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Is Kurdish Endangered in Turkey? A Comparison between the Politics of

Linguicide in Ireland and Turkey

Article in Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism · October 2014

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Dylan O’Driscoll: Is Kurdish Endangered in Turkey?

Is Kurdish Endangered in
Turkey? A Comparison between
the Politics of Linguicide in
Ireland and Turkey

Dylan O’Driscoll*

Abstract
This article examines the historical process of the demise of Gaelic in Ireland due
to the policies developed by England, and compares this to the process Kurdish is
currently undergoing in Turkey. This comparison accentuates the threat that
Kurdish is facing and demonstrates that the language is in danger of being
eradicated. Through highlighting the similarities in the policies used by both
England and Turkey to eradicate ethnic threats through assimilation, and the speed
in which this process is happening in Turkey, this article determines that Kurdish
has reached an important stage and that the actions over the next few decades will
decide its future.

1. Introduction
In 1992 Tevfic Esenç died and with him so did the Ubykh language; as the last
living native speaker he had not managed to pass it on to his three sons. How did
a language just die like this? Esenç lived in Turkey, where minority languages are
suppressed and Turkish is installed as the language of education. Thus, his three
sons had no use for the Ubykh language – they spoke Turkish.
Kurdish1 is another minority language in Turkey and although it has many more
speakers, due to language policies in Turkey it too could be endangered (Nettle and
Romaine 2002). The Kemalist ideologies of modern Turkey are based on installing
a strong Turkish identity; by extension, having other identities present goes against
this policy, and language is seen as a key factor in this struggle for uniformity.
Therefore, those who are not Turkish need to be assimilated and their other identity
needs to be eradicated (Taspinar 2005). As Johann Fichte stated, ‘wherever a
separate language is found, there a separate nation exists’ (Fichte in Crowley

* Dylan O’Driscoll recently received a Ph.D. from the University of Exeter, where his
thesis developed a liberal consociational settlement for Kirkuk, Iraq. His research interests
include ethnic conflict, the Middle East, Kurds, and power sharing. He is also Co-Chair for
the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism.

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 Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism: Vol. 14, No. 2, 2014

1994:48). Turkish nationalism has similar policies to Fichte’s Volkism, although

with different aims of achievement, thus the other languages need to be eliminated
(Abizadeh 2005). This article examines the processes of linguicide2 (linguistic
genocide – the process of forcibly changing a group’s mother tongue for another)
that Kurdish faces in contemporary Turkey through a comparison with the case of
Gaelic in Ireland.
Language loss and assimilation is not an isolated issue: there are thousands of
languages around the world that are endangered. According to Ethnologue, there
are 6,909 living languages and they estimate that roughly half will become extinct
over the next century (Lewis 2009).3 Although Kurdish is not on their list of highly
endangered languages, it can take just a few generations of it not being passed on
to the youth for this to happen (ibid.).4 Kurdish scores badly in Ethnologue’s list of
factors that threaten a language’s existence – thus making extinction a real threat
with the policies that are practised in contemporary Turkey (ibid.). Although this
article focuses on Kurdish in Turkey, Kurdish is also endangered in other Kurdish
regions – with the exception of Iraq (Hassanpour 2006).
In order to examine whether Kurdish is at risk its current situation must be
assessed alongside another language that has faced similar trials – in this case
Gaelic.5 Both Gaelic and Kurdish have faced the policy of linguicide by England
and Turkey respectively. However, the Irish are now in control of their own
language policies and there are attempts to revert the damage done by centuries of
linguicide and to revive the language – although many believe it is too late. Many
of the Celtic languages have disappeared and have been replaced by the ‘high’
language of their region; Gaelic in Ireland is in danger of this too. By analysing the
causes of the demise of Gaelic in Ireland alongside those of Kurdish in Turkey, one
can begin to determine if it is following the same path towards extinction. Ireland
managed to achieve autonomy followed by independence, which was instrumental
in the slight revival of the language. Without a similar opportunity, is Kurdish
destined for extinction? These questions need to be studied further in order to
analyse how endangered Kurdish is and whether it too could join Ubykh in the
graveyard of languages.
Language plays an important role in ethnic identity and is at the core of the
culture that forms the ethnic group, with the language being ‘symbolic of the
culture’ (Fishman et al. 1985). Therefore, the demise of an ethnic group’s language
is of the utmost importance in ethnicity studies, as ‘language shift, or the loss of a
culture’s intimately associated language, is indicative of foregoing culture change,
at the very least, and possibly, of cultural dislocation and destruction’ (ibid.:xi).
The attempt at language revival can also correlate with cultural nationalism, which
was what happened in the case of Ireland, as argued by John Hutchinson (1987).
The creation of the Gaelic League in 1893 – with its aim to restore the Gaelic
language and culture – was one of the key factors in the creation of cultural
nationalism in Ireland. It resulted in the construction of an Irish identity based on
a culture that was very different from that of the English and, as a result, was
hugely influential in the formation of the Irish as a distinct nation. Language was
used as a primary tool in this cultural nationalism, and according to Eoin
MacNeill, of the Gaelic League, ‘language was the life-line of the nation’

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Dylan O’Driscoll: Is Kurdish Endangered in Turkey?

