Part II
(A Summary of Kurdish Linguistic Problems…)
1) The desastrous entry of the Kurds in the 20th century , causes and consequences
After Chaldiran , the Kurdish feudal princes had to pay homage, although often nominal, either to the Ottoman or the Persian sovereigns . For nearly two centuries , Kurdistan was actually to become a battlefield between the two enemy empires – one sunnit and the other shi’it . The disunited Kurdish principalities lost their independence , one after another in both empires , the last ones by the middle of the 19° century. In Ottoman Turkey in particular , the Kurds revolted all along the 19° century , eager to recover their independence. Kurdistan was ruined, and the Kurdish society, amputated of its traditional feudal aristocracy without having developed a sufficient bourgeoisie, nor a noticeable intelligentsia, was not in a position to match with the terrible challenge of the twentieth century. Yet most of the Western , and many Russian , agents who had to do with the Kurds (such as the British Major E.B. Soane, Major Noel, Sir Mark Sykes, the engineer A.M. Hamilton, Major F.Millingen , Captain W.R.Hay, the French Henry Binder, etc) expressed their belief that the Kurds would have a bright national future. Unfortunately such a future was not within the plans of the major imperialistic Powers of the time, Britain and France.
Consequently to the Ottoman defeat in WW1 ,the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres provided for an autonomous Ottoman Kurdistan , and for its full independence if such was to be the wish of its inhabitants and the decision of the League of Nations. But Britain and France had their own policy as to the fate of the eastern Ottoman possessions, according to the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Britain occupied the south-eastern part of Ottoman Kurdistan (the Mosul vilayet affair), because of its oil, and did its best to incorporate this part , against the will of the Kurdish people , into the new Iraqi state it was creating under its mandate , in Lower Mesopotamia . In 1921, France incorporated the south-western part of Ottoman Kurdistan into the new state of Syria which was under its mandate. Instead of getting access to independence as provided for at Sèvres , Ottoman Kurdistan, which represented about 75 % of the Kurdish country, was thus divided by imperialism. Iranian Kurdistan, representing about 25 % of the Kurdish country, was not officially concerned by the Sèvres Treaty , Persia having not participated in WW1. But the Kurds of Iran long to liberty and democracy , as the other Kurds .
Mustafa Kemal Pasha , who served in the WW1 as General in the Ottoman army, promised the Kurds of Turkey to recognize their ‘ethnic rights’ and obtained their participation in the Independence War he was to launch against the occupation forces of the Allied Powers . The Ottoman defeat was thus transformed into a victory, said Churchill. As a consequence, the Conference of Lausanne , 1922-1923 , was held to cancel the Treaty of Sèvres (signed but not ratified) and replace it by a new one. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne , which consecrated the new Turkey , was negotiated in the absence of the Kurds and against their interest . Cheated by « Ataturk » (The Father of the Turks -so !), the Kurds were betrayed by the European Powers (see, on both treaties and the debates at the Lausanne Conference, my book (ICV : Le Kurdistan irakien Entité nationale : Etude de la Révolution de 1961, la Baconnière , Neuchâtel, 1970.) In this latter work I referred to the official proceedings of the Lausanne Conference , meeting dated 23 January 1923 , as published in French by the French Ministère des Affaires étrangères : Documents diplomatiques , Conférence de Lausanne , Paris, 1923 (pages 279-303) . The same proceedings are published in English (by His Majesty’s Stationary Office : Lausanne Conference on Near Eatern Affairs 1922-1923, Records of Proceedings and Draft Terms of Peace , London, 1923.) These Terms of Peace , so unjust toward the Kurdish people , a mere betrayal, were finally discussed before the Council of the League of Nations , Geneva , 37° session , September 1925 (see League of Nations, Journal Officiel , October 1925, excerpts from which are published in ICV : 1970.) . Without forgetting the 1915 Armenian genocide , the Kurds , who suffered much under the yoke of the Ottomans , like many other peoples, obtained nothing from the dislocation of the empire. They are the sole dependent – and large - people who, in the aftermath of WW1 , found themselves stateless, more divided and more oppressed than before.
2) Why a Kurdish national question ?
