Sorani is a Dialect with an Army and a Parliament: Political and Ideological Conflicts over the Officialisation of the Kurdish Language in Iraq
a lecture synopsis by Mahroo Rashidirostami, PhD Candidate Exeter
Dr. Amir Hassanpour, Assistant Professor at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto
On the evening of Friday November 9th, 2012, the University of Exeter Centre for Kurdish Studies invited Professor Amir Hassanpour to give a talk on the subject of the political and ideological conflicts over the officialisation of the Kurdish Language in Iraq.
Dr. Hassanpour began his talk by pointing out the three important events in 1991 that changed the political landscape of Kurdish language:
- President Turgut ?zal?s policy on lifting the ban on spoken Kurdish, an implicit admission to the Turkish state?s policy of linguicide and deliberate killing of the Kurdish language up to that date
- The US war on Iraq and the formation of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) resulting in the flourishing of Kurdish publication and broadcasting in Sorani
- Disintegration of the Soviet Union and the subsequent loss of freedom for the Kurds in Armenia to use Kurmanji in publishing and broadcasting
An audio recording of the lecture can be found by clicking on this link here
After explaining the consequences of these developments, Hassanpour probed deeper into the case of Iraqi Kurdistan and the relationship between the Kurdish dialects in this region. He argued that the main conflict before 1991 was between the Kurds and the Iraqi state, and about the status of Kurdish. Based on his assessment he considers the policies of Saddam?s government towards the Kurdish language to have been linguicide, despite the official recognition of Kurds and their language since the creation of Iraq.? After 1991 and especially after 2005, the main conflict turned into one between the dialects of Kurdish language, Sorani and Kurmanji.
Hassanpour explained that after his visit to Iraqi Kurdistan and extensive research he finally produced a linguistic map of Kurdish in 1985 which identified the approximate border between Kurmanji-speaking and Sorani-speaking regions of Iraqi Kurdistan. He also referred to the works of C J Edmonds, the British officer in Kurdistan, who had identified this linguistic border which began along the Great Zab river and extended to the north of Oshnawia in Iran. Hassanpour regretted that after 20 years of the KRG?s existence there is still no linguistic map of Kurdish and therefore the linguists have to resort to and reproduce his old map of 1985. Recently this map was used in the latest issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language which is devoted to the Kurdish language. Hassanpour argued that the state of Kurdish studies shows the lack of interest by the KRG in the Kurdish language.
C J Edmonds
Speaking about the status of Kurmanji in the Badinan region of Iraqi Kurdistan, Hassanpour argued that people of Badinan, independent of any government policy, have decided to use Kurmanji in their everyday life. This unofficial ?referendum on the status of the Kurmanji dialect? is reflected in the naming of shops and signs across the region, which change into Sorani once you cross the border into the Sorani-speaking region.
Before dealing with the current debates in Iraqi Kurdistan regarding the officilization of Kurdish, Hassanpour briefly explained the history of the development of Kurmanji and Sorani dialects. He argued that before 1918 the first generation of Kurdish nationalists were open to the multiplicity of dialects. According to him, the first Kurdish publications that appeared in Kurdish were primarily in Kurmanji only because their publishers were mostly Kurmanji speakers living in Istanbul. However, these intellectuals were open to dialectical differences and the use of Sorani and in fact included sorani pieces in their publications. Therefore while Kurmanji-speaking regions in Turkish Kurdistan became more developed and urbanized, Kurdish intellectuals still acknowledged and tolerated the multiplicity of dialects. However after 1918 the situation changed with the suppression of Kurmanji in Turkey and the rise of Sorani in Iraqi Kurdistan under the British mandate.
Hassanpour argued that the reason the British chose the Sorani dialect was because the Kurmanji-speaking region in Iraq was much less populated and less important in terms of Kurdish nationalist movement and literary development. He emphasized that there was no intrinsic superiority that made Sorani a better language than Kurmanji and that the British used Sorani not because it was more advanced than Kurmanji, or was more advanced in lexicon. Nor did they choose Sorani for aesthetic reasons. It was mainly due to the fact that Suleymania constituted the main ?trouble spot? for the British who, according to the confidential documents examined by Hassanpour, were more concerned about the Sorani region in Iraqi Kurdistan.