(Hutchinson 1987:124). Thus, the revival of a diminishing language plays an

important role in ethnic/cultural revival, which in turn can have a role in the
development of the ethnic group’s nationalism and resistance to cultural and
political domination. At the same time, the suppression of another group’s lan-
guage can also form part of a nationalistic programme of creating a homogenous
state. This has been a major factor in Kemalism in Turkey, which forms the basis of
Turkish nationalism (Zeydanlıoğlu 2012). Thus, this article, through its study of
language survival, revival, and suppression, fits within the study of ethnicity and
nationalism by developing a greater understanding of the role these processes play
in the creation/maintenance of ethnicity and nationalism.
Kurdish studies is a relatively new area of study, and, as a result, there is a
limited analysis on the role language plays in Kurdish ethnicity and nationalism.
Although this is beginning to change, the articles that exist on this topic tend not to
concentrate on the danger/repercussions of the language’s demise, but rather focus
on the repression of the language. This article’s focus is on the danger of the
demise of Kurdish, which is important, as an awareness of this is necessary in order
to counteract the developments that threaten its existence. Furthermore, this article
demonstrates the necessary actions to reverse the demise of Kurdish in Turkey.
Both the highlighting of the dangers and the demonstration of the necessary
actions are done through comparing the Kurdish case to that of Gaelic in Ireland.
This is the first comparative case study on the Kurdish language, and it thus brings
the Kurdish case into the wider literature and allows for a thorough understanding
of the perils this language faces.
The methodology used for this article is based on that of process tracing,
where the process is traced through the compiling of a database, which is then
used in order to create hypotheses. In this study, the compiling of a database of
the course each language took was accomplished through historical sources and
the media output. In process tracing, interviews are used to seek out inaccuracies
and further test the hypothesis; in this study, interviews were used in order to
understand the human element of the process and to highlight further points
made (Tansey 2007). Interviews were conducted with diaspora Kurds in the
United Kingdom, the Kurdish region in Iraq, and with Kurds living in Diyarbakir,
the largest city in the Kurdish region of Turkey. Interviews were conducted in a
relaxed manner, often in groups, and participants were ensured that their names
would not be used in order to prevent repercussions in Turkey and to allow the
participants to be as open as possible. Semi-structured interviews were used in
order ‘to get at the contextual nuance of response and to probe beneath the
surface of a response to the reasoning and premises that underlie it’ (Aberbach
and Rockman 2002:674).
The next section of this article outlines the theoretical considerations relevant to
this study. Section three examines the processes and policies leading to the
installation of English and Turkish as the high languages in Ireland and Turkey,
respectively. In order to understand the threats that Kurdish faces, section four
analyses the factors that led to the vast decline of Gaelic and the attempted revival
thereof. Section five examines the contemporary situation of Kurdish in Turkey in
order to analyse whether it is on the same path as Gaelic. Finally, section six

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 Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism: Vol. 14, No. 2, 2014

analyses the lessons from Ireland and the wider theory of reversing language
trends in order to prevent Kurdish from following the same fate as Gaelic.

2. Theoretical Considerations
Before examining the early policies that influenced the way Gaelic and Kurdish
were controlled and suppressed, there are two theoretical distinctions that need to
be made apparent. Firstly, the linguicide that Kurdish faced, and is still facing, has
happened entirely in the era of modernism. When discussing the process of
linguistic genocide, Desmond Fernandes states that the ‘influence of modernity in
shaping and legitimizing the genocidal process in Turkey has been substantive’
(Fernandes 2012:92–93). This can be seen as a factor, along with others that are
mentioned later, in the acceleration of the process of linguicide in comparison to
that of Gaelic. Modernism can be seen as an ideology with development and
progress at its core. Therefore, if one was to simplify within the context of this
article, what is seen as modern is positive, and what is seen as anti-modern is
negative. A result of this progress and development has been a vast acceleration in
the implementation of processes that produce a modern image and an attempt to
cleanse society of that which is deemed to be anti-modern (Conversi 2011;
Fernandes 2012). This need to cleanse society of its anti-modern elements, which
Kurdish was seen as, paired with an increased capability to implement this
ideology (through technological advancements in communication and transporta-
tion), is a key factor in the accelerated demise of Kurdish in comparison to Gaelic.6
This process was helped by an increasingly centralised and controlling state and
the ideology of Turkish nationalism, which was intertwined with that of modern-
ism. The ideology of nationalism led to the drive to unite and nationalise the
masses under a dominant linguistic identity, and the industrialisation of the
printing press in the nineteenth century was an important tool in facilitating this
process. The emergence of patriotism was also used by means of mass engage-
ments to enforce the nationalistic ideology (Canefe 2002; Fernandes 2012). Con-
sequently, modernity had a profound affect on the enforcement of ideologies and
as the attempted linguicide of Kurdish was part of the Turkish nationalist ideology
and happened entirely in the modernist era, the process was far more accelerated
than that of Gaelic, which began before modernity. This is not to say that nation-
alism and language homogenisation did not exist prior to modernism – the case of
Gaelic clearly demonstrates the opposite – but rather that through modernism this
process has happened at an accelerated pace. There are also other logistical factors
that made the linguicide of Gaelic a slower process, which shall be addressed later
in their historic order, however, many of these factors correlate with the fact that
the linguicide of Gaelic took place in the pre-modernist era.
The second theoretic distinction that needs to be made is the use of the terms
‘dialect’ and ‘language’ when referring to Kurdish – this follows the current debate
as to whether the various forms used are dialects of Kurdish or different languages.
Although linguists argue the differences between a language and a dialect,
there is no agreed definition for determining between the two (Haugen 1966;
Sheyholislami 2011; Sheyholislami et al. 2012). The famous linguistic quote

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Dylan O’Driscoll: Is Kurdish Endangered in Turkey?

claiming that ‘a language is a dialect with an army and a navy’ demonstrates that
often the classification has very little to do with the linguistic differences and much
more to do with politics.7 Furthermore, the terms are also not used consistently,
and, when they are used, they often fail to stand up to scrutiny. Therefore,
determining the usage of the terms ‘language’ and ‘dialect’ needs to go beyond
linguistic evidence, and when social, political, and cultural factors are taken into
consideration, it becomes evident that groups like Kurmanji, Zazaki, Sorani, etc.,
are all Kurdish and thus speak the Kurdish language. On this basis, this article will
use the term ‘language’ when referring to Kurdish and will consider the various
forms as dialects of Kurdish, whilst acknowledging that organisations such as
Ethnologue would classify them as different languages (Milroy and Milroy 1997).
Consequently, when this article refers to the policy of linguicide that Kurdish is
facing in Turkey, it is referring to both the Kurmanji and Zazaki dialects.