There is a Kurdish national question because the Kurdish people were deprived by imperialism, and thanks to their lack of preparation and their inexperience , of their right of self-determination, to govern themselves by themselves in the country they inherited from their ancestry. In Republican Turkey, which has kept within its borders far the largest part of former Ottoman Kurdistan , the Kurds endured forceful deportation, the Kurdish language was banned , the name of Kurdistan became a taboo and was replaced by Eastern Anatolia, which is, besides, a geographical error . Anatolia is an old Greek name meaning the Levant , that is the sunrise country, which originally designated the eastern coast of the Egean sea, then its acceptance stretched eastwards across centuries , to cover finally Cilicia and Cappadocia , but the name had never covered the Kurdish areas before the advent of Kemalism. Turkish Kurdistan became a nameless internal and under-developed colony , without even having the ‘privilege’ of being recognised as a colony. To accept forceful assimilation or to revolt and then be said ‘highway robbers’ (and later on ‘terrorists’) by the state and its army, that was the choice left to the Kurdish people in Turkey. Southern or Iraqi Kurdistan became ‘the north of Iraq’ and the uprisings of its Kurds were fought by the British on behalf of ‘the Arab King of Iraq’. The Kurdish people are equally oppressed in Baathist Syria.
3) Estimates and data
I define Kurdistan as being geographically constituted of the contiguous regions that had a Kurdish majority by the end of WW1 , not withstanding the ‘international’ borders dividing it between four states, which are actually inter-Kurdish borders. Its total area ( on the basis of governmental data for the districts with a Kurdish majority) can be estimated at about 445'000 sq. km, as follow : 224'000 sq.km for Turkish Kurdistan (said Northern), 124’000 sq.km for Iranian Kurdistan (said Eastern), 75'000 sq.km for Iraqi Kurdistan (said Southern) , and some 20'000 sq.km for Syrian Kurdistan (which may be called southwestern).
Iranian Kurdistan covers about five contiguous administrative provinces called generally ostan in Persian, which constitute together the mountainous borderland to the west of the Iranian Plateau. From north to south they are : Western-Azerbaijan , Kordestan , Kirmanshah , nearly one half of the ostan of Hamadan (to the east of Kirmanshah) , and the governorate of Ilam (from the ancient name of Elam) . A northern part of the ostan of Luristan is also Kurdish. One , just one of these provinces is officially called Kurdistan , a name written above Kordestan , according to the Persian pronunciation, with the city of Sineh as provincial capital. To distinguish one of the five or so Kurdish provinces , with the name of Kurdistan (Kordestan) would suggest that the other four are not Kurdish and do make part of Iranian Kurdistan . Besides , the two provinces of Kurdistan/Kordestan and Kirmanshah used to constitute together one province , under the name of Kurdistan, till the early twenties, when shah Riza separated them. This tells about the constant opposition of Tehran to any demand of Kurdish autonomy and union within Iran. The province of Kurdistan created in the 12° century by sultan Sinjar in the western half of the clime of al-Jibal/Kuhistan , continued to be dismembered in later times. Persian is the official language of education at schools in Iranian Kurdistan , but private publications in Kurdish are tolerated, if they are not opposed to the government.
The number of the Kurds by 2002, including those who were forced to leave Kurdistan and live in other parts of the states dividing it, can be estimated as follow : about 23 or 24 millions in Turkey , 11 millions in Iran (including those implanted in Khurasan by the shah Abbas the Great in the 17° cent.), 6,2 millions in Iraq (including the Faili and Shiit or Ali-Ilahi Kurds , and the Ezidi Kurds) , and 2,5 millions in Syria . To these estimates one should add the Kurdish outer diasporas (living beyond Kurdistan and outside the states dividing it) whose number may be estimated at 1,3 to 1,6 million in western Europe (especially Germany) , more than one half of a million in the former Soviet Republics of the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Russia (see ICV, The Kurdish Diaspora in Russia and Former USSR , in the revue Lêkolîn of the Kurdish Science and Research Inst., Berlin, No. 5 , summer 1997 : 16-32.) This beside Kurdish communities in some other countries (USA, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere). The Kurds who suffered most of internal scattering (internal diaspora) by and within the states dividing Kurdistan , are those of Turkey , then in Syria. About 10 millions Kurds are found scattered across ‘Turkish Turkey’ , especially in larger cities , outside Turkish Kurdistan. Istanbul is in a way the largest « Kurdish » city (with more than 3 million Kurds inside.)
