CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS
This article examines the status of Kurdish language in the context of Iran’s language policy from the formation of the “modernizing” Pahlavi monarchy in 1925 until 2010. After presenting a brief survey of Iran’s linguistic landscape, official policy towards minority languages such as Kurdish will be discussed. Providing a profile of Kurdish in Iran, the article will focus on the use and maintenance of the language in the community, education, and the media, both in Iran and beyond the country’s borders. The study finds, in both the monarchical and Islamic regimes, a policy of (a) treating multilingualism as a threat to the country’s territorial integrity and national unity, (b) restricting the use of non-Persian languages, and (3) promoting the supremacy of Persian as a venue for unifying the ethnically and linguistically heterogeneous body politic. While the continuity in the language policy of t he two regimes is prominent, differences will be noted especially in the changing geolinguistic context of the region where Kurdish has achieved the status of an official language in Iraq (since 2005) and has enjoyed more tolerance in the linguicidal Turkish state (since 1991). New communication technologies as well as cross-border social and linguistic networking among the Kurds throughout Kurdistan have changed the language environment but not the official policy of “one nation/one language.” Persianization of non-Persian peoples continues to be the building block of the Islamic regime’s language policy. Christian Sinclair, Exeter University OPENGIN Ergin, L’Université de Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle Kurdish language in Turkey, in spite of its large number of speakers (estimations revolve around 15-20 millions) and its historical contact with many of the languages of the Middle East, has rarely been the object of a sociolinguistic description. The aim of this paper is to provide a detailed description of sociopolitical aspects of the language situation in Kurdish region of Turkey and to present some conclusions on the daily language practices of the speakers. The typology of Edwards (1992) was used for the analysis of sociopolitical factors. He proposes eleven categories/factors such as demographic, sociologic, linguistic etc. Each factor is analyzed according to the “speaker”, “language” and “context”; thus, the model proposes a total of thirty three variables for a thorough analysis. He argues that an analysis of all these dimensions can provide the salient aspects and fortunes of a certain language situation. The data of language practices were collected by a questionnaire designed for this study and administered to a sample of 76 speakers in three contexts, namely urban, semi-urban and rural contexts. The age, gender and contexts were controlled; thus, they were taken as independent variables in the analysis together with the level of education. The questionnaire has its theoretical underpinnings in the concepts of diglossia and domain analysis of Fishman (1967, 1968) and subjective ethnolinguistic vitality of Bourhis et al. (1981). For Fishman (1967, 1968), the stability of a diglossic situation is the crucial condition of language maintenance. Nevertheless, when the stability is threatened as a result of changes in social compartmentalization of concerned languages, the dominated language experience a sort of regression that can potentially lead to its shift. Bourhis et al. (1981), a modal based on the Ethnolinguistic Vitality Theory of Giles et al. (1977), tries to understand the perceptions of the group members vis-à-vis salient variables of ethnolinguistique vitality.The analysis of factual dimensions was carried out against the background of the extant literature, first-hand sociological reports prepared by research centers and NGOs in Turkey on the region, journal and blog articles. The analysis showed that several sociopolitical dimensions were apt to reinforce the ethnolinguistic vitality of the speech community. For example, the geographical position of Kurdish minority, being largely the majority (demographically) in the region, the works on the corpus planning of Kurdish that have assured a partly-standardized written Kurdish, cultural and political ethnocentric activities that have assured a de facto recognition of the people and its language, etc. While, on the other hand, principally oral status of Kurdish all through the previous centuries, the strict measures against its public usage and its absolute exclusion from the educational system, the transformations introduced by the urbanization among Kurds, etc. are the factors that has led/lead to the relegation of the language vis-à-vis the dominant language and to the restriction of its usage to only several domains. The analysis on language practices, from which only a few results are presented here for the lack of space, indicated that Kurdish is no more the language of communication by default among its speakers; that the more the speaker is young, educated and out of the immediate social context the less Kurdish is used; that the dominant language Turkish has imposed a considerable presence in the domains and communication situations traditionally associated to usage of Kurdish. Finally, it is concluded that the situation of Kurdish in Turkey seems to be a case of “bilingualism without diglossia” in Fishmanian terms, thus, a continuing process of language shift Hashem Ahmadzadeh, senior lecturer in Kurdish Studies, Oriental
