A Few Words on "Kurdish"

A FEW WORDS ON “KURDISH”

Dear readers!

If you notice, I have put the word Kurdish in quotation marks, because there is no such language as Kurdish. Surprised, aren't you? There are thousands of linguists in the world, especially in universities. They hold different views, apart from very general and high-level classifications, and one's statement or thesis is rejected or presented in another form by another. In a sense, there is a chaotic situation in the field of linguistics. This situation also applies to "Kurdish." The purpose of this article is to bring this confusion to your attention and to share my thoughts on "Kurdish" with you.

Before writing my views on "Kurdish," I would like to diversify your perspective a little. I would like to ask this question: How many official languages are there in the USA? I would also like to give the answer: The USA is a federal state. Its Constitution does not contain a statement like "the official language is English." So, the huge USA has no official language. Surprising, isn't it? But let's not forget that there are 50 states in America. The Constitutions of 31 of these states state "the official language is English." My explanation is not over yet. Hawaii is one of the 50 states of the USA. Pidgin English has been accepted as an official language there since 2015. Similarly, the Sioux language has been accepted as an official language in South Dakota. In Alaska, the number of official languages is around 21. This means that education is provided in all these languages.

Now let's move on to a more difficult question: How many spoken Native American languages are there in the USA? At one time, this number was over 300. But they were only spoken. There was no written language. Today there are approximately 175 Native American languages, and very few of them have the chance to express themselves in written form. Now I would like to ask my readers this question: Are the 175 spoken languages (they are completely independent of each other, it is impossible for them to understand each other) dialects, accents, or independent languages? A difficult question, isn't it? Which brave linguist can answer this question? Since they do not have a written language, this number is expected to drop to 20 by 2050. Are these unwritten languages "primitive languages?" Absolutely not! Do you know which language saved the USA in World War II? The Native American language called Navajo, which had no written form. Military secret communications were made in this language; the Japanese tried very hard but could not decipher this language because there was no written text. They were able to translate everything spoken into Navajo and transmit this information to the other side. So, the linguists who considered the Navajo language "primitive" or "insufficient" in terms of vocabulary were mistaken.

My first thesis is this: Whether written or not, there are no primitive languages in the world. There are insufficient languages. Turkish is also an insufficient language. We use the word "Coronavirus" as Koronavirüs due to insufficiency. We use the word "Television" as Televizyon. The examples are endless. This does not mean that Turkish is a primitive language.

Now, if you like, let me give you my answer to the question I asked above about the USA, according to my own view: Although each of the 175 languages has the power to express everything orally, they are not "Independent Languages" because they do not have a written language. The most important factor that makes a language an independent language is that it can be written and reproduced. This is a very harsh definition, but otherwise, linguistics cannot make progress.

Taking all this into account, I would now like to express my views on "Kurdish." Some of my readers assume that there is "a single language called Kurdish" and a community that speaks it. A simple understanding has been developed, such as "we speak Turkish, they speak Kurdish." But I regret to say that the reality is quite different.

Before I go any further, I would like to draw your attention to one point: "Kurdish" nationalists make very exaggerated evaluations, and even international Kurdish organizations, supposedly with "Institute" in their name, are involved in this frenzy. In this article, I will present you with as objective and understandable a classification as possible.

Please allow me to use the term "Kurdish languages" instead of "Kurdish." Because the word "Kurdish" refers to a single language like Turkish or English, but there is no such language, but there are Kurdish languages. Linguists place "Kurdish" in the "Indo-Iranian languages" group. There is no mistake in this. It is not possible to classify it this way because there is no independent language called "Kurdish," but let's assume that there is a standard language called "Kurdish." That is, everyone in the region called Kurdistan (Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Syria) speaks the same language.

Let's leave aside the "Indo" part of "Indo-Iranian." Let's only consider the "Iranian" languages. Within the Iranian languages, the Northwest subgroup includes Persian, Kurdish, Tajik, and Zazaki (Gorani); the Northeast subgroup includes Ossetian and Pashto. Of course, I object to the word "Kurdish" here because there is no independent language called "Kurdish."

