ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Weeks-long campaign by Kurdish academics, politicians and language promotion institutions to encourage parents to register their children to Kurdish elective lessons in Turkey is thriving. A hashtag related to the campaign was on the top of the trending hashtags in the country on Sunday.
Turkey’s Kurds are allowed to study in their mother tongue at school for a few hours a week through elective courses which can only be opened when at least ten students register for. Lessons are provided in both dialects of Kurdish language: Kurmanji and Zazaki. The deadline for registration was January 21 but it was later extended to February 7.
Kurdish political parties, language promotion institutions and academics as well as social media users have recently campaigned for elective lessons in Kurdish in Turkey through media outlets, social media platforms and brochures. The hashtag #KurdîHilbijêre (select Kurdish) has been trending on Twitter for weeks. It became the most shared hashtag in Turkey on Sunday.
The campaign has been supported by officials and leaders of ruling and opposition political parties. Some Turkish politicians have even called on Turks to register for these lessons as well.
Pervin Buldan, co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), who had previously announced her support for the campaign, called on Kurds on Monday to register for the Kurdish elective lessons as deadline nears.
Selahattin Demirtas, former co-chair of HDP who has been jailed since 2016 for terror related charges, also expressed support for the campaign on Monday. “Select Kurdish,” he said in Kurmanji and Zazaki dialects of Kurdish language.
Kurdish language has been silenced in modern Turkey since its foundation in 1923, due to the oppressive assimilation policies of successive governments and Kurdish parties. A 2019 study shows that only a small size of Turkey’s Kurdish population can speak in their mother tongue.