Studies, University of Exeter, United Kingdom Kurdish, not being a language of education, has been used by Kurdish novelists to produce their novels since 1935. 75 years after the publishing of the first Kurdish novel and the radical development of this literary genre, especially during the last two decades, one can ask how the Kurdish novel has managed its linguistic features and requirements, at a time that the Kurdish language has, except for a part of Kurdistan, not been used either in education or in administration. This paper aims to distinguish the dilemma of the Kurdish novel as far as its language is concerned, by taking into consideration that the Kurdish novelistic genre is developing in three Kurdish dialects parallel to each other. Furthermore, the paper aims to find out whether the used language in Kurdish novels has shown its capacity in creating the proper language of each character. By demonstrating a number of examples from different Kurdish novels, and the way that different characters articulate themselves, this paper argues that the stylistic features in Kurdish novels are far from being able to represent individualised characters with their own specified language. In fact, the characteristic features of the used Kurdish language in most of the Kurdish novels show that the characters in the novels are mainly “flat characters”, not “round characters”. The paper also aims to look for how the language is used in its dialogical manner and in the pre-speech level, i.e. when it is aimed to depict the thoughts of the characters before they articulate themselves verbally. Shayee H. A. Khanaka, University of California Berkeley Dominant groups have historically targeted minorities as the butt of their jokes. Through the use of negative stereotypes, minority groups have been marginalized and portrayed as unworthy and un-equal. Joke cycles, Birnbaum(1971) and Dundes (1987) both note, directly correlate to the perceived growth of the political or socio-economic power of the butt of the jokes. In Iraq, Kurds have been the prime targets of political and ethnic jokes since the 1960s. In these jokes, Kurds are stereotyped as stupid, inept, and unfit to share political power. Thus; Arabs tell ethnic jokes about Kurds, who are perceived as threats to the formers hegemony in Iraq. And Kurds from Slemani use the same jokes to demonstrate the ineptness of Kurds from Hewler, as the latter group’s ascension to power threatens Slemani’s presumed superior intellect. Ali Ashouri When we decide that something is unreal, the real does not
need to be very real. Yona Sabar, University of California, Los Angeles Already Biblical Aramaic was heavily influenced by Persian, especially in vocabulary. Modern Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialects are greatly influenced by Persian and Kurdish, not only with many loanwords (including reborrowing) in all semantic areas, but also by influencing the grammar, including phonology, morphology and syntax. These influences are observed in some registers more than others, e.g., the morphology of Jewish proper names (Sarah > čarōke, Raḥamim > Ḥamo), “baby” talk (tatte < daste “hands”). Almost every person knew Kurdish, the inter-communal and market language, in addition to the communal Jewish or Christian Neo-Aramaic dialect. Much of music and folklore in general was Kurdish. Hence its strong influence. Rashid Karadaghi, Ph.D. This paper discusses
the current writing systems in Kurdish -- the modified Arabic alphabet
and the Latin alphabet -- and the advisability and/or inevitability
of gradually abandoning one in favor of the other in order to have
a single, Latin-based Kurdish writing system. Alexandra Jaffe, California State University, Long Beach This presentation starts from the premise that language planning for lesser-used, minority, indigenous or politically marginalized languages does not just defend and promote existing languages and speakers but also, constitutes what will "count" as language X and who will count as a legitimate speaker of that language. This definitional work is particularly evident in all forms of standardization, including critical questions related to language-internal variation and the development of orthographies. Drawing on twenty years of ethnographic data collection on Corsican language planning and education, the presentation will explore the development and application of a "polynomic" ideology related to language and variation. This approach promotes a concept of "unity in diversity": the unity of Corsican is not linked to uniformity of speech or writing, but in the mutual recognition among speakers of the legitimacy of one another's varieties of the language. This is reflected in the orthography adopted by Corsicans, which does not prescribe a single spelling for each word, but identifies a set of shared conventions that are used to spell different dialectal variants of a word. This approach is one way to reconcile the desire for linguistic unity and the reality of dialectal diversity, but as an ideological move, it involves a shift in the way that both “language” and “speech community” are defined. The presentation focuses on both the potential and challenges associated with applying a polynomic approach to language and literacy in Corsican bilingual schools and in the society at large, and discusses the implications of a polynomic approach for other sociolinguistic contexts. Dilan Rostam Roshani, Kurdish Academy of Language KAL The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) an autonomous political entity administering the Iraqi Kurdistan, is celebrating its 20th anniversary as the first lasting Kurdish administrative establishment of the last 150 years. This region is home to an estimated 4-5 million Kurds who share