3. Gaining the Linguistic Upper Hand

Soon after the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland in 1169, there was an attempt to
install Gaelic as the ‘low’ language. The first documentation of this is in the 1270s,
when the Anglo citizens of Cork protested to Edward I that no Gaelic-speakers
should be appointed to positions within the administration or ecclesiastical hier-
archy because they were not loyal to the throne. This was paired with the denigra-
tion of their language and culture, with the Irish continually being referred to as
barbaric, backwards, and bloodthirsty. Nevertheless, many of the English settlers
began to ‘go native’, which was counteracted by the establishment of the Statute of
Kilkenny (1366).8 According to this law, every Englishman was to use the English
language, have an English name, and practise English customs; if the Gaelic
language was used, even by the Irish living amongst the English, their lands were
to be seized. In 1465 this was extended, in that all Irishmen living within the Pale
would have to adopt the English manner, take an English surname, and swear
allegiance to the throne (Crowley 2005).9 The denigration of the Gaelic language
and culture was conducted as an attempt to install it as the ‘low’ language. This is
despite the fact that at the time Gaelic had a strong and established literary
standing in Europe and the Bardic10 class was rich with cultural roots (Nettle and
Romaine 2002).11
In comparison to the colonisers of Ireland, the Ottoman Empire’s rule over the
Kurds did not involve settlers and a continuous military presence, but rather an
acceptance of tribal leaders in exchange for taxes and troops in times of war. Thus
there was not the same need to oppress the Kurdish dialects and install Kurdish as
the ‘low’ language, but rather, what they required was an installation of an
administrative language.12 Thus, the Ottomans were far more tolerant of different
religions and languages than the English colonisers (McDowall 2007).13 However,
in the late nineteenth century ethnic identity emerged from the various factions as
they began to seek their independence. As a result, a Turkic identity surfaced to
counter these nationalisms. An attempt to look at the importance of Turks in
history was made, as well as at how rich and prominent their language was, and
Ziya Gökalp wanted to reinstate the lost Turkish culture.14 The period towards the

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end of the Ottoman Empire aimed at developing ‘Turkish’ language and cultural
pride and was a key factor in the later ideologies of Kemalism. At this time a
simplified version of Ottoman-Turkish took preference and there was an attempt to
make this the language of communication throughout the empire as well as the
language of literature and commerce, thus making it the ‘high’ language (Heper
2007).
In Ireland, there was an attempt to accelerate the linguicide of Gaelic when
Henry VIII came to power. Henry VIII added new legislation to operate alongside
the Statute of Kilkenny – the Act for English Order, Habit and Language (1537).
This act’s aim was to install English culture, because the Gaelic language was seen
to produce an identity opposed to the throne, as evident in the following segment:
‘the diversity that is betwixt them in tongue, language, order and habit, which by
the eye deceiveth the multitude, and persuadeth unto them, that they should be as
it were of sundry sorts, or rather of sundry countries’ (Crowley 2005:13).
As part of this law it was necessary for heads of families to bring up their
children in places where they could receive English education, and the clergy was
to preach in English and to open up schools in their parishes for teaching English
to children. This was carried further under Queen Elizabeth I in 1570 when she
ordered free English schools for every diocese in Ireland in order to acculturate the
Irish children (Crowley 2005).
This can be seen as the first step towards trying to assimilate Gaelics in the
whole of Ireland and to install English as the main language. It was a slow process,
due to England’s inability to concentrate solely on this issue and designate a large
number of troops to Ireland. Whereas in Turkey linguicide has been a far quicker
process, even though it didn’t start in earnest until the demise of the Ottoman
Empire and the creation of modern Turkey. There were various levels of tolerance
to native language learning and publication towards the end of the Ottoman
Empire, but learning ‘Turkish’ was present throughout. Following the overthrow of
Abdulhamid II by the Young Turks in 1909, all Kurdish schools, publications, and
organisations were banned. However, due to links being formed by the other ethnic
groups, there was a brief respite in this law. During the Turkish War of Independ-
ence, Turkish Officers prevented the emergence of Kurdish organisations and
closed those already in existence. With the establishment of the Turkish Republic,
the process of assimilation escalated; in 1924, once again, all Kurdish schools,
organisations and publications were banned. Like Henry VIII, Kemal Atatürk
identified language as a factor in creating the unification of a people and saw the
need to suppress the opposing language(s) and by extension identities (Nezan
1993).
Many scholars see the seventeenth century as the beginning of the demise of the
Gaelic language. This is due to the defeat of the Irish in the Battle of Kinsale
(1601), the subsequent Flight of the Earls (1607), and the intensification of the
Plantations. The defeat in Kinsale was a lost chance for Gaelic unity against the
English and ultimately led to the loss of the Nine Years War. As a result of this,
the Gaelic chieftains were forced to flee Ireland and were followed by many of the
Gaelic elite. This caused the foundations of Gaelic culture to falter and created an
Irish diaspora in Catholic Europe. The diasporic community continued the pursuit

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Dylan O’Driscoll: Is Kurdish Endangered in Turkey?

