KURDISH: an endangered language
i was planning on writing the role of islam(religion generally) on kurds and kurdistan. but i think there is something more urgent to be talked about than that, that is: "the plight of kurdish"
yes what is the situation the kurdish in right now? and especially the bakuri kurds plight? because the başuri kurds are in a very good shape in comparison to bakuri kurds in terms of preservation of the kurdish language and passing it to younger generations, even though they have many arabic words(in fact too much)! why are the bakuris forgetting kurdish, exploiting it, and not teaching to their sons, daughters and newer generations?
this is a big question and a heavy one as well! and it is not an easy question to answer, because it has some answers and at the same has none!
we all know that it was kurds' natural homeland that kept kurds from being assimilated totally in the past! abdullah ocalan has a very good analyses about this in his book called "bir halkı savunmak"(defending a people), even though i should condemn(i know this word is very strong but the danger that is on the kurdish language is as serious as this word or maybe even more serious) him for writing this book in turkish, because he is the leader of the kurds, i understand him, i mean i sympathize with him! i think it was something like that " the mountains, where the kurds live, have protected kurds from melting(being assimilated), but it also has prevented them from developing, because of the invasions, and pillages that have been going on in this sensitive area; kurdistan" i am talking about the assimilation part of this quote; it has protected our language, and culture from disappearing! it, indeed, has done that, the great mountains of kurdistan!
until the end of 1980s the kurdish language was still preserved, because the kurds were still in their villages, and mountains back then. and they had their own little worlds, most of them would not know one single word turkish and the women, in specific, did not know one single word turkish! even though there are some bad sides to this, such as they were not connected to the outer world in any way or this kind of things, it was still good because the kurdish language was still living and it was being passed to the younger generations by our holy mothers! but at the beginning of 1990s, and since then going on, we have been losing the kurdish language, "THE LANGUAGE OF THE KURDS, THE LANGUAGE THAT MAKES KURDS; KURDS, AND THE LANGUAGE THAT WITHOUT IT THERE WOULD BE NO KURDS". and it is mainly because around four or some say five thousand kurdish villages were forcibly evacuated, i should use "they were destroyed by the turkish army" instead. and more than three million people(kurds) were displaced! and of course it had its consequences! they all went to cities, where they were not wanted and most of the time they were ostracized, not employed, and left to death by those nice turks in the outskirts of the metropolitan cities such as stenbol(istanbul), izmir, edene(adana), and enqere(ankara).
so the turks got a great opportunity to do what they have been trying but were not able to succeed for years; assimilation!
all the kurds started to go to school, where they would only speak turkish, and if, in any way someone were to speak kurdish s/he would punished for speaking kurdish and this way it would have a deterring effect on the other children(students) as well! kurdish students were despised and made fun of because of their accent so the families of those kurdish students thought that if they spoke only turkish at home it would help their children and they would be able to speak turkish better, and nobody would be able to fun of them. of course this was not the case for everybody, some would say kurdish is useless, it indeed was in the eyes of tc, and therefore would only teach turkish to their children, because you would get the benefits of government on the level of your turkishness, so if you did not know kurdish that was a plus in your turkishness!
they only watched the turkish tv channels! and especially the mothers were very badly affected by this, because they wree the ones who would stay at home and when they did not have anything to do they would watch the tv and improve their turkish, but after a while they started to use turkish words while speaking kurdish, keep in mind that their children were not taught kurdish, so even if some of those children wanted to learn kurdish they would learn it wrong because their parents would not speak appropriate kurdish! i still cant believe that some kurds would say "qapi qepamiş bike" for "close the door" in kurdish: i have a very hard time understanding this, qepi originally is kapı(it is pronounced liek qepi in kurdish) "qepamiş" means nothing, it is supposed to mean "close", they combine turkish root of "to close" and add a kurdish suffix to it and make it kurdish. when i see people using those words, and killing kurdish it really hurts me very badly!
i think i will tell you a joke about this as well. there is that kurdish guy who is a political asylum seeker in sweden. he gets sick and they call a doctor to come and see what his problem is, but there is another problem this guy does not know swedish so they bring a kurdish-swedish interpreter when the doctor arrives. and the asylum seeker starts to tell his problem: "îçê qulaxê min ağrimiş dikê" and the interpretes does not understand a word of it except "dikê" which is a suffix and means "make, do" when added to the endof a word.so he asks the patient "what did you say? sorry i did not understand you". the patient gets angry and yells "îçê qulaxê min ağrimiş dikê" as if the interpreter does not know kurdish! but he is unaware of the fact that none of the words he uses is kurdish! they are all turkish but just mixed with kurdish suffixes! and in kurdish he should say "nava guhê min di êşê" and in turkish that would be " kulağimin içi ağriyor" which means "inside of my ears hurt".