If you notice, the world's most famous linguists used the term "Kurdish" instead of "Kurdish languages" when making this classification. This is a mistake. Linguists who agree on the general classification contradict each other and even put forward very serious different theses when they start classifying subgroups. If you are curious and look at the language trees of famous linguists, one does not match the other because everyone's thesis and approach are different.

In the meantime, I feel the need to give my reader a brief information about myself. I am not a professional linguist. I have degrees in Electrical Engineering, a Master's in Business Administration, a Doctorate in Economics, and diplomas in Law and International Relations. My interest in languages started in my childhood. I know more than ten languages. During my years of education in France, Germany, and the USA, I voluntarily attended and took many linguistics courses, and I even have a thesis on linguistics that I prepared in English. Why do I feel the need to say all this: Some or many of my readers may rightly object, "You are not a linguist! What you say has no scientific value!" To be honest, I don't disagree with my readers who think this way! But please remember that my theses on "Kurdish" presented at symposiums in the USA were taken into consideration, but since I am not a linguist, I could not give continuity to these studies, so I continued my research on a voluntary basis and at a slow pace, often away from the linguistics community.

I can almost hear many of my readers who know me personally saying to themselves: "Mücahit barely speaks Kurdish, but he is speculating about Kurdish. This cannot be serious!" At first glance, this proposition has a very logical and understandable value. But I would like to make a reminder:

As you know, the most famous Kurdish linguists or Kurdish anthropologists in the world are foreigners: The first grammar book of Kurdish (1787) was prepared by an Italian priest named Maurizio Garzioni. Apart from this name, important Kurdish linguists I consider are Joyce Blau, Michael Chyet, Lescot, Martin van Bruinessen, Mac Kenzie, E. B. Soane, Minorsky, Edmonds, Oskar Mann, Windfuhr, Gernot Thackston, Ernst Kausen, and many more.

I had the chance to get to know two of these linguists closely: The first was Joyce Blau. (She is still working at the Kurdish Institute of Paris. I had the chance to meet her again two years ago for an interview.)

It was towards the end of the 1970s. Joyce Blau had published a dictionary in Kurdish, English, and French. My late uncle, Fetullah Kakioğlu, also added Turkish to this book and published this four-language dictionary in Sosyal Yayınlar. This book was the most comprehensive Kurdish dictionary published in Turkey until that date.

Some time passed. I settled in France. It was 1985. My uncle called from Istanbul and asked me to send about 20 books to Joyce Blau. It was my second month in France. My French was not good. I took the books and went to the Kurdish Institute of Paris. I had the chance to meet Joyce Blau face to face. Since my French was not good, I wanted to express myself in English, but Joyce Blau's English was even worse than my French. I gathered my courage and spoke Kurdish. I knew my Kurdish was not fluent, but it was enough to make myself understood. To my surprise, Joyce Blau also could not speak Kurdish fluently. Finally, we were able to communicate through a Turkish Kurd who knew French. In later years, my dear elder brother, the late İhsan Aksoy, also drew attention to this issue in one of our conversations, saying, "Joyce Blau was trained by Kamuran Bedirxan. She lived among the people in the Kurdish region of Iraq many times. Now she is the head of the Kurdology Department, but she still cannot speak Kurdish. An interesting situation!" expressing his surprise.

In short, Joyce Blau, France's most respected Kurdologist and Head of the Kurdology Department at Sorbonne University, had difficulty speaking Kurdish! It was a surprising situation. She had also stayed in the Barzani region of Northern Iraq for a long time and learned the spoken language among the people.

I experienced the same situation with my Kurdologist friend Michael Chyet (who knows nearly 40 languages), whom I met at Berkeley University in 1992. That year, Michael Chyet, who was doing his doctorate in Middle Eastern Languages at Berkeley University, became interested in Kurdish because he thought there was a gap in this field. Years passed, and I met Michael Chyet at the Library of Congress in Washington, the largest library in the world. Michael Chyet is still working as the Head of the Middle Eastern Languages Department at the same library today. I spoke Kurdish with Michael Chyet. Michael Chyet, who is currently the most authoritative name on Kurdish languages in the world, was still speaking Kurmanji hesitantly and thoughtfully. Moreover, he was regularly giving Kurdish lessons at the Kurdish Institute called ALA.