a common identity and culture but who also speak a great variety of dialects of the Kurdish language. In view of this linguistic diversity, the KRG is facing many difficulties in language-planning and education. Despite the existence of many pioneer works and call by scholars for a practical unified writing system as a measure to meet the dialectal diversity in a well formulated language planing, the issue has become an unfortunate battle filed for Kurdish Face. Since early 1920s there has been an illusive search for the "superior dialect," and "preferred writing system" to represent the Kurdish Language in all its forms and dialects the region. Doubtlessly, Kurdish language needs to develop a standard form to offer a common ground to its divers speakers with their myriad local dialects. This paper provides a concise overview of various possible approaches to the language issue in Kurdistan while offering a new solution for creation of a standard Kurdish writing system to suite any electronic medium bridging the Kurdish dialectal varieties. Norman Leonard, Director of Outreach, Language Acquisition
Resource Center San Diego State University, President of the California
Language Teachers Association President of the Kurdish American
Friendship Coalition Heritage speakers of world languages are America’s greatest un-mined
resource. Preservation of one’s heritage language and culture makes
for better integrated families, better and more informed world citizens,
and a more employable workforce. Research shows that a child who
leaves his country of origin will almost certainly lose his linguistic
and cultural ties within years of arriving in a foreign country.
Within two generations almost nothing will be transmitted to their
children. This is particularly true where only small populations
reside in a geographical area and where no concerted efforts within
and beyond the family help the student to integrate his heritage
identity and his adopted identity. Heritage speakers can however
become excellent cultural ambassadors and can achieve a level of
linguistic proficiency and cultural affinity that few if any non-heritage
speakers can attain in a life-time of formal study. Heritage speakers
are valuable in diplomacy, in international security, in education
and in commerce. Heritage language instruction is necessarily different
from foreign language instruction.Therefore special professional
development for instructors must be tailored for them to become truly
effective at maintaining and advancing linguistic proficiency and
preserving heritage culture. One vital institution can contribute
much towards this lofty ambition – the founding of well-managed community-based
language schools. Common in Asian language communities especially
in the case of Chinese and Japanese, these schools provide needed
financial resources, high quality instructional materials and professional
instruction by highly trained teachers. Schools fail when these factors
are not fully addressed or when teachers who should pay attention
to instruction are asked to also manage the school’s operations.We
will share a model for the founding of community-based language schools
that have been successful in San Diego County for languages that
have never before had a sustainable program. We have worked with
community language groups to create or improve programs for the several
languages. Gulsat Aygen, Northern Illinois University In this study, I propose that linguistic and typological descriptions of Kurmanji Kurdish is a necessary component of both teaching Kurdish to English speakers and linguistic research in general. I discuss the significance of incorporating typological properties of this less studied language in second language teaching settings. Linguistic descriptions and comparisons allow for the students to understand the interdependency of some unfamiliar grammatical phenomena. One of the major problems observed in learning/teaching Kurmanji Kurdish is the unfamiliarity of certain linguistic phenomena, such as “split-ergativity”.I demonstrate the benefits of incorporating typological and other linguistic similarities and differences of English and Kurmanji Kurdish. I provide a linguistically structured model in which similar and different typological properties of English are listed, described and exemplified. To illustrate using typology to teach an unfamiliar grammatical phenomenon, I demonstrate an alternative way to teach unfamiliar grammatical phenomena typical of Kurmanji Kurdish, namely, “split-ergativity”, “object-verb agreement”, “gender” among others. A typical English speaker who has not studied an ergative language before would be unaware of the concept of “ergativity”, let alone split ergativity. An ergative language treats the object of a transitive verb and the subject of an intransitive verb similarly. This contrasts with English, a nominative-accusative language, where the subject of both the transitive and the intransitive verb are treated in a similar way, and assigned nominative case. Kurmanji Kurdish exhibits “split-ergativity” in that it has both “an ergative” and “a nominative-accusative” system. This grammatical system has implications on the subject-verb agreement, as well. I further argue that Kurdish has a lot to offer to theoretical linguistic research, and should be studied in depth by linguists. Such studies of linguistic properties of Kurmanji Kurdish would contribute immensely to our understanding of language in general. Michael L. Chyet, Library of Congress The talk is about my vision of a Kurdish educational system in which
Kurmanji and Sorani are both taught to all Kurdish schoolchildren.