of Gaelic cultural and literary learning in Europe, but were no longer present to
pass these teachings on to the peasants and eventually lost prominence. The
confiscated lands of those who left were planted with Protestants, which furthered
the process of Anglicising the territory (Corkery 1968). This escalated with the
arrival of Cromwell, who was known for his immense hatred of Catholics. He had
the Gaelic-speaking Bishops of Clogher and Ross executed, and seized and planted
Catholic lands with loyal Protestants, the former landlords being forced into
Connacht – the most barren province of Ireland. Thus in the period following
Cromwell’s victory, the Gaelic peasantry found themselves responsible to a landed
gentry of different religion, language, and culture.15 The early to mid-seventeenth
century saw the destruction of the Gaelic social hierarchy, which led to the decline
of the old literary and Bardic traditions and the development of Modern Gaelic
(English 2007).
A comparable process happened in Turkey with the creation of the Turkish
Republic. Following the Kuchgiri Rebellion, the Ihsan Nuri and Riza mutiny, and
the Shaykh Said Revolt,16 drastic measures of suppression and assimilation of the
Kurds began. Government posts were filled by Turks or highly vetted loyal Kurds;
Kurdish place names were changed to Turkish, official referral to Kurdistan was
eradicated, and the Turkish language became the only language for official usage;
mass arrests, assassinations, and executions took place against those who were
deemed a threat or involved in the revolts; and following the Shaykh Said Revolt,
mass population displacement began and aghas, shaykhs, and their families were
deported. Like in Ireland, this took away the peasants’ link to the educated class
and thus helped with the process of Turkificaton. Despite this, rebellions still
continued, and in 1934, Law No. 2510 was introduced, which divided Turkey into
three zones of classification. Under this law, mass assimilation began with the aim
of eradicating the Kurdish identity and language.17 Although it was never imple-
mented at the intended scale, it did largely contribute to the Turkification of the
Kurdish population (McDowall 2007; Zeydanlıoğlu 2012).
With James II, there was a return to a Catholic monarch in England. He was seen
as a threat when he produced a Catholic heir, thus William III of Holland was
called upon to invade and cease the throne. Following the flight of James II, the
battle for the throne took place in Ireland, which led to a momentous victory for the
Williamite forces at the Battle of the Boyne (1690). Due to the assistance the Irish
gave James II and the French forces, harsh Penal Laws were introduced. Under the
Penal Laws, no Catholic person – i.e. Gaelic – was allowed to educate children and
Catholics were not allowed to receive education abroad. The eighteenth century
saw a growth in the English language and serious attempts to Anglicise the
population through the enforcement of education and religious services in English.
English had been successfully installed as the ‘high’ language and Gaelic as the
‘low’. The Irish needed to be bilingual in order to survive under the new socioeco-
nomic conditions (Joyce 1906).
Similar to the Catholic threat England faced, Turkey was confronted by Kurdish,
as well as other, separatist movements. Following the civil unrest of the 1970s, the
military staged a coup in 1980 with the intention of expunging the Turkish nation
of separatism. In 1982, all languages that were not the official language of a state

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recognised by Turkey, which included Kurdish, were banned. Although this law
was repealed in 1991, this was paired with strong anti-terrorist laws that vastly
broadened the meaning of the term ‘separatism’. As the threat of James II in
Ireland allowed for an intensification of the Anglicising of Ireland, the launch of
the Kurdish Workers Party’s (PKK) armed struggle in 1984 allowed for an
intensification of the policies of Turkification in the southeast of Turkey (Yildiz
2005). In 1987, the State of Emergency Law (OHAL) was invoked in the majority
of the Kurdish provinces; this allowed the state to appoint a regional governor who
was free from constitutional review (Muller and Linzey 2007).18
Comparable to Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’, and its strategy of ‘positional
superiority’ (Said 1985), the colonisers of Ireland saw themselves as superior to the
natives and continually reinforced their superiority in cultural and political
spheres. For the purpose of this article, this strategy will be referred to as
Celticism. Celticism began with the early Anglo/Norman invasion and continued
throughout the colonisation of Ireland. The Irish were deemed as barbaric and
uncivilised and therefore colonisation was needed in order to civilise them. They
were regularly compared to apes by such writers as Charles Kingsley and were
often depicted as apes in the caricatures found in the British periodicals in the mid
to late nineteenth century (Curtis 1997). The following extract from Punch maga-
zine in 1862 demonstrates the view of the Irish taken up by the popular press:
The Missing Link: A creature manifestly between the gorilla and the Negro
is to be met with in some of the lowest districts of London and Liverpool by
adventurous explorers. It comes from Ireland, whence it has contrived to
migrate; it belongs in fact to a tribe of Irish savages: the lowest species of
Irish Yahoo.19
(Cheng 1995:37)
There was also a popularity at the time for jokes that depicted the Irish as stupid,
which still resonates today (Pittock 1999). This Celticism is seen in the writings
and speeches throughout the colonist era. Seathrún Céitinn’s book Foras Feasa ar
Éirinn (A History of Ireland) attempts to display the falsity of the colonist history.
He compares the colonist writers to dung beetles as seen in this extract from the
aforementioned book:
For it is the fashion of the beetle, when it lifts its head in the summertime, to
go about fluttering, and not to stoop towards any delicate flower . . . it keeps
bustling about until it meets with dung . . . and proceeds to roll itself therein.
Thus it is with the set above-named; they have displayed no inclination to
treat of the virtues or good qualities of the nobles among the old foreigners
and the native Irish who then dwelt in Ireland.
(Céitinn 2002:5)
According to Céitinn, the colonisers portrayed the Irish as uncivilised, without
examining the details of their civilisation, thus falling into the bracket of Celticism.
This Celticism helped install English as the ‘high’ language and Gaelic as the
‘low’, with the result being that the Irish internalised this attitude to a certain extent
and had almost become embarrassed of their Gaelic roots.

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Dylan O’Driscoll: Is Kurdish Endangered in Turkey?