My Second Thesis: To be a Kurdologist, it is not necessary to speak Kurdish fluently.

My current situation is similar to that of the scientists above. I may not speak Kurdish as fluently as a relative in my village of Karakuyu, but I have serious research on where Kurdish should be placed in terms of linguistics.

In the meantime, I would like to remind you that many nationalist Kurdish linguists often go too far. Without paying attention to the distinction between accent, dialect, and language, they simply call every language they hear in the geography of Kurdistan "Kurdish." It seems that they will continue this habit for many years...

Now let's get to the main point...

The languages in the Northwest group of Iranian languages should be reclassified as follows, taking into account current changes and realities on the ground.

My Third Thesis: Northwest Iranian languages should be reorganized as Persian, Kurmanji, Sorani, Zazaki (Gorani), and Tajik.

As you can see, I did not use the word "Kurdish." According to some Kurdish nationalists, Kurmanji, Sorani, and Zazaki are dialects of Kurdish. For these three languages to be dialects, there must be a standard Kurdish that people belonging to all three languages can understand each other, which does not exist. These three are independent languages. All three languages have a written form. The official languages in the Constitution of the Kurdistan Region of Northern Iraq are: Sorani, Arabic (due to federal necessity), Turkmen, Syriac, and Armenian. Did you notice: Kurmanji is not treated as an official language in Northern Iraq. In regions like Duhok and Zakho, Kurmanji is taught as a language of instruction in primary schools, but students are obliged to learn Sorani. There is no university that provides education in Kurmanji.

Most universities are in English. Only Law Faculty courses are in Arabic. Barzani's native language is Kurmanji, but he did not want to accept it as an official language. In a sense, the aim was for the Kurmanji language to disappear over time, and for everyone to speak Sorani. This is a terrible scenario, who knows, it might be a sacrifice!

My Fourth Thesis: For a state to be established, there must be a common language that everyone understands, otherwise internal conflicts will be inevitable. This is the main reason for the internal rebellions when the Republic was founded.

Behind the Kurds' constant defeats on the political stage lies the inability to think strategically and the disease of not accepting the existing reality. Kurmanji is an independent language, not a dialect of Sorani. Furthermore, there is no standard Kurdish where Kurmanji, Sorani, and Zazaki merge and all three languages can speak and understand each other.

My Fifth Thesis: Because there is no standard Kurdish, the Kurds could not establish a state.

So why is the Barzani family throwing Kurmanji, an independent language, into the well of death for no reason? If foreigners did this, we would raise hell, but we are making this mistake with our own hands, and for some reason, Kurdish intellectuals do not say a word about it. Is the Barzani family showing such disloyalty as to be incompetent and unable to understand the sensitivities of the people, pushing aside their native language Kurmanji for their own interests and embracing Sorani and English? It is very difficult for me to understand and guess the real reason.

While Kurdish intellectuals in Turkey are striving for Zazaki and Kurmanji to be taught as mother tongues in primary schools alongside Turkish, Mesut Barzani, who is considered the greatest Kurdish leader, dismisses his native language Kurmanji (called Behdinan in Iraq) with a wave of his hand and contempt. This situation is a difficult irony to understand.

Sorani, Kurmanji, and Zazaki are all independent languages. For example, Sorani is not a dialect. Because Sorani itself has dialects named Hewlêri (Erbili), Xoşnaw, Pijdar, Suleymani (Silêmani), Warmawa, Rewandiz, Bingird, Mukri, Kerkuki, Germiyani. Can a language that has dialects itself be a dialect? These dialects do not have a written language. There are thousands of books written in Sorani, and education is conducted in this language. State affairs are also conducted in this language. Kurmanji also has many dialects. Among the Kurds of Turkey, Kurmanji is widely used in written language. Think about it, the famous writer Mehmed Uzun wrote his stories in Kurmanji and almost won the Nobel Prize. Can a language written in a dialect be nominated for a Nobel?

