Cyprus-Forum.com

[demetriou_74]

o how we are so knowledgeable in this forum.

[Turkey (( *]

Hate to be facetious, but the title of this thread made it sound far more exciting than it turned out to be... I had visions of batman hunched over a schooldesk trying to learn Kurdish...



On the topic of the post itself, I can only see Kurdish language courses taking off if the Kurdish region is one day granted autonomy and is able to carry out the running of some of its business in Kurdish... then there would be a real need and demand for it. Nonetheless, 500 students in 16 months isn't small beer for one language learning institute. I suppose the only way the government could have supported it is by sending civil servants dealing with administration in Kurdish regions to learn the language.

This is like asking the British civil servants to learn French who will be dealing with the French minority in the UK! The official language in Turkey is Turkish, why should we make another language official for a minority!! It is not forbidden to speak other languages than Turkish in Turkey, so they can speak what language they want but when it comes to administrative stuff you have to speak in Turkish.

[demetriou_74]

This is like asking the British civil servants to learn French who will be dealing with the French minority in the UK! The official language in Turkey is Turkish, why should we make another language official for a minority!! It is not forbidden to speak other languages than Turkish in Turkey, so they can speak what language they want but when it comes to administrative stuff you have to speak in Turkish.

so you are saying that the greeks should not learn turkish becasue the turks are a minority. when this suggestion was made you nearly had a fit.

[cannedmoose]

This is like asking the British civil servants to learn French who will be dealing with the French minority in the UK! The official language in Turkey is Turkish, why should we make another language official for a minority!! It is not forbidden to speak other languages than Turkish in Turkey, so they can speak what language they want but when it comes to administrative stuff you have to speak in Turkish.

That's a poor analogy and you know it Turkey ((*

Given that Kurds constitute approximately 20% of the Turkish population, I'm frankly amazed that their language has not been recognised as an official language. In the UK, Welsh speakers form only about 1% of the population, yet you can request official forms in Welsh anywhere, you can take a driving test in Welsh anywhere and when communicating with public officials in Wales itself, you can communicate with them in Welsh. I'm not saying that this is the situation in the whole country, but it's a good model for Turkey's future administration of the Kurdish regions.

Turkey's apparent problems in the area stem from the state's inability to reconcile Turkey as a nation-state with granting autonomy to any of its regions. One of the consequences of joining the EU will be the Turkish state having to loosen the reins somewhat. As part of the accession process, Turkey will be regionalised to facilitate different funding arrangements (e.g. the UK is split in EU administrative terms into 9 regions (I think it's 9). This has no impact on the running of the country as a whole, but does mean that the regions are able to operate on a European level through the committee on the regions.

[brother]

I have to agree with moosey on his analogy .

[Turkey (( *]

Ok, good enough, but what EU and UK does in Europe may not work out for Turkey. Because as you very well know the south-east border of Turkey is very unstable. Middle-East is much more complicated than the Europeans and Americans may think...There are many different ethnic groups and to give some liberties to them may divide the country!! And by the way Turkish is the language of 90% of the population of Turkey.So moose what do you think about this??

[cannedmoose]

Ok, good enough, but what EU and UK does in Europe may not work out for Turkey. Because as you very well know the south-east border of Turkey is very unstable. Middle-East is much more complicated than the Europeans and Americans may think...There are many different ethnic groups and to give some liberties to them may divide the country!! And by the way Turkish is the language of 90% of the population of Turkey.So moose what do you think about this??

Turkey, you're right that the south-eastern area is unstable, but ask yourself why this is the case. The Kurds have agitated for decades for some form of autonomy and self-government, yet Turkey, welded to its idea that anything beyond centralisation smacks of the break-up of the state has refused to grant this. In the UK, the establishment of Scottish and Welsh regional assemblies has, if anything, taken the wind out of the pro-independence argument, at least for now. I'm sure that if the Kurds were given the ability to have more of a say in their regional governance then it would similarly remove the imperative to support the extremists who want independence and nothing else. If you remove their support, you remove their sources of financing and logistical assistance.

As for Turkish being the language of 90% of people in Turkey, I fail to see your point on this. Until recently, Turkish was the only national language allowed to be taught in schools, therefore this would result in the overwhelming dominance of Turkish. It was the same in the UK when Welsh was effectively banned as a medium of expression. Now that Welsh is taught in schools in Wales, it is demonstrating a massive resurgence amongst the Welsh population, even amongst those in south Wales where the majority population is of english extraction.

We must all admit that Turkey in its current borders is an unnatural creation if you want to look at it in ethnic terms alone. If this was so, there would be a state called Kurdistan or whatever in the southeast which would also incorporate territory in northern Iraq, north-west Iran, and eastern Syria. Therefore, rather than centralising and, in doing so effectively submerging, regional identities, Turkey should strive to express its diversity within its current borders. The more you clamp down and refuse to allow this freedom of expression, the more it's likely to want to revolt against you.

[Turkey (( *]

We never refused the freedom of expression in Turkey. The Kurds can speak Kurdish in their life if they want to, but when it is administrative works the official language!! The Kurds can open language institutes but sadly there is no student for it!! Why should the Turkish government leave all its business and try to promote Kurdish language to support language institutes when it can support the advance of the Turkish language or support the economy!!That perfectly makes sense!!

[bg_turk]

In Bulgaria I can learn turkish in public school as a free elective if I want, and as far as I know the government pays for it. Of course it puts a lot of bureaucratic hurdles, but I think it is probably easier to learn turkish in BG, than kurdish in TR.

I think turkey should do the same to preserve the cultural heritage of the kurds who are turkish citizens after all.

[Chrisswirl]

If 20% of Turkey is Kurdish yet their language should not be recognised as an official language, then surely the same can be said for the 18% of Cypriots who are of Turkish decent? I'm not saying Turkish shouldn't be an official language of Cyprus, it should! But you can't have it both ways, you can't say that Kurds have any less rights than Turks.