Similar to the Celticism practised by the colonisers of Ireland, Orientalism was

practised with the creation of the modern Turkey (Fernandes 2012; Zeydanlıoğlu
2012). As previously mentioned, a great deal of importance was placed on mod-
ernisation and Atatürk saw the Turks as part of the ‘civilised’Western world – to an
extent that he replaced the Arabic alphabet for the Latin alphabet in 1928 in order
to unite Turkey with Europe. Those who resisted assimilation and modernisation
were deemed uncivilised and viewed in an Orientalist manner, which thus made
forced assimilation a method of civilising, similar to the colonists in Ireland
(Heper 2007). According to Zeydanlıoğlu (2012:102), this Orientalism can be seen
as a ‘Turkish version of the “White Man’s Burden” that aimed to “civilise” and
culturally and linguistically colonise a purportedly “backward” and “Oriental”
society by internally eradicating the retrograde influence of Islam and primordial
identities’.
As with Gaelic and Celticism, this Orientalism has included a policy of deni-
gration towards the Kurdish dialects and culture. Kurdish is shown as unimportant
and as inferior to Turkish: it has been made the ‘low’ language and Turkish the
‘high’ (Haig 2004). At the same time, propaganda was used to portray Turkish as
the highest of all languages; for example, in the 1930s, the Turkish Language
Institution championed the Sun-Language Theory, which claimed that Turkish was
the source of all languages. The Turkish Language Institution also launched a
campaign called ‘Citizen, Speak Turkish!’ (Vatandaş, Türkçe Konuş!), where it was
broadcast that Turkish citizens should speak Turkish, thus separating Kurdish from
the national identity (Zeydanlıoğlu 2012). The Orientalist policies of belittling the
Kurdish identity have installed an embarrassment of this identity in some Kurds
and have accelerated the process of assimilation. Non-Turks were seen to be of a
lesser caste, as evident in this statement by Mahmut Esat Bozhurt, the Minister of
Justice, in 1930: ‘I believe that the Turk must be the only lord, the only master of
this country. Those who are not of pure Turkish stock can have only one right in this
country, the right to be servants and slaves’ (Nezan 1993:56).
The Kurds were seen as savage and backward, and lost in the mountains; these
‘mountain Turks’ had forgotten their own language and picked up a denigrated
version of Persian. Whereas the Turks were portrayed as a great and civilised
people, therefore the assimilation of Kurds was seen as the act of civilising
(Hassanpour 1992). In interviews conducted with diaspora Kurds who attended
school between 1970 and 1990, many recalled being asked by the other non-
Kurdish children at school if they could see their tails, thus demonstrating how far
the culture of portraying the Kurds as savages had spread.20

4. Gaelic on Life Support

If the eighteenth century is to be seen as the period of English growth, then the
nineteenth century must be seen as a period of the virtual extinction of the Gaelic
language in Ireland. Most of the key factors responsible had already been estab-
lished in the previous century: English as the ‘high’ language, education and
religious instruction in English, and a need to communicate in English for eco-
nomic survival. However, between 1800 and 1850 the bilingualism of Gaelic and

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English was largely forsaken for speaking just the English tongue. This was due to
a culmination of all the factors mentioned previously and the fact that Irish leaders
no longer saw Gaelic as the language suitable for the future of Ireland. Another key
factor in the considerable decrease of Gaelic in this period was the Irish Famine
(1845–1849), which resulted in the death of an estimated one million people and
emigration that exceeded this amount. Evidently the poorest, the majority of whom
were Gaelic speakers, were affected the most and this had a significant impact on
the decline of the language. Before the first census of 1851, the population and
numbers of Gaelic speakers were estimations; thus in 1841, Anderson estimated a
total population of just over eight million, with roughly half being able to speak
Gaelic. In the first official census, which came after the famine, the entire popu-
lation was 6,552,365, with 1,524,286 Gaelic speakers and 319,602 speaking only
Gaelic. This decline in the population and the number of Gaelic speakers con-
tinued, and in the 1901 census the total population was 4,458,775, with 641,142
Gaelic speakers and 20,953 who could only speak Gaelic. As is evident, Gaelic was
in such a decline that it was nearing extinction (Hindley 1990).
In 1893, the Gaelic League was founded in order to revive the Gaelic language
and culture. The Gaelic League played an important role in installing a national
identity, a pride of being Irish, and to some extent of de-Anglicising the popula-
tion. These efforts came too late to reinstall Gaelic as the language of Ireland, but
they did prevent the language from dying, increased the number of people with
knowledge of the language, and saved Gaelic literature (Clery 1919). The Gaelic
League’s greatest success, apart from their unintentional creation of nationalist
ideologies that were instrumental in later nationalist movements, was in installing
compulsory Gaelic lessons at school and compulsory matriculation in Gaelic for
Irish-born entrants into the national universities. This helped keep Gaelic alive but
could not install it into the everyday lives of the people; thus it did nothing to stop
the decline of Gaelic as the spoken language (Tierney 1963). Although Gaelic has
been introduced in all areas of Irish life, politically and economically it is just a
token gesture and without it being introduced entirely in these domains there can
be no hope for revival (Fishman 1991). The Gaelic League was important in
preventing the death of the language, however, it was too late to revive Gaelic as the
national language – using cultural methods – and its decline continued. This is seen
in the 2006 census were 41.9% of the population classify themselves as Gaelic
speakers, yet just 31% of these speak Gaelic daily (Central Statistics Office Ireland
2007). So despite Ireland no longer being a colony of England, English has become
the spoken language. By the time there was a valid attempt to reverse this, it was
too late and now Gaelic is very much a cultural aspect of Irish life rather than the
mother tongue, and the Gaeltacht is ever decreasing (Hindley 1990).21