Why do Kurdish nationalists or some linguists stubbornly insist that Sorani, Kurmanji, and Zazaki are dialects of "Kurdish"? First of all, I have proven that there is no such language as "Kurdish." The PKK, in particular, claims that these languages are dialects. Because for "Greater Kurdistan," a single language is needed. Some PKK writers even ignore Zazaki, taking a stance like "they should learn Kurmanji." In the meantime, I want to open a parenthesis: If all Kurds in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran spoke, for example, Kurmanji or Sorani or Zazaki, the PKK would largely achieve its goal. But there was another problem: the phenomenon of religion. Some of the Zazaki speakers are Sunni, some are Alevi; some of the Kurmanji speakers are Sunni, some are Alevi, and some of the Sorani speakers are Sunni, some are Shiite. We should not forget the Yazidis who speak Kurmanji and have a different religion.

The problem is not over yet. I present to your attention the alphabets in which Sorani and Kurmanji have been written in the last 120 years: Arabic alphabet (with some modifications), Armenian alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet, and Latin alphabet. This disarray continues. It is impossible to unite Kurds with different alphabets, languages, and religions under one goal! This is the basis of the failure of their rebellions so far. I shared examples related to Turkey in my previous articles. Let's take a look at Iraq: While Kurmanji-speaking Mullah Mustafa Barzani was waging guerrilla warfare against Saddam's soldiers in the mountains, Sorani-speaking Jalal Talabani did not lift a finger. We experienced the same situation very recently, in the days following the Independence Referendum. When regime forces attacked Kirkuk, forces loyal to Talabani retreated without firing a single shot.

As you can see, the Kurdistan region is very fragmented in terms of religion, language, and alphabet. The PKK tried to unify such a massive confusion by force of arms. In the 1980s, their job was a little easier. Since they adopted socialist ideology, religious beliefs such as Sunni, Alevi, and Yazidi were set aside. What remained were spoken languages and different alphabets. For example, can Abdullah Öcalan read important Kurdish texts written in Arabic or Cyrillic letters? Absolutely not! He learned Kurmanji later. The biggest reason for the PKK's failure is the linguistic and religious differentiation among Kurmanjis, Soranis, and Zazakis. This situation was reflected in the command center in the mountains and even led to groupings. We must admit that the PKK largely carried out its struggle by speaking Turkish.

Dear readers!

I invite your mind to another reality. As you know, the language spoken in the Roman Empire was Latin. In later centuries, due to great migrations such as the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, Latin underwent changes in Italy, Spain, and France, and new dialects emerged over time. As centuries passed, these dialects became independent languages and turned into written languages, and each became an independent language. Now, if I ask "Is there a language called Latin?", your answer will be clear: "Yes, but it is a dead language. It is not spoken but can be written." Based on this similarity, I want to change my question this time: If I ask "Is there a language called Kurdish?", the emotions of Kurdish nationalists will swell, and they will say, "What do you mean! Of course, there is a language called Kurdish!" No, there is no dead Kurdish like dead Latin, and there never was. Most Kurdish linguists try to manipulate this issue, trying to get in from below and out from above. They make claims such as "Kurdish is derived from the ancient religious text Avesta." The truth they forget is that all Iranian languages originated from Avesta, not just Kurdish languages. So, what I mean is this: Languages like Spanish, Romanian, Italian, and French were born and grew out of Latin and became independent languages. When we ask which language Sorani, Kurmanji, and Zazaki were born and grew out of and became independent languages, there is no clear answer. Sorani and Kurmanji written texts go back 400-500 years. Therefore, the use of words like "Kurdish, Kurdî" is meaningless and misleading.

My Sixth Thesis: Instead of "Kurdish," the words Kurmanji, Sorani, and Zazaki should be used because there is no standard Kurdish, and this cannot be created by force.