4) On the written Kurdish dialects
Kurdish is not a unified language , but divided into dialects , with local varieties, in the image of divided Kurdistan and the contradictions of the Kurdish society. There are two main dialects , North-Kurmanji and South-Kurmanji , with notable differences between , which both possess a classical and a modern written literature. South-Kurmanji has been more commonly known under the name of Sorani , from the early 1930s , while North-Kurmanji is more commonly called just Kurmanji . For commodity reasons and by simplification, these designations will be used hereafter , Sorani for South-Kurmanji, and just Kurmanji for North-Kurmanji .
Kurmanji (North-Kurmanji) is far the largest Kurdish dialect . Reserve being made of what will be said about the Zazaki dialect in Turkish Kurdistan (see below) , Kurmanji is used by the Kurds of Turkey, and of Syria , by about one third or 30 % of the Kurds in Iraq , in the northern areas of Iraqi Kurdistan, usually called Badinan , which is adjacent to the border with Turkey and Syria . Kurmanji is also the language spoken by about one half , the northern one, of the Kurds inhabiting the ostan of Western-Azerbaijan in Iran, and by the Kurds implanted in Khurasan (a large group that reportedly would number about one million , who continue to speak Kurmanji) ; it is as well the language spoken by the Kurds of former USSR (together with Russian), and by most of the Kurdish diaspora in Western Europe. That would make up about 75 % of the Kurdish people (internal and outer diasporas included) whose common language is Kurmanji, with local varieties. A large and brilliant part of the Kurdish classical literature , probably the oldest, was written in Kurmanji. One of the most illustrious Kurdish classical poets, Ahmedê Khani, who lived in Northern Kurdistan (died in 1706) and wrote in Kurmanji, is the very intellectual father of the modern Kurdish national idea . He called for Kurdish social progress, dreamed of an independent Kurdistan , is venerated by all the Kurds and has been taken as a model by Sorani writers. Another master poet who wrote in Kurmanji , Melaye Jezri (who would have lived in the 16° century) , is probably the unrivalled star in matter of Kurdish spiritualism (soufism).
The Kurds who speak Sorani, with local varieties, and use it as written language are those of south-eastern Kurdistan, on both sides of the Iraqi-Iranian border. The city of Sulaimaniya, in Iraqi Kurdistan, is the historical centre of literary Kurdish in Sorani . Many well known Kurdish writers and intellectuals are native of Sulaimaniya.
This paper is not a study in Kurdish dialectology. Let us however notice that another Kurdish dialect , Gorani , sometimes called Hawrami, was used as written literary language at the court of the Kurdish principality of Ardalan , whose capital was the city of Sineh , in Iranian Kurdistan. That is the past, since there is no longer any Kurdish principality , the last ones having succumbed by the middle of the 19° century. Most of the Kurds in Iranian Kurdistan use henceforth, more and more, the Sorani dialect to write in Kurdish, the same as in Sulaimaniya and the larger part of Iraqi Kurdistan. Gorani is no longer a living literary language , but is still spoken by isolated mountaineers in the Hawreman ridge.
Another Kurdish dialect is Zazaki , spoken in some northern areas of Turkish Kurdistan, by about 5 % of the Kurdish people in Turkey . Curiously enouph , Zazaki and Gorani are linguistically close dialects, despite the large geographical space separating them, space occupied by North-Kurmanji and South-Kurmanji (Sorani). But contrary to Gorani , we have no information about any written literature in Zazaki , yet there is an oral folklore in this dialect . To be noticed that Zazaki is pretended by some Western authors – at the expense of the Kurds - not to be Kurdish, but to constitute another Iranic language . This opinion , probably encouraged by the Turkish government , is contested by the Kurdish writers (see Fêrgin Melik Aykoç, Kurdîzan: Rûberkirina Zaravên Kurdi , in Kurmanji, pub. by the Kurdish Science and Research Inst. , Berlin, 1996.) The Zazaki speakers call themselves Kurds and occupy an outstanding place in the Kurdish national movement. Unfortunately , Zazaki is very much a menaced dialect . Most of its speakers have replaced it by speaking either North-Kurmanji or barely Turkish. ( See also Ludwig Paul, Zazaki : Grammatik und Versuch einer Dialektologie , Wiesbaden, 1998.)