5. Kurdish in Erdogan’s Turkey

Although Kurdish instruction was introduced in 2004, it was met with restrictions
that made it unfeasible for developing and maintaining the language; it was not
permitted in state institutions and those participating had to have already com-
pleted eight years of schooling in the Turkish system (Haig 2004; Sheyholislami

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et al. 2012). Having to begin their education in Turkish is a serious disadvantage

for Kurdish children, as demonstrated by the following statement by a Turkish
teacher: ‘The kids did not understand me and I did not understand them. . . . The
first year of education is wasted. There is no time set aside for the kids to learn
Turkish. They have to learn a new language and catch up with their peers elsewhere
in Turkey’ (International Crisis Group 2012:13).
One of the diaspora Kurds interviewed for this article recalled being sent home
from his first year of school for asking the teacher a question in Kurdish – he could
not speak Turkish. He then had to learn Turkish before he could return to school the
following year.22 Another of the interviewees talked about how he brought up his
youngest son speaking Turkish after watching his older children struggle at school.
This is evidence of how the policy of not allowing children to be schooled in
Kurdish is affecting the next generation of Kurdish speakers.
In 2010, a masters-level course in Kurdish language and culture was established
at Mardin Artuklu University; however, only twenty students were admitted to the
programme.23 There was also the addition of a bachelors programme in 2011,
which also admitted only twenty students a year – resulting in forty students in the
whole of Turkey receiving Kurdish education in non-private institutions at this
time (Galler 2011). Shortly after this, in 2011, Muş Alparslan University estab-
lished a four-year bachelor programme in Kurdish language and literature.
Although this course had a limit of eighty students, it was also offered as an
elective, taking the total number of students learning Kurdish at Alparslan up to
three hundred (Today’s Zaman 2011). When considering that there are an esti-
mated fourteen (CIA 2011) to twenty (Hawramy 2011) million Kurds in Turkey,
this action had no significant affect at all on the Kurdish education of the Kurdish
population of Turkey. Even if the lowest estimate is taken, if only four hundred of
these fourteen million Kurds had access to public Kurdish education, this equates
to only 0.00285% of the population. This can then be seen as an act with no real
significance to the Kurdish education of the Kurds, but rather a method used to
placate the European Union and the Kurdish organisations that had been calling for
Kurdish language education in Turkey.24
In June 2012, Erdogan announced that Kurdish could be taken as an elective
course in schools if enough students requested it (Al Jazeera 2012). In September
2012, Kurdish was offered for the first time; however, it was only offered to fifth
grade students and was called ‘Living Languages and Dialects’ rather than
Kurdish, demonstrating how Turkey still follows the policy of denying the exist-
ence of Kurdish in Turkey. The sign-up rate for these courses were exceptionally
low for a number of reasons: chiefly, that it was introduced very late without the
necessary preparation, that it was only offered to fifth grade students, and, most
importantly, that the Kurdish movement called for a boycott due to them seeing this
as a tactic to delay full Kurdish-language education. Thus, the introduction of
Kurdish as an elective has done very little to expose more people to education in
the language (International Crisis Group 2012). It has, however, led to more
universities being allowed to teach Kurdish in order to train future teachers, but this
too has faced many problems, such as the universities having the allocated number
of students slashed and students being denied the pedagogical formation training

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necessary to teach in schools (Edîs 2012; Tayanç and Karanfil 2012; Yöney 2012).
Additionally, the Kurdish language instruction in Istanbul – where a large number
of Kurds have migrated – is practically non-existent and limited to only a couple of
private institutes (Mortada 2013). Although it can be said that inroads have been
made, these moves are so minute that they will do little to change the demise of
Kurdish in Turkey, and it is a far less significant action than Turkey demands from
other countries regarding Turkish immigrants, as for instance in Germany. These
steps are, however, in the right direction, but the fear still remains that they are not
made with sincerity and are instead another tactic to prevent full Kurdish-language
instruction.
The PKK and the Kurdish political parties have previously not placed enough
prominence on the language issue (although recently this has changed) and could
learn much from what the Gaelic League achieved in language education, despite
its late start (Marcus 2007). Like in seventeenth-century Ireland, the Kurdish
diaspora is prominent in language development, particularly in Scandinavia.
However, as seen with the Irish diasporic community, without solid links to their
native country this could eventually perish (Skutnabb-Kangas and Bucak 1995).
In Turkey there is the added benefit of television broadcasting in the Kurdish
dialects; however, the national Kurdish station, TRT6, is virtually ignored due to
the fact that it is seen as a tool for state propaganda (Erdim 2009). Furthermore,
the popular Kurdish satellite stations are constantly under threat of closure
(Degen 2008). Indeed, in January 2012, ROJ TV closed following the decision by
a Danish court to fine them for links to the PKK (Briel 2012). In Ireland, the
Gaelic League managed to save the language from extinction, but did not manage
to revive the language. The problem is that only retrospect can tell whether the
Kurds have left it too late to revive Kurdish in Turkey, because one cannot foresee
what major events may happen to change the road to demise it is currently
following. However, by analysing the events in Ireland one can make an educated
prediction that now is a period of great importance for Kurdish in Turkey and the
events over the next few generations will decide its future, therefore being par-
allel to early nineteenth-century Ireland (Skutnabb-Kangas and Bucak 1995).
With negotiations having begun between Turkey and the PKK, it is currently an
important time for the future of Kurdish in Turkey (BBC News 2013). However,
the initial results of these negotiations are not positive, with Turkey not being as
accommodative as they originally highlighted they would be. Proposals have
been blocked for education in mother tongues and changing the constitution so
that it no longer claims that Turkish is the only language of Turkey (Küçük 2013).
As a result, negotiations have stalled, for now, with little significant progress
being made (Baydar 2013).

