Folklore-collecting initiatives in Turkey and Iran have become increasingly popular over the past decade. In this article we present a historical overview of folklore-collecting practices and focus on more recent developments in this field. While Kurdish folklore has been perceived as a cornerstone of Kurdish national identity and as a source of information on Kurdish history, today’s collectors in Turkey and Iran understand its role in a wider context of language revitalization and indigenous knowledge production. Collecting oral traditions in the Kurdish dialects of Kurmanji, Sorani, and Zazaki is appreciated as a step towards protecting and developing the Kurdish language, which is endangered by language assimilation policies in both countries. Reviving folkloric vocabulary, stories, and traditional knowledge practices such as agricultural teachings, folklore collectors revive and promote indigenous knowledge production, and enrich education and research. Drawing on language revitalization theories and indigenous knowledge production, this article offers insights into unexplored aspects of collecting, archiving, and publishing Kurdish folklore in recent years.
Archives
Kurdish language rights, mobilisations, and representations in the Justice and Development Party’s Era
This chapter looks more closely into the issue of Kurdish language rights, education, and public image during the AKP years. This is central to the Kurdish issue: the Kurdish language has been a key marker of a contested identity, and its usage a de facto political stance. The desire for language recognition and education rights have been at the core of the Kurdish question, its resolution attempts and its failures, as we shall see. The essay is based on the analysis of media coverage of the issue, as well as the now large body of literature on Kurdish language policy in Turkey. Among this literature, it is particularly worth mentioning the recent doctoral thesis of Ronayi Önen Baykuşak, which presents an original and extremely rich analysis of the Kurdish language policies in Turkey in the 20th and 21st centuries. The chapter first examines the different steps that enabled the more widespread use of the Kurdish language under the AKP government from 2002. It then looks into the mobilisations for Kurdish language rights – in particular those that have taken place since the collapse of the peace process in 2015 – as well as the struggle for Kurdish to be officially recognised in Turkey. In the final section, I shall examine the public image of the Kurds and the Kurdish language in Turkey today, showing that Kurdish is once again denigrated and portrayed as the language of backwardness, separatism, and terror, leading to new restrictions on language use and attacks on Kurdish speakers.
Bîblîyografyaya Tezên Master û Doktorayê yên Beşên Ziman û Edebiyata Kurdî û Ziman û Çanda Kurdî (2012-2020)
Sociolinguistic situation of Kurdish in Turkey
This article aims at exploring the minority status of Kurdish language in Turkey. It asks two main questions: (1) In what ways have state policies and socio-historical conditions influenced the evolution of linguistic behavior of Kurdish speakers? (2) What are the mechanisms through which language maintenance versus language shift tendencies operate in the speech community? The article discusses the objective dimensions of the language situation in the Kurdish region of Turkey. It then presents an account of daily language practices and perceptions of Kurdish speakers. It shows that language use and choice are significantly related to variables such as age, gender, education level, rural versus urban dwelling and the overall socio-cultural and political contexts of such uses and choices. The article further indicates that although the general tendency is to follow the functional separation of languages, the language situation in this context is not an example of stable diglossia, as Turkish exerts its increasing presence in low domains whereas Kurdish, by contrast, has started to infringe into high domains like media and institutions. The article concludes that the prevalent community bilingualism evolves to the detriment of Kurdish, leading to a shift-oriented linguistic situation for Kurdish.
Turkey’s Kurdish language policy
This article examines the Turkish state’s assimilationist policy towards the Kurds and the Kurdish language in Turkey. It studies how the Turkish nationalist elites, the Kemalists, have throughout the 20th century systematically suppressed the Kurdish language as part of their aim to construct a homogenous nation-state of Turkish speakers. It shows that this linguicidal policy was strongly informed by the traumatic collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the consequent Kemalist emphasis on complete ethno-linguistic homogeneity as criteria for being “Turkish”, “Western” and “civilised”. The article discusses the various “Turkification” strategies of the authorities, such as banning the Kurdish language, the denial of the existence of the Kurds, changing the names of towns and villages, the forced resettlement of Kurds and the assimilation of Kurdish children. It critically analyses the recent developments in Turkey’s Kurdish language policy and the reform efforts of the current government as part of the country’s EU candidacy. The article reflects however, that whilst looking good on paper, these reforms have had little impact in reality and Kurdish speakers in Turkey are still systematically denied their basic human and linguistic rights.
Modernity and the linguistic genocide of Kurds in Turkey
Zygmunt Bauman, Alexander Laban Hilton and Paul Havemann, amongst others, have argued that genocide is intimately linked to modernity. Modern discourses on development, modernization and western science as well as key meta-narratives of modernity (advancing the teleological myth of progress and civilization), “gardener’s visions” and the very categorization and standardization of national languages (crucial to the biopolitical formation of global populations under the system of modern nation-states) have all legitimated and effected policies and practices that have been genocidal in their nature and scope. This article examines and details the extent to which all these identified aspects of modernity can be observed in the case of Turkey. The findings indicate that linguistic/cultural and physical genocide of Kurds in Turkey has taken place (over the past eight and a half decades) as a direct consequence of the Kemalist/Ataturkist modernity project. Language policy – which has advocated linguistic imperialism alongside linguistic genocide – has been a critical tool for the creation of the modern Turkish nation-state.
Scar of tongue: Consequences of the ban on the use of mother tongue in education and experiences of Kurdish students in Turkey
One Language, Two Contexts: Kurdish in Bakur and in Western Turkey’s Metropolises
When Kurdish emigrants from Eastern Turkey are studied, one first thinks of the Kurdish emigrants in Europe and the Americas. And yet, a particularly large Kurdish diaspora from Eastern Turkey can be found within Turkey itself, having resettled in western Turkey’s metropolises. This article seeks to discuss recent sociolinguistic developments both in the Kurdish-speaking regions of Eastern Turkey (Northern Kurdistan/Bakur) and in the Kurdish communities in western Turkey (i.e., in the diaspora). My focus is on the two largest so-called ‚minority languages‘ of Turkey: Kurmanji and Zazaki—with the guiding issue of interest being language policy. And here again, my interest is twofold: first, Turkey’s language policy towards its minorities, particularly towards Kurdish, is at stake; and second, the language policy within the Kurdish movement towards Kurdish is depicted, including its recent paradigm shift, and with particular consideration of gender aspects. Recent developments give rise to doubts and yet hope that Kurdish will continue to serve as a language of private life, but also spread to everyday public visibility and prestige in Turkey.
Variation in the ergative pattern of Kurmanji
Kurdish-Kurmanji (or Northern Kurdish) belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. This study is dedicated to a deeper understanding of a specific grammatical feature typical of Kurmanji: the ergative structure. Based on the example of this core structure, and with empirical evidence from the Kurmanji dialect of Muş in Turkey, I will discuss the issues of variation and change in Kurmanji, more precisely the ongoing shift from ergative to nominative-accusative structures. The causes for such a fundamental shift, however, are not easy to define. The close historical vicinity to Turkish and Armenian might be a trigger for the shift; another trigger is language-internal (diachronic) change. In sum, the investigated variation sheds light on a fascinating grammatical change in a language that is also sociopolitically in a situation of constant change, movement, and upheaval.