5) The Kurdish linguistic problématique
One of the arguments developed by Lord Curzon, chief of the British delegation to the Conference of Lausanne , for the inclusion of the south-eastern part of Ottoman Kurdistan – he said Southern Kurdistan– within the Iraqi kingdom the British were working hard to put on its feet , was that the southern Kurds would enjoy some kind of autonomy within the kingdom, in matter of language , justice and self-government. We know how the southern Kurds had to fight , by arms , for such a regional autonomy within Iraq , as they are today still struggling, by peaceful means, to obtain full federalism and to practice their right of self-determination. But this is another question. Let us continue dwelling on the Kurdish linguistic problématique (the word, as a name, is French .)
In accordance with what was called Bill on Local languages , adopted by the Iraqi government in the early 1930s , it was decided to open primary schools in Iraqi Kurdistan to teach children in Kurdish (and some Arabic). The dialect chosen was Sorani in its Sulaimaniya variety, which is special and practically confined in the city . The variety spoken in Arbil was not as distant from Kurmanji , but Sulaimaniya enjoyed an older tradition in matter of Kurdish literature. The choice was perhaps political. Besides, the northern region of Iraqi Kurdistan, here called Badinan , where the people speak Kurmanji and represent about 30 % of the Kurds in Iraq, was excluded from the reform . Teaching at schools only in Arabic was imposed on the children of Badinan . That was obviously a political decision, probably British. Of course, these children would not have understood Sorani, especially in the variety of Sulaimaniya, but the question to be posed is different : Why not to have decided to teach the children of Badinan in their own Kurdish dialect, Kurmanji ? The answer cannot be but political . Turkey was by no means willing , and could not accept, that North-Kurmanji be officially taught at its south-eastern border , while the same Kurmanji was a forbidden language on the other side of the border . Let us say it was a friendly British gesture . We were not far from the logic of the 1937 Saad-Abad Pact between Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, to keep the Kurdish people under control , as it was to be inspired and blessed by Britain, and if necessary to take joint measures against any Kurdish uprising.
The largest Kurdish dialect , North-Kurmanji , banned in Turkey and Syria , excluded from official teaching in Badinan and everywhere in Iran where it is spoken , was to become a menaced language . That was part of the national oppression endured by the Kurdish people. Each time it seemed possible, the present writer wrote articles and furthered proposals for a remedy against this injustice. Because this was otherwise already published (on the Web www.kcdme.com or as papers), here is a brief mention of what was done :
It should be first reminded that Sorani was and is still written in Arabic script , as slightly modified to fit Kurdish, while Kurmanji was written – when that was legally possible, or underground – in a Roman script slightly adapted to Kurdish , much similar to the roman script adopted by the Republic of Turkey for Turkish . This Kurmanji-Roman script was adopted, in the early 1930s , by an outstanding Kurmanji grammarian, late prince Celadet Bedir-Khan ( Bedirxan in this alphabet), who was heir to the Bedir-Khanid principality and an émigré from Turkey in Damascus .
On July 14, 1958 , General Abdul Karim Kassem overthrew the Iraqi monarchy , proclaimed the Iraqi Republic , and a Provisional Constitution saying (in Art. 3) ‘the Arabs and the Kurds are partners in the Republic and their rights are guaranteed by the Constitution’. This constitutional recognition of the Kurdish people as partners of the Arabs in the Republic was democratic, the very first and is still the sole in the area (although Art. 2 of the same Constitution , presenting Iraq as an Arab state , was to be openly criticized by this writer at a conference held in Baghdad in October 1960 – but this is another story.) Yet the constitutional change in Iraq furthered me the first opportunity to pose the elements that constitute the Kurdish linguistic problématique . In an article written in English and entitled‘The Problem of the Written Kurdish Language, Kurmanji or Sorani , published in the periodical Kurdistan , organ of KSSE (Kurdish Students’ Society in Europe , of which I was then the president), London, 1959 I said the question of unification of the written Kurdish language , at the scale of all Kurdistan , is a matter of future, and that some necessary steps should be made before envisaging a future solution . The first step suggested was to transform teaching at schools in the area of Badinan from Arabic into Kurmanji Kurdish , and to adopt for this teaching the Kurdish/Roman alphabet , not exactly as made by Bedir-Khan, but after its reform . It was also suggested that the same alphabet be adopted for Sorani , because with two so different scripts , one based on roman characters and the other on Arabic characters, no unification of the written Kurdish could be envisaged . On the contrary, differences between them would go larger and larger. This article was also edited as a brochure in Arabic translation , al-Ahali Press , Bagdad, 1960, by Hafiz Mustafa al-Qadi, with a preface by Dr. Siddiq Atroushi .These two gentlemen, who hailed my proposals, were Kurdish intellectuals from Badinan, speaking Kurmanji Kurdish.