6. Reversing Language Trends

The importance of immediate action on the decline of Kurdish is reinforced when
analysing Joshua Fishman’s examination of the process of reversing the demise of
a language. Through contextualising Kurdish and Gaelic in his eight-stage Graded
Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS), which identifies the stage the revival

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of a language has reached, the risks to Kurdish become apparent. In Ireland, Gaelic
failed to reach stage six (apart from in the Gaeltacht), which is seen as imperative
if the language is to have hope of survival. Stage six refers to an intergenerational
family communicating in their own language and only using the other language for
formal or technical matters. In large portions of the Kurdish part of Turkey, stage
six is present, but this is at threat through increased migration and the fact that
some parents have stopped speaking Kurdish to their children in order for them to
improve in school (Fishman 1991).25 Additionally, the younger generation is
increasingly speaking more Turkish (Öpengin 2012). This is even present between
siblings where a significant age gap is involved; in an interview conducted by the
author with two brothers with a fifteen-year age gap, the younger brother was
unable to speak Kurdish, whilst the older brother predominantly spoke Kurdish.26
This phenomenon threatens the continuation of the intergenerational family com-
municating in Kurdish. If this trend continues, Kurdish in Turkey could reach stage
seven where those who speak it as a first language are past childbearing age and
therefore are unable to effectively influence the number of speakers with Kurdish
as a first language. Following Fishman’s GIDS, it is now important for Kurds who
are in stage six to make sure that the language is passed onto the next generation
and to try to widen the Kurdish-speaking circle in order to reinforce the language’s
presence (Fishman 1991). The widening of the Kurdish language-speaking circle
is a problem due to the migration of Kurds to urban centres, as many Kurds claim
that they find it difficult to understand Kurds from other regions.27 In a survey
conducted by Ergin Öpengin (2012) in the Kurdish region of Turkey, he found that
although Kurdish is spoken at home 70% of the time, this drops outside of the
home to 60% in the neighbourhood, 50% in the workplace, and 48% in the
marketplace, thus demonstrating that the further away from the home the less
likely Kurdish is to be spoken. In addition to the widening of the Kurdish-language
circle, it is important for Kurds to reach stage five – becoming literate in the
language, which is not an easy task when education is in Turkish. Stage five is
particularly important to the Kurds, due to the large numbers that are living in
Istanbul, as Kurdish publications could tie migrant Kurds and Kurds in the Kurdish
region together (Fishman 1991). However, currently the majority of literature read
is in Turkish, and according to Öpengin (2012:170), ‘[t]he predominance of
Turkish in literacy and reading is explicit, reinforcing the status of Kurdish as the
language of oral interactions’. Furthermore, there has been a ban on several letters
of the Kurdish alphabet that are not found in Turkish – X, W, and Q – with charges
brought against those who use these letters, which has caused further difficulties to
the creation of Kurdish literature in Turkey (Mortada 2013). In addition to this, the
Kurds of Turkey have had the Latin alphabet forced upon them as part of Turkey’s
modernisation project, and as a result they cannot benefit from the Kurdish
(particularly Kurmanji) publications in the neighbouring Kurdish region of Iraq.
However, the most important step for reversing the language shift involves the
current battle for the youth to be educated in Kurdish, which needs to be successful
in order for the Kurds to reach stage four and reverse the trend of the language’s
demise (Fishman 1991). According to the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP)
Deputy, Altan Tan, Kurdish speakers are decreasing at an alarming rate, and thus,

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without the introduction of schooling in Kurdish, Kurds will face complete

linguistic assimilation (Zalewski 2013).

7. Conclusion
The period at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a momentous time for
the Gaelic language and demonstrates how quickly a language can demise. This
article has argued that Kurdish has now reached this same crossroads. Turkish is
the language of education and the majority of Kurds in Turkey are illiterate in their
native language; Turkish is the ‘high’ language and is needed for official and
socioeconomic purposes; the restrictions on Kurdish strengthen the Turkish
language’s stronghold. These factors contributed to the development of a bilingual
population; however, due to Turkish being the language of education and official
use, it is unquestionably the more dominant. As seen in Ireland when the native
language reaches this critical stage, it can take just fifty years for the language to
fade into the background and, unless something is done, to disappear entirely. This
situation could be more critical in Turkey, as Kurdish appears to be diminishing at
a far quicker pace than Gaelic did in Ireland.
Thus, by analysing the events that have led to the current language status in
Ireland alongside those of Turkey, Kurdish in Turkey is endangered. In Ireland
language revival was attempted too late and the number of native speakers
continues to decline. To prevent the Kurds in Turkey from going the same route as
Ireland and fighting for language survival rather than revival, something needs to
be done now. They have reached the crossroads – they have received more
concessions than ever before and their actions now can define the future of the
language – where actions are needed before it is too late. The Gaelic League
tackled the social aspect, but if the Kurds of Turkey want to prevent the Kurdish
dialects from disappearing, they need to tackle the political and socioeconomic
aspects too. The PKK and the BDP need to prioritise these issues if they want to
save the Kurdish dialects. As seen by the Gaelic League, mass education can come
from a non-state institution and this too can have positive results for the nationalist
movement. However, without tackling the political and socioeconomic factors this
will only postpone the eventual demise. As demonstrated by Pierre Bourdieu, all
these factors need to be addressed in order to save an endangered language, ‘those
who seek to defend a threatened language . . . are obliged to wage a total struggle’
(Bourdieu 1991:57). Although the Kurds do not have recognition as an independ-
ent sovereign state, like Ireland, by prioritising these issues, they can stave off the
current demise and lay the groundwork for the future, similar to the Gaelic League
in Ireland. It can be said that they are at the cusp of something with the Kurdish
language; it is now up to them to make sure that this is the revival rather than the
abyss. Without pushing through with the gains that have already been made, the
future for Kurdish in Turkey will soon only be identified as the past.
This article has demonstrated the role that language suppression has played in
Turkish nationalism and how it was used in Kemalism to create a linguistically
homogeneous nation-state. It has also illustrated how important language revival
was in the case of Ireland in creating an ethnic cultural identity separate from their