so do you see the seriousness of losing kurdish? and that refugee, the patient, is a political asylum seeker probably involved in kurdish activities that is why he fled to sweden!
and now they have many campaigns for girls, and it is especially in the kurdistan region of turkey!(can it be because they want to assimilate kurdish girls? because they are the ones that teach kurdish to the younger generations and pass it over!! i am afraid thats the reason). because in the black see region there are many people who dont send their daughters to school, for religious reasons, and nobody is saying anything against it because they are already turks so they dont need to organize campaigns such as "come on girls, let's go to school". but they do need to organize these kind of campaigns in kurdistan because they are not turkified yet! and they are trying their best!!
"In Van, where the nationwide campaign was launched in 2003, poverty and cultural traditions have historically kept girls at home. Up to half of all girls in this eastern province are estimated to be out of school. Yet through the efforts of the campaign, 20,000 girls have enrolled for the first time." this is only in wan(van) city
"But thanks to a major education drive(the campaign), approximately 120,000 girls have enrolled in the last two years."(www.ungei.org/gapproject/turkey_422.html)in the all region, and this number is increasing day by day!
if it was really for the girls's education! there would be nothing to say against, but when you know this is done on purpose to assimilate you and turkify you! it is not possible not to say something against it, if you have one little piece of kurdishness or humanity in you!
and the most dramatic thing about this is that they have succeeded it in a very big part of it! and if they continue like that no wonder they will be able to turkify all the kurds in the next ten or twenty years period! and i am as death serious!
i really feel apathy and sorrow at the moment! we are fighting for this cause we are dying for this cause, the KURDISH CAUSE but we dont do anything for the most important component of this cause, KURDISH LANGUAGE!
it was three weeks ago! my uncle, my cousin, my borther and i went to our village. it was rebuilt but there is nobody from my family in it. but we have relatives in the village, and i really dont like the people in the village because they are closer to the tc than they are to the partî. anyways we went to the river bank in fact but we thought we should give a visit to the village as well and see how everybody was doing! we did so and went to the village!
i wish we did not go though because i was disappointed there! because of the KURDISH of course! we were sitting outside with my aunt (my father's aunt from his mother's side) and there were some girls doing something! and i suddenly realized that they were speaking turkish! so i could not hold it anymore and i asked my aunt " wow! so you speak turkish in the heartland of the kurdistan as well, and in the village too?" and the answer was ruining, very destructive indeed! "thats nothing, wallah when two girls get together they never speak one single word of kurdish! it is only turkish they speak. they speak turkish even with their families at home!"
so i think, it would be very reasonable for me to infer that; tc has suceeded in assimilating the kurdish women into turkish!!! that was what they wanted from the beginning of this fascist country to this day! and i am afraid they reached their aim finally!!!nobody speaks kurdish in their home any more! yes, even in the kurdistan! especially the children, and among the children the girls, play a more important role and they, too speak turkish instead of kurdish, most of them do not even know the kurdish numbers, let alone the other things about kurdish language such as grammar and vocabulary knowledge and etc!
i admit that i am a pessimistic personality! but i am realist as well! and this is the real situation, plight that the kurdish people, and the very important reason of their very existence KURDISH is in!
and i also want to grab your attention to the new TZPKurdî(tevgera ziman û perwerdahiya kurdî-www.tzpkurdi.com) meaning "kurdish language and education movement"! they are aware of this terrible situation and they are working beyond their capabilities to acknowledge the kurds about this vital situation and, hopefully, make them more sensitive about this issue and teach them kurdish!! so far they have founded 8 organizations in the important cities of kurdistan and also stenbol(istanbul) that teach kurdish! and they are working on improving and spreading it to all cities that kurds live in!
unfortunately they need help! and the help they need is not provided to them by the political and cultural organizations of the kurds!! i think they should think about this twice! and should see the fragility of the situation and support this movement to their best ability! even pkk has declared that from now on the official language of the partî will be kurdish, because they understood how important the kurdish language is for the kurdish people! so "i call upon all kurdish political, cultural, and any other organizations to support this important and even holy movement of KURDISH LANGUAGE!" because if we dont do something now, it will be TOO LATE tomorrow !
