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The Kurdish Language Platform demanded that Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gives Kurdish an official status, reports the Mesopotamia News Agency.
The platform had previously applied to the Turkish Language Association (TDK) for a Kurdish dictionary and Kurdish language representative as well.
The Kurdish Language Platform has sent a letter to Erdoğan after his talk on the preservation of the Turkish language at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism 2019-2020 Special Awards Ceremony which was held at the Presidential Palace on January 22.
In the letter the platform urged the President as follows:
“Dear Mr Erdoğan
We wholeheartedly agree with you about what you say regarding the importance of language. Since our subject is language, we demand from you the following regarding the Kurdish language:
While Turkish has been facing the problems you stated in your speech, Kurdish as a language that has been under assimilation attempts for 100 years, is now at a critical threshold of extinction. As you often state, assimilation is a crime against humanity. Let’s take a stand against whoever commits this crime. Let’s fight assimilation.
The Kurdish language is gradually disappearing from being a language of communication and it is not happening only in the big cities such as Istanbul, Ankara, and Çukurova, but also in cities where the Kurdish people make up the majority of the population and even in villages. Therefore, the future of the Kurdish nation, with its every individual, family, society, and culture, is at great risk!
Dear Mr Erdoğan,
We demand that the pressures be lifted against the Kurdish language.
The Kurdish language represents Kurdish culture and Kurdish identity, we demand all those pressures come to an end.
Various reforms were made about this issue when you were the prime minister.
These reforms must continue and the Kurdish language should have an official status. We demand Kurdish to be used as the language of communication in places belonging to the state and the public, like in hospitals, banks, municipalities, government agencies, Turkish Airlines, etc. and we also demand Kurdish be the language of education from primary school to university.
We, as the Kurdish Language Platform, have repeatedly tried to reach out and make contact with you and also the administrators of the Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Unfortunately, we could not succeed. We also submit our request for a face to face meeting with you with this statement as well.”