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coloniser, which thus formed the cultural nationalism that was instrumental in the
creation of the Irish Free State. These cases have been used to demonstrate the role
that language revival can play in the cultural nationalism of the Kurds. Conse-
quently, in the wider context of the literature on ethnicity and nationalism, this
article has demonstrated the important role that language can play in both the
creation and maintenance of ethnicity and nationalism. By drawing analogies
between Gaelic and Kurdish, this article provides valuable insights into the
imaginable future of the latter. In illustrating the centrality of language to the
nationalistic project and the importance of linguistic identity for a sense of a
distinct ethnic self-awareness, this article adds value to the existing scholarship on
the Kurdish question in contemporary Turkey. However, the contributions that this
article makes are applicable to other contexts in which questions of dominant
nationalism and ethnicity result in subordination and demise of a language to the
point of linguicide; the result of such developments for ethnic groups that find
themselves in minorities are bound to be tragic and often irreparable.

Notes
1
Unless otherwise stated, from this point on, ‘Kurdish’ refers to Kurdish in Turkey.
2
The term linguicide was defined in the United Nations Genocide Convention as ‘prohib-
iting the use of the language of the group in daily intercourse or in schools, or the printing
and circulation of publications in the language of the group’ (Skutnabb-Kangas 2012).
3
Although this seems like a high number, as examined later the definition between
language and dialect is not one that linguists agree upon.
4
In order to be classified in this category there must be only a few remaining elderly
speakers.
5
In this article Gaelic refers to Irish Gaelic. Although there are different versions of Gaelic
(Manx, Scottish, etc.), in Ireland it is simply referred to as Gaelic, with Irish referring to
Hiberno-English.
6
Evidence of the belittling and denigration of Kurdish is given throughout this article.
7
This quote was popularised by the linguist Max Weinreich, although he was actually
quoting a member of the audience from a talk he once gave.
8
Although this statute refers to the English language, it was actually written in Norman-
French, thus demonstrating early attempts to install English as the main spoken language in
a multilingual monarch.
9
The Pale was the name given to the area of Ireland that was under direct control of the
English king.
10
The Bards were a hereditary caste of learned poets who were satirists, heralds, and
chroniclers of their tribes.
11
For a more detailed analysis of the culture and strength of the Gaelic language in Ireland,
as well as the policies adopted by the English, see Crowley (2005).
12
This can also be attributed to the different forms of empires: the English looked to
colonise a region and thus attempted to eradicate the opposing identity, whereas the
Ottomans sought taxes and troops and therefore granted relative autonomy to their subjects.
13
During the period of the Irish Free State, twenty-six counties – which later became the
Irish Republic – gained autonomy from Britain.
14
Ziya Gökalp contributed the intellectual framework for the Young Turks, and his ideo-
logies were an important foundation for Kemalism. He is considered as the father of Turkish
nationalism.

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15
Cromwell led a military conquest of Ireland backed by parliament, in which he subdued
the whole of Ireland. Although he was only in Ireland between 1649 and 1650, the war
carried on until 1652 under his remaining forces, whilst he dealt with the threat of Scotland.
This conquest was seen as revenge for the rebellions in 1641 by the natives against the
plantations.
16
Although this was predominantly a Zaza rebellion, the repercussions extended beyond
this.
17
These zones were: the Turkish majority areas, into which Kurds could be assimilated;
areas with a non-Turkish majority, which could be settled with Turks; and those areas to be
completely evacuated, the mountainous Kurdish region.
18
It is estimated that between three to four million villagers were forced from their homes
due to the OHAL policies of dealing with the conflict in the 1980s and 1990s.
19
In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Yahoos are savage ape-like creatures, with
similarities to humans, who are ruled by the more civilised Houyhnhnms.
20
These interviews and conversations about the conditions that Kurds face in Turkey were
conducted by the author in the United Kingdom between 2009 and 2011, and in Erbil, Iraq
and Diyarbakir, Turkey between 2012 and 2013.
21
The Gaeltacht are the regions of Ireland that have an Irish-speaking majority.
22
These interviews and conversations about the conditions that Kurds face in Turkey were
conducted by the author in the United Kingdom between 2009 and 2011 and in Erbil and
Diyarbakir between 2012 and 2013. Anonymity is kept to prevent repercussions in Turkey.
23
It is important to note that Artuklu University is known for its study of ancient languages
and that the institute where Kurdish is taught is called the Institute of Living Languages,
rather than the Kurdish Institute, thus not officially mentioning Kurdish (see Zeydanlıoğlu
2012).
24
The ironic aspect of this situation is that the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, has demanded that Germany offer Turkish language schools to the three million
immigrants of Turkish origin in Germany. Therefore, according to Erdogan, these immi-
grants have a right to schooling in their native language in a foreign country, but Kurds do
not have the right to education in their own language in their homeland (Hermann 2010).
Furthermore, he has accused Germany of trying to assimilate Turkish immigrants in
Germany, when Turkey’s whole existence could be said to be based on the assimilation of
minorities – particularly the Kurds (Goebel 2011).
25
In the conversations and interviews with Kurds in Diyarbakir, Erbil and the United
Kingdom, it was highlighted that it was becoming increasingly popular to communicate to
Kurdish children in Turkish in southeast Turkey.
26
Interview conducted by the author in Diyarbakir in February 2013.
27
In the conversations conducted with Kurds from Turkey living in Erbil – which included
Kurds from Şırnak and Diyarbakir whom where living together – the participants spoke
Kurdish to those from the same city and Turkish to those from another city, as they found it
difficult to communicate in Kurmanji together.

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