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.