In November 1992 , a parliamentary delegation , headed by Jawher Namiq, president of the Kurdish National Assembly, seated in Arbil, visited Switzerland . I offered them a reception. «It is decided that Sorani be the official language in Kurdistan» , told me Mr. Namiq , « but we shall enrich Sorani with a vocabulary from Kurmanji. » Having a different opinion, I said: « Then Kurmanji , the language of Ahmedê Khani , should be reduced to the rank of an idiom spoken just by shephered and non educated People ! » At that time, Iraqi Kurdistan was reduced , by Saddam Hussein, to three districts or provinces, Sulaimaniya in the south, Dehok in the north, and Arbil between them., making together the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government.) Dehok is a new city, and its district covers only a part of the Kurmanji –speaking area in Iraq , generally called Badinan . Depriving the Kurds of Badinan of their right to be educated in their own Kurdish, is by no means democratic. This decision lacks terribly insight into the future of the Kurdish nation. According to this view, Kurdistan is limited to the sole KRG’s territory, as it was decided by Saddam Hussein.
In 1993 I was invited to attend as guest the 11° congress of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), whose president was , and is, Mesoud Barzani, son of the legendary Kurdish leader late Mustafa Barzani . I had known kak Mesoud (as we say in Kurdish) since the 1960s , when he was a teenager and that his father had wanted me to be his spokesman abroad, what I had accepted. That represented honour and responsibility for me , although I was not an Iraqi Kurd , nor member in any Kurdish party, but politically independent, former president of KSSE , a free writer struggling for democracy and the national rights of the Kurdish people. The KDP congress was to be held in August in Arbil , seat of the Kurdish National Assembly (parliament) . We were a few to travel together from Switzerland , by Turkey, to attend the congress : Ayyoub Barzani (a cousin to kak Mesoud, and a free writer) , Siddik Zawiti , member of KDP and its representative in Switzerland, Swiss journalists, and me.
When we reached Dehok , the first important Kurdish urban and cultural centre after the border with Turkey (Turkish Kurdistan) , we made a stop for two or three days . My two Kurdish friends and companions, Ayyoub and Siddik , suggested me to call together on the city’s Union of Kurdish Writer. Past the entry building there was a large green lawn as part of the club , with groups of men and some women, about sixty people, talking and drinking tea. They were Kurdish writers and intellectuals speaking Kurmanji Kurdish , the flower of the Kurdish intelligentsia in Badinan . Many were perhaps members of KDP, or sympathisers , and some had important responsibilities in the Kurdish regional administration . It was clear they all knew me, at least by name, and what are my opinions about what I call the The Kurdish linguistic problématique . I ignore whether any meeting had been arranged between them and the present writer , but the encounter was soon to be transformed into a kind of meeting. That was possibly spontaneous. Addressing this distinguished assembly , I briefly repeated what was written above , insisting that Kurmanji should become the language of education at the schools and colleges in the Badinan area , preferably in a reformed Kurdish-Roman script (see below), the question of unification of the written Kurdish being open for the future. The spokesman of the assembly said : “Teaching in Arabic in Badinan was imposed upon us, we were not in a position to change that, but Arabic is a foreign language and it did not represent any danger for our Kurmanji Kurdish , that we continue to speak and cherish.» Then he added : «If they want to impose upon us in Badinan an education in Sorani , now that we are free , it will be different , because Sorani is Kurdish , and this means the death of Kurmanji, what we shall never accept.»
At the congress of KDP, when I had the floor, I spoke among other issues about the linguistic problem at stake and that was made public ( I heard repeatedly myself, in the next days, speaking about the issue at the KDP’s television channel) . The congress was a large one , attended , beside party’s members, by a large number of Kurdish guests from all parts of Kurdistan , representatives of the Kurdish parties and of the Kurdish external diasporas (from Russia, Europe, and USA), as well as by all the components of the Iraqi Arab opposition to Saddam Hussein. Jalal Talabani, secretary general of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), with whom I had an old friendly relationship since 1959, present at the congress, invited me to his private residence in Qara Cholan , near Sulaimaniya, once the seat of the Kurdish Baban principality. I travelled there when the congress was through and asked kak Ayyoub Barzani to be my companion in the journey. .