biji kurd û kurdistan
û her biji zimanê KURDÎ
Link:,
yes what is the situation the kurdish in right now? and especially the bakuri kurds plight? because the başuri kurds are in a very good shape in comparison to bakuri kurds in terms of preservation of the kurdish language and passing it to younger generations, even though they have many arabic words(in fact too much)! why are the bakuris forgetting kurdish, exploiting it, and not teaching to their sons, daughters and newer generations?
this is a big question and a heavy one as well! and it is not an easy question to answer, because it has some answers and at the same has none!
we all know that it was kurds' natural homeland that kept kurds from being assimilated totally in the past! abdullah ocalan has a very good analyses about this in his book called "bir halkı savunmak"(defending a people), even though i should condemn(i know this word is very strong but the danger that is on the kurdish language is as serious as this word or maybe even more serious) him for writing this book in turkish, because he is the leader of the kurds, i understand him, i mean i sympathize with him! i think it was something like that " the mountains, where the kurds live, have protected kurds from melting(being assimilated), but it also has prevented them from developing, because of the invasions, and pillages that have been going on in this sensitive area; kurdistan" i am talking about the assimilation part of this quote; it has protected our language, and culture from disappearing! it, indeed, has done that, the great mountains of kurdistan!
until the end of 1980s the kurdish language was still preserved, because the kurds were still in their villages, and mountains back then. and they had their own little worlds, most of them would not know one single word turkish and the women, in specific, did not know one single word turkish! even though there are some bad sides to this, such as they were not connected to the outer world in any way or this kind of things, it was still good because the kurdish language was still living and it was being passed to the younger generations by our holy mothers! but at the beginning of 1990s, and since then going on, we have been losing the kurdish language, "THE LANGUAGE OF THE KURDS, THE LANGUAGE THAT MAKES KURDS; KURDS, AND THE LANGUAGE THAT WITHOUT IT THERE WOULD BE NO KURDS". and it is mainly because around four or some say five thousand kurdish villages were forcibly evacuated, i should use "they were destroyed by the turkish army" instead. and more than three million people(kurds) were displaced! and of course it had its consequences! they all went to cities, where they were not wanted and most of the time they were ostracized, not employed, and left to death by those nice turks in the outskirts of the metropolitan cities such as stenbol(istanbul), izmir, edene(adana), and enqere(ankara).
so the turks got a great opportunity to do what they have been trying but were not able to succeed for years; assimilation!
all the kurds started to go to school, where they would only speak turkish, and if, in any way someone were to speak kurdish s/he would punished for speaking kurdish and this way it would have a deterring effect on the other children(students) as well! kurdish students were despised and made fun of because of their accent so the families of those kurdish students thought that if they spoke only turkish at home it would help their children and they would be able to speak turkish better, and nobody would be able to fun of them. of course this was not the case for everybody, some would say kurdish is useless, it indeed was in the eyes of tc, and therefore would only teach turkish to their children, because you would get the benefits of government on the level of your turkishness, so if you did not know kurdish that was a plus in your turkishness!
they only watched the turkish tv channels! and especially the mothers were very badly affected by this, because they wree the ones who would stay at home and when they did not have anything to do they would watch the tv and improve their turkish, but after a while they started to use turkish words while speaking kurdish, keep in mind that their children were not taught kurdish, so even if some of those children wanted to learn kurdish they would learn it wrong because their parents would not speak appropriate kurdish! i still cant believe that some kurds would say "qapi qepamiş bike" for "close the door" in kurdish: i have a very hard time understanding this, qepi originally is kapı(it is pronounced liek qepi in kurdish) "qepamiş" means nothing, it is supposed to mean "close", they combine turkish root of "to close" and add a kurdish suffix to it and make it kurdish. when i see people using those words, and killing kurdish it really hurts me very badly!
i think i will tell you a joke about this as well. there is that kurdish guy who is a political asylum seeker in sweden. he gets sick and they call a doctor to come and see what his problem is, but there is another problem this guy does not know swedish so they bring a kurdish-swedish interpreter when the doctor arrives. and the asylum seeker starts to tell his problem: "îçê qulaxê min ağrimiş dikê" and the interpretes does not understand a word of it except "dikê" which is a suffix and means "make, do" when added to the endof a word.so he asks the patient "what did you say? sorry i did not understand you". the patient gets angry and yells "îçê qulaxê min ağrimiş dikê" as if the interpreter does not know kurdish! but he is unaware of the fact that none of the words he uses is kurdish! they are all turkish but just mixed with kurdish suffixes! and in kurdish he should say "nava guhê min di êşê" and in turkish that would be " kulağimin içi ağriyor" which means "inside of my ears hurt".
