The letter by 53 writers and academics to President M. Barezani

[DRoshani]

Nezan cù zanid, Bizan cù zanid

No nation needs to have a standard language in order to exist as a
nation. This includes the Kurds. The Kurdish nation with all it
diversity in culture, history, environment, literature and dialects
has existed as long as the history has been recorded.

Kurdish nation includes those who call themselves Kurds whether or not
they can presently speak Kurdish language in one or more of its rich
dialects. Thanks to various coercive measures employed by the states
that presently administer Kurdish homeland, a large portion of the
Kurds can no longer speak the language. But, language being a one of
the most important defining factors in the life of any nation,
requires a preservation and foster of the Kurdish language and its
dialects.

In the meantime, those maintaining a anti- and pro nation-state
building sentiments are politicising the Kurdish language issue too
far and unjustifiably so. The aspiration of building a nation-state
needs to be addressed by a popular referendum, by a body of laws, by
the composition of a constitution and an enactment of the people's
will, not a never-ending political discourse and squabble. Whether the
reform of Kurdish language to better server its speakers helps the
disparate segments of Kurdish nation converge, is independent from the
logistics of physically constructing and legitimately establishing the
geographical boundaries for a country named Kurdistan.

Kurdish language needs having a defined mission and time to develop
it. This includes the establishment of certain standards in writing
the language and expressing it in its rich cluster of dialects. One
way to achieve this is by promoting all dialects of Kurdish but using
one single alphabet to write them all. A strong, workable, feasible
and popular one will naturally find its way to become a link for all
of them. This is the way it worked for Spanish, Italian and many other
sister languages of Kurdish, but they created an environment for it.
Many of the dual standard languages mentioned in the appealing letter
have one thing in common and that is their "Unified Alphabet System."

This is the first time in modern history that Kurds are running their
own affairs. KRG needs to take time, debate and establish a strong and
capable institute to workout all the practical aspects. One shall not
be afraid to reform and undo the past mistake found in the relatively
short time of experience in Kurdish writing systems. With a relatively
low literacy rates among Kurds in their national tongue and all the
modern world experiences available to us, we can only be the winners
by planing our future. I refer to Prince Jeladet Bedir Xan who
beautifully put this in word in 1932:

"As I have noted before, the Kurdish nation will converge via a
unified Kurdish language. The prerequisite of a unified Kurdish
language is a unified Kurdish alphabet. This means that the Kurdish
scholars and the literati need to develop a writing system that allows
all speakers hailing from every Kurdish dialect to use that writing
system."

We need responsible media to choose words wisely and make an effort to
not alienate other Kurdish dialects. The media at this stage of
Kurdistan's history plays a great role in public education. We shall
work towards a more flexible usage of language for a better common
understanding rather than isolated dialectal based.

I stand for a Multi-dialectal but Unified Alphabet language policy.