Now I would like to draw your attention to some other issues: In Turkish public opinion, there is a claim that "Kurdish" is a dialect of Persian or a changed form of it. Those who go further even say that "Kurdish" is a mixture of Persian, Turkish, and Arabic. First of all, I have proven to you that there is no such language as "Kurdish." I do not want to go back to that topic.

Russian Kurdologist Minorsky states that Kurdish and Persian are separate and independent languages, and he groups these differences under five headings: (Note: The word Kurdish belongs to Minorsky.)

1) Phonetically: The phonetics of the Kurdish language are separate from those of Persian.

2) Sound changes: Common words found in Persian and Kurdish have undergone a great change in sound.

3) Morphological differences: There are many differences, from pronouns to verb conjugations and inflections, from possessive suffixes to noun phrases.

4) Syntactic differences.

5) Lexical differences.

I don't want to get into too much discussion here because Minorsky also used the general term "Kurdish." It is not known whether he means Kurmanji, Sorani, or Zazaki by this. The only thing we know is that Sorani/Kurmanji are independent languages from Persian.

COMPARISON OF KURMANJI AND SORANI

Dear readers! I am not including Zazaki in the comparison between Kurmanji and Sorani because Zazaki has its own unique syntax, grammar, and phonetic structure that cannot be compared with Sorani and Kurmanji. Zazaki also has many dialects. For example, Hawrami is one of them.

Let's compare Kurmanji and Sorani: It is assumed that these two languages are either dialects of each other or have very few differences. This is not the case at all:

1. Kurmanji has a masculine and feminine structure. That is, nouns are either masculine or feminine. For example, in French, the words LE and LA are used, or in German, the words DER, DIE, DAS are used to indicate whether nouns are masculine or feminine, but in Kurmanji, as in Russian, there is no special sign to indicate that nouns are masculine or feminine; you have to memorize them. Nouns are inflected by taking the suffix "ê" or "a" according to whether they are masculine or feminine. There is no masculine-feminine distinction in Sorani. It is like Persian.
2. Kurmanji has two different groups of personal pronouns: The first group (Ez, tu, ew, em, hûn, ew) and the second group (min, te, wî/wê, me, we, wan). However, Sorani has only one group of personal pronouns.
3. Kurmanji has an ergative structure. This explanation may be a little difficult. Personal pronouns change depending on whether the verbs are transitive or intransitive. I want to give an example. The verb "to see" in Kurmanji means "dîtin." It is a transitive verb. Therefore, if we use it in the present tense and want to say "I see you," we need to say "Ez te dîbinim." But if it were in the past tense, that is, if I wanted to say "I saw you," the sentence would be "Min ez dîtim." As you can see, the personal pronoun changes in the past tense conjugation of transitive verbs. There is no ergative structure in Sorani.

Because of all this, Sorani and Kurmanji are two independent languages. Both languages have dozens of dialects and accents, but the dialects are not important because they do not have a written language. I would also like to make this reminder. Kurds in the north of Iranian Kurdistan, around Maku and Urmia, speak Kurmanji. Mahabad and Kermanshah in the south speak Sorani. These two groups can communicate by speaking Persian.

As you can see, there is a big difference between Kurmanji and Sorani. Therefore, Kurmanji, Sorani, and Zazaki are independent languages. They are not dialects of any language.

Let's come to the reality of Turkey: Kurmanji and Zazaki are used in our country. There is no Sorani-speaking community. Syrian, Russian, and Yazidi Kurds use and write Kurmanji. Especially the Yazidi Kurds living in Armenia have a very rich literary tradition. The first Kurdish novel, Şivanê Kurd (The Kurdish Shepherd), was written in Kurmanji by Ereb Şemo.

VOCABULARY RICHNESS

Kurmanji, Sorani, and Zazaki have, of course, been influenced by the languages of the societies they live in and have borrowed many words. If we consider that 70% of Turkish is of Arabic, Persian, French, and Italian origin, we cannot decide whether a language is independent or not based on borrowed words. When we ask what the vocabulary richness of Kurdish languages is, the waters stop flowing. Turkish nationalism soars, they cannot stand still, they try to prove the opposite.