so do you see the seriousness of losing kurdish? and that refugee, the patient, is a political asylum seeker probably involved in kurdish activities that is why he fled to sweden!
and now they have many campaigns for girls, and it is especially in the kurdistan region of turkey!(can it be because they want to assimilate kurdish girls? because they are the ones that teach kurdish to the younger generations and pass it over!! i am afraid thats the reason). because in the black see region there are many people who dont send their daughters to school, for religious reasons, and nobody is saying anything against it because they are already turks so they dont need to organize campaigns such as "come on girls, let's go to school". but they do need to organize these kind of campaigns in kurdistan because they are not turkified yet! and they are trying their best!!
"In Van, where the nationwide campaign was launched in 2003, poverty and cultural traditions have historically kept girls at home. Up to half of all girls in this eastern province are estimated to be out of school. Yet through the efforts of the campaign, 20,000 girls have enrolled for the first time." this is only in wan(van) city
"But thanks to a major education drive(the campaign), approximately 120,000 girls have enrolled in the last two years."(www.ungei.org/gapproject/turkey_422.html)in the all region, and this number is increasing day by day!
if it was really for the girls's education! there would be nothing to say against, but when you know this is done on purpose to assimilate you and turkify you! it is not possible not to say something against it, if you have one little piece of kurdishness or humanity in you!
and the most dramatic thing about this is that they have succeeded it in a very big part of it! and if they continue like that no wonder they will be able to turkify all the kurds in the next ten or twenty years period! and i am as death serious!
i really feel apathy and sorrow at the moment! we are fighting for this cause we are dying for this cause, the KURDISH CAUSE but we dont do anything for the most important component of this cause, KURDISH LANGUAGE!
it was three weeks ago! my uncle, my cousin, my borther and i went to our village. it was rebuilt but there is nobody from my family in it. but we have relatives in the village, and i really dont like the people in the village because they are closer to the tc than they are to the partî. anyways we went to the river bank in fact but we thought we should give a visit to the village as well and see how everybody was doing! we did so and went to the village!
i wish we did not go though because i was disappointed there! because of the KURDISH of course! we were sitting outside with my aunt (my father's aunt from his mother's side) and there were some girls doing something! and i suddenly realized that they were speaking turkish! so i could not hold it anymore and i asked my aunt " wow! so you speak turkish in the heartland of the kurdistan as well, and in the village too?" and the answer was ruining, very destructive indeed! "thats nothing, wallah when two girls get together they never speak one single word of kurdish! it is only turkish they speak. they speak turkish even with their families at home!"
so i think, it would be very reasonable for me to infer that; tc has suceeded in assimilating the kurdish women into turkish!!! that was what they wanted from the beginning of this fascist country to this day! and i am afraid they reached their aim finally!!!nobody speaks kurdish in their home any more! yes, even in the kurdistan! especially the children, and among the children the girls, play a more important role and they, too speak turkish instead of kurdish, most of them do not even know the kurdish numbers, let alone the other things about kurdish language such as grammar and vocabulary knowledge and etc!
i admit that i am a pessimistic personality! but i am realist as well! and this is the real situation, plight that the kurdish people, and the very important reason of their very existence KURDISH is in!
and i also want to grab your attention to the new TZPKurdî(tevgera ziman û perwerdahiya kurdî-www.tzpkurdi.com) meaning "kurdish language and education movement"! they are aware of this terrible situation and they are working beyond their capabilities to acknowledge the kurds about this vital situation and, hopefully, make them more sensitive about this issue and teach them kurdish!! so far they have founded 8 organizations in the important cities of kurdistan and also stenbol(istanbul) that teach kurdish! and they are working on improving and spreading it to all cities that kurds live in!
unfortunately they need help! and the help they need is not provided to them by the political and cultural organizations of the kurds!! i think they should think about this twice! and should see the fragility of the situation and support this movement to their best ability! even pkk has declared that from now on the official language of the partî will be kurdish, because they understood how important the kurdish language is for the kurdish people! so "i call upon all kurdish political, cultural, and any other organizations to support this important and even holy movement of KURDISH LANGUAGE!" because if we dont do something now, it will be TOO LATE tomorrow !
biji kurd û kurdistan
û her biji zimanê KURDÎ
Link:
posted by tari ronahi at 9:36 AM
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