At Qara Cholan , beside Mam Jalal (as we call Jalal Talabani in Kurdish, meaning uncle Jalal), late Ibrahim Ahmed , his father-in-law , was present. Former KDP’s secretary general in the early sixties, who contested Mustafa Barzani’s position as the Kurdish national leader, Ibrahim Ahmed was ousted from Iraqi Kurdistan in 1964 springtime, and found asylum in Tehran with all his Politburo group, including Jalal Talabani. By the beginning of October 1964 , I was asked by a friend of the Politburo group , Dr. Kemal Fuad, to try to settle this conflictual situation, no doubt at the demand of the group. The members of the politburo group were my friends too, but for me as for the Kurdish people, Mustafa Barzani was our national leader. We travelled together , Kemal Fuad and me, into Kurdistan. I was received by General Barzani at his headquarters, then in Ranya; he authorized me to continue the efforts. I returned back to see the Politburo group in Tehran , but time had actually not come for Kurdish reconciliation at that moment.
I had known General Mustafa Barzani for the first time in Baghdad , October 1960 . It was after my participation, as president of the KSSE delegation, which included Kemal Fuad and Tahsin A. Hawrami , in a congress of the International Union of Students (IUS , seated in Prague) , held in Baghdad . In my speech on behalf of the KSSE, which I wrote and delivered in French, I criticized Article 2 of the Iraqi Provisional Constitution , presenting the Iraqi Republic – in contradiction with Art. 3 - as an Arab state . I said ‘Only Arab Iraq is part of the Arab nation, while Iraqi Kurdistan is part of the Kurdish nation, which was divided by imperialism’ . This having been said, the IUS congress became the theatre of sharp discussions between our KSSE delegation and that of the General Union of Students in the Iraqi Republic , which was fully dominated by the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP). In a reception organized by the city of Baghdad, the delegations were presented to General Abdul Karim Kassem , including ours (a photography published by KSSE in its organ Kurdistan , shows General Kassem shaking hands with this writer , in the presence of Kemal Fuad and Hawrami) . One day later a security officer came into the congress quarters and informed me that ‘by order of the Iraqi Military Governor I have to leave Iraq within 24 hours’ . I then called on General Barzani, who said not to feel safe any longer to stay in Baghdad and was envisaging to return back to the mountains of Barzan. The KDP Political Bureau held an urgency meeting in which it was decided to advise me to comply with the order of the military governor and to leave Iraq accordingly . I was not so much willing to obey that order , since I was invited to a journey into Iraqi Kurdistan that, in 1960, I had never seen . Jalal Talabani came to see me and explained : ‘The KDP is not in a position to defend you if the government wants to arrest and expel you’ ; then he added : ‘Thanks to your speech and the debate it caused at the IUS congress , the KDP has won, in ten days , over the Iraqi Communist Party , more members and sympathisers than in the last ten years’. Before leaving Iraq , when the IUS congress was still ongoing , I had translated my KSSE French speech into Arabic and Ibrahim Ahmed published it in Khebat , organ of the KDP . He was to be tried for this before the Iraqi justice. Shortly after, General Barzani returned back to Barzan, which was bombarded by Iraq , on 3 September 1961. Mustafa Barzani took then arms , and led the Kurdish resistance known as the September Revolution (1961- 1975) , on which I published a book up to 1970 (ICV : 1970 , op.cit. )
When , after the 1993 KDP congress, I began speaking , in Jalal Talabani’s Qara Cholan residence, about the Kurdish linguistic problem , Ibrahim Ahmed interrupted me : ‘There is no problem , the question is settled, Sorani is the official language in Iraqi Kurdistan’ . Mam Jalal asked whether I was in Kurdistan ‘to make them trouble ?’ I did not appreciate the question, as if I were a foreigner and had to say nothing about the issue. ‘The problem does exist, but you do not see it or you do not want’, was my reply . I told them what had happened a few days earlier at Dehok’s Union of Kurdish Writers. I suggested, as an experience to be tried , that pupils at primary schools should begin by learning how to write their own respective dialect, Kurmanji or Sorani , and that after three or four years , those whose language is Sorani should also learn how to write in Kurmanji, and the contrary for those whose language is Kurmanji . That would perhaps prepare the terrain for a solution. Mam Jalal , whose Kurdish is Sorani, but he speaks an excellent Kurmanji , said the proposal was good . The next day , at a reception in the city of Sulaimaniya, it was reported to me that somebody had said I came « to kill Sorani » . Ayyoub Barzani was present and heard it . Needless to say it was not my intention, nor within my capability, ‘to kill Sorani’ , happily a prosperous language , but to try to save Kurmanji.