A few weeks ago, I saw a dictionary called FERHENG (Dictionary) published by the Turkish Language Association on the shelves of a bookstore in Iğdır. I bought this dictionary when it first came out, read it in half an hour, and threw it aside. It had no value! Moreover, a commission had worked on it for two years. It is clear that they received good money from the state! Currently, the Kurmanji dictionary you can trust in Turkey is the Kurdish-Turkish or Turkish-Kurdish dictionary published by the Kurdish Institute of Istanbul.

I want to tell an anecdote: The Kurdish Institute of Paris prepares a Kurmanji dictionary. The president of the Institute, Mr. Kendal Nezan, probably trusting his close friendship, sends a copy to the former Mayor of Istanbul, Bedrettin Dalan. Bedrettin Dalan cannot sit still because the dictionary contains 100,000 words. He calls linguists who know Persian and Arabic: "Remove the Arabic and Persian words from this dictionary and tell me the remaining number!" The linguists carry out the task and appear before Dalan: "Sir, 30,000 words remained!" Dalan is still angry and furious. "Remove the words that might resemble Persian, even remotely!" The linguist returns: "1000 words remained!" Dalan mutters to himself: "400 of these must be made up, leaving 600 words." And in an interview, he says that Kurmanji is a language of 600 words. You should grab this man by the ear, bring him to Karakuyu village, give him a pen and paper, ask an old woman sitting there the name of every object she sees, and then shove the resulting list in his face! In the meantime, I would like to add: Bedrettin Dalan speaks the Sheyhbizin (Şêxbizin) language. This language belongs to the Lurish group and is close to Persian.

Dear readers! I will not state here how many words Kurmanji, Sorani, and Zazaki contain. Let me answer this question by saying that the Kurmanji dictionary (there are no Sorani words, and I must also state that I know Persian and Arabic) that I have been working on for years contains over 150,000 words. If a volunteer comes forward to pay for the printing, I am ready to publish the dictionary. As I said before, since US intelligence in World War II was able to convey all its intentions verbatim using the language of the Navajo Indians, which had no written form, let's neither belittle any language nor judge it by the number of words. This is not a correct approach!

POLITICAL PARTIES AND KURDISH LANGUAGES

I said before: While we, as intellectuals living in Turkey, call on the state to teach Kurmanji and Zazaki as mother tongues in schools, Barzani is doing his best to de-emphasize his native language, Kurmanji. We, the intellectuals in Turkey, see the education of Kurmanji and Zazaki as mother tongues as a human right and believe that a struggle must be waged in this regard.

When the PKK first emerged, it gained power in the Barzani region because Kurmanji was spoken, but today, since Sorani, Arabic, and English are predominantly used in the Kurdistan Federal Region, the PKK no longer has a dialogue with the people in the Northern Iraq Kurdish Region. It only has isolated bases here and there. This also has no value.

What will they aim for with armed struggle within Turkey? They have already abandoned their claims of an Independent Kurdistan, a Federal State, or an Autonomous Kurdistan. I make a call: Lay down your arms, mobilize to establish DEMOCRATIC PARTIES worthy of Kurmanjis, Syriacs, Zazakis, and other minorities, and throw the proxy parties, which have no value, into the dustbin of history.

This time, the PKK has chosen Rojava as its target. I would like to remind my reader. The Kurds in Syria generally consist of Kurds who fled the Sheikh Said rebellion. The Syrian regime always treated them as refugees and did not give them identity cards. The hatred of the Syrian Kurds towards the regime became an opportunity for the PKK. Also, although the Arabic alphabet is used in Syria, Syrian Kurds wrote Kurmanji in Latin script. For this reason, the PKK rapidly developed and took root in Syria, partly due to the ease provided by Kurmanji and Latin. But soon it will be isolated and excluded there too. Turkey will remain...