In between oppression and resilience: Sociolinguistic

situation of Kurds in Turkey

M. Şerif Derince Bogazici University/Istanbul

serifderince@gmail.com

4th International Language and Education ConferenceBangkok, 6-8 November, 2013

Outline

o Overview of Kurds and the Kurdish language in Middle East

o Historical background of Kurdish issue in Turkey

o Sociolinguistic situationo Shifting Discourses: From forced

monolingualism to symbolic multilingualismo Kurdish resistance

Map of Kurdish Language

Kurds, Kurdistan, and the Kurdish Language

• Geography: Divided by Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria

• Population: Around 40 million in Middle East and Europe

• Language: Indo-European, West Iranian

• Alphabet: Latin and Arabic Scripts• Central Cities: Diyarbekir, Arbil

Dialects of Kurdish Language

Background of the Kurdish Issue in Turkey

• Establishing Turkish nation-state (1923)• One language, one people, one nation• Minoritizing non-Muslim Armenians, Greeks, and

Jews• Linguistic genocide of largely Muslim communities• Changing names• Successive military coups• War and forced migration in 1990s• Stigmatization of references to Kurds and Kurdish

Kurdish resistance

• Armed revolts in 1920s and 1930s

• Establishing legal and illegal organizations and parties in 1960s, 1970s

• Armed resistance in 1980s and 1990s for independence

• Multimethod resistance in 2000s

Sociolinguistic situation

• Largely unwritten and in rural context

• Awareness for a literary Kurdish from 1960s on with politicization and urbanization

• Language shift in 1990s

Language use• Kurdish only, above 60 years of age• Mostly Kurdish, between 40-60• Kurdish-Turkish, between 20-40• Mostly or only Turkish, below 20• Mostly Kurdish in villages and Turkish in

Cities• More educated, less Kurdish• More upper class, less Kurdish• Faster language loss among girls

Ref: Derince 2010; Opengin 2009; Egitim-sen 2010

Reasons of language shift

• Expansion of more state apparatuses in Kurdish life

• Diffusion of televisions into homes• Urbanization due to migrations to cities

and to non-Kurdish areas • Increased mobility between rural and

urban spaces• Urge for modernization through Turkish• Planned assimilationist policies

School performance

• Least school attendance

• More dropouts

• Lowest scores in country-wide exams

• 25% population, 5% university enrolment ratio

Ref: various

Findings of the field work• Lack of communication• Beginning life with a 1-0 deficit• Failing and quitting school• Stigmatization• Violence• Keep quiet and waiting for the bell• Informants• Villages/Slums versus Cities• To be a Kurdish-speaking teacher or not to be• The role of parents• Language shift

Changes and continuities in the New Millennium

• State side: New government new discourse same inequality: from societal monolingualism to individual multilingualism

• Kurdish Side: new resistance new discourse: from independence to collective and national rights and multilingualism

Reasons and motifs of the State behind the changes

• Domestic situation: the struggle of the Kurdish movement, mass demonstrations, elections, criticism, and demands of some Turkish groups for liberalization

• International situation: Negotiations for European Union membership, Kurdish Autonomy in Iraq

Changes

Teaching and broadcasting “dialects and regional accents used by the Turkish citizens in their daily life” in private courses

Broadcasting in dialects Recognizing the old names of few villages and cities Freeing the letters X, Q, W Teaching Kurdish as elective courses in University Teaching Kurdish to 5th graders as elective courses Kurdish language and literature departments Right to defense in mother tongue in courts

Critics• No legal status

• Timing

• No negotiation or consultation with Kurds

• As a favor

• Trivializing and manipulating

• Not a part of democratization program, many arrests of politicians, civilians, and violent clashes with the PKK

Government’s position on Mother Tongue

• Continuing changes regarding individual rights, depoliticizing language issues, and manipulating them for elections

• Suppression and imprisonment of resisting Kurds, the imprisonment rates reached its highest level ever

Top figures say:• The Prime Minister Erdoğan: mother tongue-based education will divide the country and we will not allow it (2013). • A vice-president of the AKP, Bulent Arinc, claimed on TV “Kurdish is not ‘‘a language of civilization,’’ hence inappropriate for being used as a medium of education (2012). • A founding executive of the AKP, a professor of constitutional law and president of the parliamentary commission to draft the new Constitution, Burhan Kuzu: demanding mother tongue education is ‘‘to yield to the temptation of Satan.’’ • A new vice-president of the AKP, Numan Kurtulmus: instead of the state, private schools have to deal with education in Kurdish, as this would be expensive, no one would demand it and the issue would be resolved automatically.

Paradigm shift in Kurdish movement

• From Independent Kurdistan to Democratic Turkey-Free Autonomous Kurdistan

• Freedom not to be given by the State; rather to be constituted by the people

• Kurdish masses criticisms of the movement for its approach to language

• Playing according to the EU process

• Alarming rate of language loss among Kurds, even in remote villages

New repertoires for resistance• Kurdish speech in the Turkish parliament• Boycotting the schools• Teaching Kurdish in courses and at homes• Street demonstrations• Bilingual municipalities• Home meetings for storytelling• Bilingual books for children• Bilingual/Multilingual city tags• Bilingual street billboards

School boycotting

Multilingual city tags

Street demonstrations

Home meeting for storytelling

Books for children

Bi/multilingual billboards

Results of the resistance• Uniting Kurds from different political views• Legitimacy for freedom struggle• Less stigmatization of Kurdish• Hope for revitalization• Self-confidence in some contexts• Visibility of the language• Attracting support of other minority language

communities in Turkey• More literary and written production in Kurdish• and more .....