The concept of mutual respect between the two dialects, as well as
other dialects and languages of Kurdistan, is part of Kurdish nation
building.. Laura Shepherd, Senior Linguist AECOM, Federal Services
Group, National Security Programs The usefulness of authentic materials in language description and
analysis cannot be underestimated. While at the earlier stages of
language learning it may be important to give students a tidier presentation
of the rules of grammar and one-to-one lexical equivalents, advancement
in comprehension and production skills, in which students are truly
prepared to interact in the real world, can only occur when they
encounter the messiness of language as it is used. In this vein,
the systematicity of language, despite itself being subject to internal
and external forces of change, is at the forefront. To this end,
newspaper articles, online blog posts, transcripts of video clips,
et cetera, are themselves tools for language learning and teaching.Rather
than delving into the theoretical foundations for the use of authentic
materials, this paper seeks to promote the idea through illustration,
using real text to explain several concepts of Kurmanji discourse
grammar. Real text samples from narrative, procedural, expository,
and behavioral genres show how the language functions to create text
cohesion, using such tools as: verbs of motion (rabûn, çûn, derketin),
the particle jî, adverbs (êdî, nema, qet, jixwe, naxwe, hingê, îcar,
hema), deixis orientation, focus and prominence-giving devices, and
participant reference. Traditional teaching approaches address the
lexemes and structures above in isolation and often leave the student
unable to understand their full communicative intent, much less able
to use them appropriately. This paper shows how presentation of aforementioned
elements of discourse grammar in the context of authentic text can
result in a more thorough explanation of their function, leading
to more accurate comprehension and production. Zuzan Barwari This paper explores both the theoretical and practical challenges
and constraints that educational linguists, curriculum, and assessment
developers face generally, and in the U.S particularly, in the construction,
design and development, and implementation of teaching, learning
materials and proficiency tests and models. The lack of authority
or a language academy, credibility and reliability of sources in
the Kurdish language limits the access of resources in United States.
Although there are some established organizations with misleading
brand names, there is no official Kurdish language academy to regulate
and enforce the formal and or proper writing system. Therefore, there
are irregularities in orthographic rules , complicated more by the
under-examined state of the language and lack of vigorous precision
in some of the studies that have been published. Consequently there
is a gap between what curriculum and assessment specialists want
to develop and what is observed in reality. In our attempt to resolve
the conflict between what is desirable, and what is practical, we
face other problems such as the lack of accurate and extensive studies
of the language and its internal system and lack of consensus among
those who have studied the language, thus giving rise to prescriptive
rules embedded in myths and distortions about the language.Turning
to education, because of restrictions and the subordination of the
language, the study of native and non-native speakers’ performance
on proficiency tests in the U.S shows a stark contradiction with
respect to their performance as non-native speakers consistently
earn higher scores than native speakers. Such disparity can only
be attributed to the exposure of non-native speakers to the formal
structure of the language and their metalinguistic awareness in contrast
to native speakers who have not been exposed to the language in formal
settings. In light of this pressing need, we need to encourage further
research on these areas as we should work on creating favorable contexts
for the language to be used and evolve in all contexts as we develop
research on language teaching and testing in authentic contexts. Dr. Robert Reigle, Centre for Advanced Studies in Music, Istanbul
Technical University How have music recordings in Turkey incorporated Kurdish languages,
and how do those recordings affect the continuation of traditional
music? In this paper, I present an overview of the history of recordings
produced for sale, of music performed in Kurmanji and Zazaki. From
an ethnomusicological perspective, there is a conspicuous absence
of such recordings throughout most of the 20th century. After discussing
and playing examples of the earliest recordings, I will focus on
the industry as it developed following the February 1991 repeal of
Law 2932, which had previously made illegal the use of most of the
thirty-four languages spoken in Turkey.The opportunities and venues
for performance of traditional genres have changed radically since
World War II, and the trajectory of those changes has a profound
impact on what, how, who, where, and why Kurdish language music gets
recorded. To what extent are texts and genres modified through market
forces? I will discuss the relationships amongst live performances
of dengbej in Istanbul, in southeast Turkey, and on commercial recordings.
