Kurdish language as Kurdish identity
Photo by Anwar Amro/AFP (published in The Guardian)
Zimana me rûmeta meye
Our language is our pride
Life is beautiful in Kurdish
ژیان بە کوردی خۆشە
Dar li ser koka xwe,
Mirov li ser zimanê xwe şîn dibe.
The tree at its root,
People grow on their languages.
This blog is part of Respond’s Kurdish storytelling project. Visit the main project page here.
by Raman Salah
Kurdish language is part and parcel of Kurdish identity, for many of the people with whom Respond spoke.
“As we say in Kurdish… our language is our identity.”
– Gordyaen Jermayi (emphasis added)
“When we talk about a language, it’s not only a tool for communication, but it’s also a memory of a thousand years of evolution of a social group, and they have somehow stored all of their development, all of their world view inside this language. … Letting a language die is like letting a whole world view die.”
— Berivan*, Sorani speaker, from Bashur (emphasis added)
“Language is a part of cultural heritage because language bears almost everything that belongs to a culture. Language carries on music, stories, fairy tales, religious practices, and also all kinds of cultural heritages that are preserved by a language. Language violence is a tool to extinguish the whole cultural identity of a certain community. … When you prohibit a certain community from speaking their language, it actually means that this community will become extinct in future. That’s a tool of assimilation and assimilation is a main reason for a community to extinguish. That’s more than a violation of a language, it’s a violation of a cultural identity through violating a language.”
– Rojda Arslan, Germany-based Kurmanjki (Zazakî) speaker
“The authorities of Kurdish-populated regions … have historically tried to ban the use of the Kurdish language in education, media, and public life. This is because of political reasons. They don't want Kurds to be independent, strong and have their own culture. They intend to weaken their existence. As a result, our access to education and job opportunities in our native language has been limited.”
– Dilan*, Sorani speaker from Bashur
States’ historical language violence therefore functions as a tool to destroy Kurdish people's cultural identity. “They try to remove the Kurdish identity, the Kurdish language, from the Kurdish people,” said Gordyaen Jermayi, an educational activist, civil engineer, and Kurmanji speaker from Urmia in Rojhelat. In the words of Hêvî*, a Kurmanji speaker from Bakur, language violence and forced assimilation force people to “forget about your identity by banning your language.”
To many interviewed, states erase Kurdish identity through linguicide because of how Kurdish pride and struggle for rights is seen to undermine certain nationalist projects.
The governments of Turkey, Iran, and Syria “see Kurdish people as the greatest threat to their nation-states,” said Gordyaen. For him, the erasure of Kurdish identity through linguicide is part of these governments’ expansionist and nationalist projects.
“That’s why they try to destroy and remove this identity from our people – so that they can easily exploit and occupy and colonize our homeland.”
“Language is a part of culture,” said Dilan*, a Sorani speaker from Bashur.
“The dominant powers in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, their governments, really don’t want to promote this culture. … If they want to build a nation, they don’t want to accept diversity. This is how language violence starts for Kurdish people. They don’t want other languages to be a part of that land on which they created a nation.”
Language is therefore a primary way states throughout Kurdistan forcibly assimilate their Kurdish communities. According to Dewran Mehmud, a Sorani speaker from Bashur:
“The statelessness of our land has historically facilitated the assimilation of Kurdish people by enemy elites. … Furthermore, the easier accessibility of learning another language apart from Kurdish has also helped the assimilation of Kurdish people.”
Historical language violence as an attack on Kurdish identity therefore has had the effect of cutting people off from their own histories and communities, as well as cutting Kurdish communities off from each other.
“When I learned there were Kurds in Turkey speaking this dialect, Kurds in Syria speaking that dialect, I got really sad,” said Dilan. “They didn’t even allow us to learn our own dialects, let alone each other’s dialects.”
“The main denial of rights to education has impacted me directly, because I can not write in my dialect and my reading of any other Kurdish dialects is very limited. It’s a constraint on my ability to use Kurdish, especially my family’s dialect in formal settings and to express myself. There has been a real life impact in a certain way, it has impacted me, it has impacted my family members and many others that I know, where we don’t have a really formal training in Kurdish. The only way we could preserve the language for those of us that don't have that educational training in the language is through the oral transmission with one another, which can make the preservation of the language difficult. My dialect is dying out as the old generation passes. It’s very unfortunate and sad that the dialect is dying out.” – Mariwan, Hewramî speaker from Rojhelat, Iranian-occupied Kurdistan
Berivan*, a politically engaged journalist from Bashur, explained that he feels a sense of alienation when he identifies himself as a Kurd in the wider world.
“When I left Kurdistan, I felt people did not know my culture the way they do [other cultures], and I think the main reason is the language violence that has been committed against Kurdish people by the nation states.” He explained that while many people around the world know about, study, and engage with Turkish, Arabic, or Persian languages and culture, there is little of that same global recognition of Kurdish identity, art, literature, or history. Language violence against his community has meant that “there has been no chance to promote their language… identity, and culture.”
*Several names have been changed to protect the privacy and safety of our project participants and their loved ones. Because of the fact that several Kurdish names have been outlawed across Kurdistan by occupying regimes, we note here that we have chosen to use names that are banned.