which come with knowing the Turkish language. At that alarming rate, very few Kurdish-speaking Kurds will be left in Turkey by 2050.
Many parents in Turkey give Kurdish names to their children in a bid to prevent the disappearance of their mother tongue, yet many young Kurds are never fully taught the language.
Shana Arkan has named her two sons Amed and Sharvan. She described the challenges facing Kurds in Turkey.
“[The boys] were speaking in Kurdish until they turned to five. As soon as one started schools, he was cut from Kurdish language. His friends and teachers are all Turks. Sometimes when I would ask them in Kurdish, they would answer in Turkish. If they had studied in Kurdish, they would not have forgotten Kurdish,” Arkan told Rudaw.
The Kurdish language was banned until 1991 in Turkey, and the country’s large minority population of Kurdish people still widely complains of persecution.
But another Kurdish mother, Darya Chatiner, said everything is on children’s parents to not allow their kids to forget the mother tongue.
“We always speak in Kurdish. When Rozarin [her little daughter] meets with her friends, we encourage even her friends to know Kurdish because when we talk to them they all speak in Turkish…” Chatiner said. “My daughter knows Kurdish and Turkish.”
In 2009, the Turkish government launched the Kurdish channel TRT-6.
In 2013, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched the democracy package, which among other things gave the Kurds the right to Kurdish education in private schools, and to use the letters ‘q, w and x,’ which do not exist in the Turkish alphabet, but do in Kurdish.
Turkey’s Interior Ministry shut down the Kurdish Institute of Istanbul in January, which the founders said had been a resource to the Kurdish language and culture for a quarter century.
“I was learning from that institute,” one student who was speaking outside of the closed building told Rudaw TV. “I was trying to improve my Kurdish, to the extent that I could speak Kurdish with my grandfather. All is gone now.”
Kurdish Language Day is celebrated in Turkish Kurdistan on May 15, the day in 1932 when Kurdish linguist Celadet Ali Bedirxan began publishing the Kurdish culture magazine, Hawar.
The language in the east
In the Kurdish parts of Iran, or eastern Kurdistan, the language is not recognized and it is most often studied only in academic institutions and schools.
“Kurdish political parties in Iran are very often criticized for being reckless towards Kurdish language,” Abdullah Hassan Zada, a translator and writer told Rudaw.
Zada added that Kurdish political parties in Iran have maintained the Kurdish language and published in this language.
“At all different stages, the Kurdistan Democratic Party has served the language and literature of Kurdish language and printed publications in Kurdish language. They have also worked on translations from Farsi and Turkish to Kurdish,” Zada said.
He assured that Kurdish language cannot be eradicated in Iran entirely despite pressures on the language.
“Islamic Republic of Iran has to some extent allowed the publication of newspapers and magazines in Kurdish language, therefore a number of Kurdish people work on Kurdish literature,” Zada said. “In the meantime, there are TV and radios stations operating in Kurdish. Even if liberties are limited, the freedom of Kurdish language cannot be prohibited.”
Rudaw reported in September 2016 that schools in the Kurdish towns of Bana, Saqiz and Mariwan had planned on implementing a Kurdish language curriculum, but at the beginning of the school year, none of the Kurdish language classes had begun.
“Despite that this year there was a decision that at least some of the classes would be permitted to learn in the Kurdish language, no steps have been made to implement it and students’ study plans are like previous years,” an activist from Saqiz said.
Article 15 of the Iranian Constitution allows Kurdish and other spoken languages in the country to be used as languages of study, but it has been increasingly difficult to implement the article since the constitution was approved in a referendum in October 1979.
Despite limitations, Kurds have found ways to continue learning in their mother tongue in Iran.
A cultural center in Mariwan is using new books to provide supplementary learning to children and adults during the summer in the Sorani and Kurmanji dialects of Kurdish.
“The book is modern. It contains conversation, reading and writing,” one instructor explained to Rudaw. “It means the children will learn both how to read and write very well. It also has a very special graphic and drawing design. It is a very modern book. I think such a book has not been designed for children (in Iranian Kurdistan) before.”