I will also comment briefly on the use of video clips, on VCDs and
in the recently established state-run television station TRT-6. Furthermore,
representations of Kurdish music in documentary films such as Crossing
the Bridge may have a greater impact in diasporic communities than
in Turkey, providing carefully chosen images of performance practices
otherwise inaccessible to people living apart from their homeland. Dr.Hisyar Ozsoy, American Council of Learned Societies Post-doctoral
Fellow The political debates over Kurdish language in Turkey have gained a different character and momentum particularly after the start of Turkey’s accession to the European Union in 1999 and the winning of local government offices in the Kurdish region by the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HADEP) the same year. In 2001, the Turkish coalition government amended the 42nd article of the Constitution, which had previously banned any use of Kurdish in formal education. The still ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has translated this amendment into legal reforms since 2002, allowing limited exercise of Kurdish language rights; such as Kurdish education through private courses, the TV channel TRT-6, the opening of a university institute where Kurdish is also taught, and, at least formally, uplifting the ban on the use of Kurdish in prison visits. However, many Kurds criticize these as token moves to ease Turkey’s accession to the EU, pressing for more radical reforms towards formal mother tongue education and full use of Kurdish in municipal services and public and political life. Relying on my doctoral field research in Diyarbakir (Amed) between 2005 and 2008, I will reflect on these debates on Kurdish, tracing particularly the tragicomic aspects of the Turkish state repression of Kurdish language and the ways the Kurds respond to this through a politics of disobedience. One central focus of my discussion will be how the Kurdish use of the letters W, X and Q in writing --letters that do not exist in the Turkish alphabet and are legally prosecuted as “criminal letters”-- gained a quite rebellious character, scandalizing the Turkish state, which has hitherto relied on a monolithic conception of culture, language and identity as the foundational basis of the Turkish Republic. Hence I will trace these contentions over W, X, and Q as a critical lens into the current state of Kurdish language rights and the Kurds’ ongoing democratic struggle to use and promote their language in Turkey. Amir Sharifi, California State University, Long Beach The purpose of this paper is to offer a preliminary and exploratory study of Dengbeji folk genre of verbal art. As an oral tradition Denbeji, meaning sung narrative, literally voice teller ( deng, voice ) and (bejin, from the root of (gotin, to say) is the repository of cultural knowledge, imparted by a Dengbêj, a performer who compiles specimens of Dastans “tales” to be recited in public or on different social events. The Dastans or “narratives” chronicle events of the past both remote and recent, dealing with social, political, historical and personal accounts of Kurdish life. Using a discourse based approach, I will analyze the multidimensionality and multidisciplinary nature and significance of this verbal art based on a video recording of a performance and interview transcripts of a prominent Dengbeji, whom I recorded in Los Angeles .The Dengbej constitutes himself as an animator, musician, composer, performer, linguist, and historian of Kurdish life. The oral tradition of Dengbeji and its metalanguage is described to encode and recontextualize sociocultural meanings and relations across time and space in Kurdish Kurmanji communities where Dangbeji is used as a vehicle to preserve, revive and reclaim different aspects of Kurdish life .By observing the performance, one can see the symbolic importance of the verbal art in cultural and linguistic preservation and the ways in which this ancient cultural practice reconstitutes social imagery and action for Kurds in the mainland and diaspora.
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