We left Sulaimaniya back to Salaheddin , a beautiful hilly place not far from Arbil, where kak Mesoud has his own residence , and where the closest KDP’s guests were accommodated, including me , in a guesthouse built by Saddam Hussein for his guests and then used by KDP for their own . I asked to call on Osman Ocalan (Abdullah Ocalan’s younger brother) at Zeli , a valley to the northeast of Arbil, somewhere to the north of Kalat-Diza and close to the Iranian border. It could not be recommended for a KDP’s guest to visit a PKK stronghold, but was I not a politically independent person ? Kak Nechirwan Barzani , a nefew to kak Mesoud and then a young man, arranged the journey . I travelled by a mountain car , with driver and a pêshmerga (Kurdish soldier , mark of esteem) . The road was difficult , and by places dangerous . I spent one night at Zeli , as Osman Ocalan’s guest . He formulated proposals to be submitted to kak Mesoud , for a good relationship between the two parties . Back to Salaheddin, I met with kak Mesoud, who came to say me goodbye at the guesthouse. I handed him the proposals made by Osman Ocalan , then I spoke about the linguistic problem . He said it is a political question; besides, people in Badinan are free to publish magazines or books in Kurmanji. That is true , as an expression of personal freedom , but to make of Kurmanji the official language in the areas where it is spoken , is another thing.
I visited Barzan , birth place of a legend amid mighty mountains , with Ayyoub Barzani as a guide. Then I left alone Iraqi Kurdistan , but my journey across Turkish Kurdistan , by bus, had been arranged . No airline existed at that time between Iraqi Kurdistan and Europe. Upon arrival at the bus terminal in Diyarbekir, two men were awaiting for me. Both welcomed me in Kurmanji. One of them, an engineer, was accompanied by his two sons, the elder, about 15, spoke Kurmanji, but the younger, about 8 , spoke only Turkish . This means when the younger son was born , his parents had stopped speaking Kurdish at home , for Turkish. I blamed the father for it.
The city of Diyarbekir was originally called Amida . By the time of the Islamic conquest , the Arabs called it Diyarbekir (meaning Bekir’s Country) . The Kemalists changed the name into Diyarbakir (with a k close to q) , meaning in Turkish the ‘Copper Country’ , by way of turkization of the toponymy of Kurdistan. Few people would identify the place if the name is written again Amida ; besides , such a change would not be recognized by the Turkish state. Anyway, I keep writing Diyarbekir . The city of Antep , in the southwestern part of Turkish Kurdistan, was renamed Gaziantep under the Turkish Republic, meaning probably in Turkish ‘The Antep of the Conqueror’ , the Conqueror possibly meaning Mustafa Kemal Pasha , himself renamed Ataturk. Anyway , I keep writing the name just Antep.
