Here is the transcript of a panel event hosted by Respond Crisis Translation and leads across our Ukrainian & Russian, Southwest Asian and North African, Haitian Creole, Spanish, and Indigenous & Marginalized Languages teams.

Rudaw, a major publication in Iraqi Kurdistan, featured Respond Crisis Translation’s Kurdish storytelling project, “One year since the quake: Linguicide and resilience of the Kurdish language.”

Even though the media extensively covered the Turkey-Syria earthquake that killed more than 59,000 people exactly one year ago ...

von Raman Salah

Eine Auswirkung von Linguizid - der kalkulierten Auslöschung einer Sprache - besteht darin, dass in Zeiten von Katastrophen und Notfällen staatliche Reaktions- und Hilfsmaßnahmen wie wichtige Informationen und Hilfsangebote nicht jener Sprache zugänglich sind, ...

von Leila Lorenzo, Raman Salah

Die kurdische Sprache ist die 40. meistgesprochene Sprache unter den 7.000 Sprachen der Welt.

Kurdisch sprechende Menschen sind über Grenzen hinweg verstreut, was zu verschiedenen sprachlichen Umfeldern führt, die durch unterschiedliche staatliche Maßnahmen geprägt sind.

von Raman Salah

Obwohl sprachliche Gewalt in vielen Bereichen vorkommt, von Katastrophenhilfe über humanitäre Hilfe bis hin zu rechtlicher, medizinischer und psychologischer Unterstützung, ist das Schulsystem einer der heimtückischsten und generationenübergreifend bedeutsamsten Schauplätze institutionalisierter sprachlicher Gewalt.

von Raman Salah

„Ich kann meine Sprache vor dem Vergessen bewahren, indem ich lese und schreibe und mit meinen Freund*innen und meiner Familie in meiner Muttersprache kommuniziere.“ - Tavge*, eine Lehrerin, Übersetzerin und Kurmandschi-Sprecherin aus Rojav

February 6 marks the one-year anniversary of the Turkey-Syria earthquake that killed more than 59,000 people, one of the region’s largest natural disasters in history.

The earthquake disproportionately devastated Kurdish areas; meanwhile, disaster response was discriminatory toward ethnic minorities, especially Kurds.

By Raman Salah

One effect of linguicide – the calculated destruction of a language – is that during times of disaster and emergency, government response and relief measures like critical information and outreach are not accessible in a language that many of the people most affected by the crisis can understand.

By Leila Lorenzo, Raman Salah

The Kurdish language is the 40th most spoken language among the world’s 7,000 languages.

Kurdish speakers are dispersed across borders, leading to diverse linguistic environments shaped by different state policies. There are an estimated 35 million Kurdish speakers representing linguistic minorities spread across five different countries …

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)

By Raman Salah

“This language is my language. As someone whose language has been restricted, banned, prohibited, and many people went to jail and got punished for speaking or writing in, for publishing in it – yeah, definitely, I feel a personal connection to the concept of language violence.” – Berivan*, Sorani speaker in Bashur

By Raman Salah

While language violence occurs in many contexts, from disaster relief and humanitarian aid to legal, medical, and psychological support, one of the most insidious and intergenerationally significant sites of institutional language violence is the school system.

By Raman Salah

“I can protect my language from being forgotten by reading and writing, communicating with friends and family in my mother tongue.” Tavge*, a teacher, translator, and Kurmanji speaker from Rojava

Kurdish people in their daily lives and in their relationship with their stories, communities, and dialect, are at the forefront of the fight for language justice across Kurdistan.

By Valentina Callari Lewis
In addition to responding to the post-earthquake emergency, our Turkish and Kurdish teams continue their everyday work providing language support for asylum seekers.

Our incredible team has been mobilizing to support victims of the devastating earthquake, translating resources and services into Kurdish Kurmanji, Sorani, Arabic, Armenian, and Turkish, as highlighted in this powerful piece written by Respond community member Leila Lorenzo.