One dialect, one language, one nation
The main part of Hassanpour?s lecture dealt with the arguments made by Sorani-speaking Kurds which claim the superiority of Sorani over Kurmanji. The claim that the eight decades of de facto status in Iraq and use in administration and education has resulted in Sorani enjoying a larger vocabulary than Kurmanji, was rejected by Hassanpour who argued that many words coined in Sorani can also be used in Kurmanji. Moreover, he rejected the claim that the use of Kurmanji will result in linguistic division and ultimately the national division.
Areas of Kurdish control in Iraq
The Sorani supremacists also argue that, unlike Kurmanji, Sorani has had an uninterrupted literature for centuries. Rejecting this claim, Hassanpour argued that while Kurmanji was being suppressed in Turkey, it was flourishing in Armenia. Based on his research, in 1930s there was more publication in Kurmanji in Armenia than in Sorani in Iraq. Kurds in the Soviet Armenia had the freedom to use their language in publishing, theatre, and broadcasting. While this literature could not cross the borders because it was written in the Cyrillic alphabet and therefore considered Soviet propaganda, broadcasting from Radio Yerevan reached beyond the borders and played an important role in maintaining the Kurdish language. The flourishing of Kurmanji in Armenia happened long before the rise of Sorani in Iraqi Kurdistan.
All these claims, according to Hassanpour, stem from feelings of superiority on the part of Sorani speakers.? He went on to condemn the proposal made by some Sorani intellectuals to seek out and compile the words of Kurmanji vocabulary and folklore as a means to enrich Sorani.? He compared it negatively to the Iranian policy advocating the myth of the purity of the Kurdish language and the role it plays in enriching the Persian language. Hassanpour described such positions as supremacist and described the claim of the superiority of Sorani as ?Sorani chauvinism?. Denying these claims he said, ?I really don?t see such progress in Sorani that Kurmanji hasn?t made?.
Hassanpour argued that Kurdish cannot repeat the same ?one language, one nation? experience of English or French without resorting to coercion or even violence. The adoption of such a policy requires physical and non-physical violence to impose Sorani on the Badinan region of Kurdistan. This will inevitably lead to a path of separation. He also referred to misconceptions regarding the relationship between writing and speaking, specifically the claim that Kurdish classics cannot be written in Latin alphabet (which is widely used by Kurmanji speakers). He stated that such claims are against the basics of the knowledge of linguistics and emphasized that alphabets do not change the nature of their phonetics.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Hassanpour asserted that the kind of policy that denies the multiplicity of dialects does not have any linguistic grounds. Rather it reflects power relations between social classes and political parties. Although he said the KRG cannot singlehandedly do everything for Kurmanji, it can still do a lot to maintain it by openly and legally subsidizing the publication in it. He regretted that the KRG is not willing to do so despite the fact that its minority Kurmanji-speakers are part of a much larger population that exists beyond its loose borders with Turkish and Iranian Kurdistan. With Kurmanji rising from the ashes of linguicide in Turkey and possibly in Syria, population movements, social media, Internet, and satellite TVs, the small enclave of Kurmanji in Iraqi Kurdistan should not be victimised as minority.
On the Danger of Purism
At the end of his talk, Hassanpour advised the students of Kurdish Studies at the University of Exeter to be critical in their thinking and research even if the results of their research do not appeal to the Kurdish nationalists or the KRG. He stressed that it is vital to look at the problems of Kurdish language critically and free of nationalist prejudices. As an example, he referred to the extremely purist policies followed by Kurdish nationalists in writing bilingual dictionaries. They refrain from borrowing words from non-Kurdish languages and this has resulted in what Hassanpour called the ?de-intellectualisation? of the Kurdish language. In practice, this de-intellectualisation means that there is still no equivalent for the word Abstract in the Kurdish language. Hassanpour emphasized that a language that does not borrow from other languages is doomed to die and if the Kurdish intellectuals continue to misdiagnose the problem of Kurdish language (which is the lack of a great literary tradition) by trying to purify it of all non-Kurdish influences, the problem of Kurdish language and its inability to produce college-level scientific text books will only be exacerbated.
Mahroo Rashidirostami is a graduate of English literature (MA) from the university of Tehran and Kurdish Studies (MA) from the University of Exeter. She is currently doing a PhD on Kurdish theatre at the Centre for Kurdish Studies, University of Exeter.
Source: http://www.thinkir.co.uk/sorani-dialiect-with-army-and-parliament/
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