6) On the proposals for reforming the Kurdish-Roman alphabet
In an article written in French (15 pages), I fully explained why and how the Kurdish-Roman alphabet prepared by late Celadet Bedir-Khan , with the participation of late Roger Lescot, a French orientalist and ambassador, as expert and adviser , should be reformed . The Bedir-Khan alphabet is fully phonetical, as German and Turkish (one can read more or less correctly even if he ignores the language), contrary to French and English (where very often written characters are not pronounced). Furthermore , the Bedir-Khan’s alphabet is full with French diacritic marks , especially the accent circonflexe ( as in ê , î , and û) which represent a burden on each word, that one would not find at a current computer keyboard . I call this mark the « French hat ». In the Bedir-Khan alphabet the recourse to digraphs ( for instance ee for ê) was excluded . The proposed reform is presently on the Web (www.kcdme.com) , and a good summary of it was published, in Kurmanji , in the magazine Zend , No. 1 , Istanbul, spring 1994 , edited by the Kurdish Institute at Istanbul (in Kurdish : ZEND , kovara Enstîtuya Kurdî) . Let us notice the two French circonflexe marks , or « French hat » (on the î) found in this Kurdish designation are not necessary but useless, a burden for writing . As to the name Enstîtuya (for institute) used in Kurdish, it was borrowed from Turkish , and the Turks had borrowed it orally from the French Institut,, where the final ‘t’ is not pronounced . The name Enstîtuya thus adopted in Kurmanji, would better be written Enstituta .My reform proposals of this alphabet can be summed up in few lines : all the « French hats » (accent circonflexe ) should be removed, and digraphs , instead, should be introduced. Here are a few examples : ee for ê ; ie for î (if the vowel is long enough) ; ou for û ; sh for the curiuos s with a « pick » at its bottom ; never to put a « French hat » over a final ‘i’ in names or words such as Elemanî (German), Kurmanjî, Erebî (Arab , or Arabic) ; not to write Tirk for Turk. Furthermore , the Arabic guttural consonants such as the h (in heywan= animal) or the Semetic « ‘eyn » do not exist in Kurdish , but rural Kurds especially in Turkey use them, as well as the Arabic « qaf » for k in words such as Council , Conseil in French, which they pronounce Qonsey , with a Semitic qaf , while K does exist in Kurdish . Such words were borrowed by the Turks from Western Europe, and the Kurds borrowed them from Turkish . Such a Kurdish name presently written stêr (star in English , Stern in German, astre in French), should be written steer in Kurmanji according to my reform proposals (with no « French hat » over) . Western personal names of authors , philosophers , musicians, scientists, politics, should be written as they are in their original Roman script , in order to identify them, and not to corrupt them phonetically, as the Turks often do . The Arabs write such names in Arabic script and nobody can identify who they are or make any research about them.. Once in Istanbul I read a street name wrtten in Turkish Pyerloti caddesi. I readily understood it was a street dedicated to the French writer Pierre Loti , who had written novels about Istanbul , but few foreigners would be able to identify the person. Some Kurds who wrote about a reform of the Bedir-Khan’s alphabet seem to think it should respond to local, say each village variety, as if more complexity and confusion , if not a blind imitation of Turkish syntax , were needed, while the aim of the proposed reform is simplification, economy, and standardization . Sorani too needs a reform of its Arabic-based alphabet, but this was beyond the knowledge of the present writer to further any proposals.
It is difficult to change one’s habits and customs as socially established , the Kurds are conservative with this respect. My reform project of the Kurdish Roman alphabet has supporters , but it was not put into practice , save perhaps partially and privately . It is worth the reform be tried by Kurmanji writers , to see the results and possibly for any modification . While keeping writing Sorani with Arabic letters, it is a good idea to try writing it in a suitable Roman script as well, if the Kurds want to have one day perspectives for a future unification of their two main written dialects. That can only be a slow and progressive process . Let us notice that people knowing a Western language , or at least the Latin alphabet , could easily read Sorani or Kurmanji written in this alphabet , but the Kurds in Turkey will not understand even Kurmanji if it is written in Arabic characters, save perhaps a handful of people among ‘ulama in religion.
7) The Opening of the Kurdish Institute , in Istanbul
I was invited to the opening of the Kurdish Institute , in Istanbul, on April 18 , 1992 . The ceremony of the event took place in the presence of more than 2'000 Kurds and guests, men and women, representing the flower of the Kurdish intelligentsia in Turkey . We were crowds in the modern headquarters, at the centre chic of the large metropolis, on Istiqlal Caddesi (Independence Street.) I thought it might perhaps be the beginning of some understanding by the Turkish state toward the Kurdish language and culture . That was my hope. I was asked by the founders of the Institute to cut its entry ribbon and declare it open. I did it while Dr. Ismail Besikci, the Turkish sociologist who had written tens of books about the Kurdish question, was standing by me . One of his books, in Turkish, is entitled «Kurdistan International Colony» . To express their esteem toward Dr. Besikci , the founders of the Institute had made him their president . Before cutting the entry ribbon , I declared open the Institute ‘in the name of the Kurdish people’ and expressed the hope to see soon the opening , in the cities of Turkish Kurdistan , of colleges and universities teaching in Kurdish . This opening speech was concise and delivered in Kurmanji Kurdish.
