The prospect of adding these letters to the Turkish alphabet has drawn mixed reactions, with some saying the move would enrich the Turkish alphabet and others opposing it, noting that this move is aimed at confusing the public's mind about the democratization initiative.While voicing his opposition to such a move, Vatan's Okay Gönensin interprets the emergence of news about the addition of the letters used in Kurdish to the Turkish alphabet as efforts to confuse minds about the government's democratization initiative. “An alphabet is like the constitution of a language it belongs to. The development process of a language may change, but it is impossible to completely mix one language with another. Just as Turkish has an alphabet, Kurdish has an alphabet, too. Every language is established on its own alphabet,” explains Gönensin. In his view, even talking about the addition of letters used in Kurdish to the Turkish alphabet, let alone realizing this, is something beyond ignorance. He says it is possible for languages belonging to the main language families to influence one another and share expressions; however, it is not possible for these languages to unite superficially.
According to Gönensin, these rumors are aimed at presenting the democratic initiative to the public as one that involves positive discrimination and grants Kurds extraordinary rights. These rumors, he says, are being spread to fuel fear among the public. He thinks the government's failure to reveal the content of the democratization initiative so far is to an extent a successful effort to confuse minds. “The democratization initiative has to be a reform project which will grant human rights to all Turkish citizens through legal means no matter what ethnicity or belief the citizen belongs to or what language he speaks. If it includes respect for freedom of expression as well as respect for ethnic diversity, and if all these are given legal protection, the initiative can be a real one for democracy. If the debate on it continues on this ground, the Turkish public my follow the debate more consciously and will not be influenced by rumors such as the alphabet change,” suggests Gönensin.
Radikal's Murat Yetkin is at odds with Gönensin and says he welcomes the addition of the letters to the Turkish alphabet because this will enrich the Turkish alphabet, noting that some sounds used by Turks but that do not have a corresponding letter in the alphabet will now have one. Approaching this issue free from the government's Kurdish initiative and the steps it would like to take to grant rights to Kurds, he says: “More than anything, I want the addition of these letters to the Turkish alphabet so that we can speak and write Turkish better,” Yetkin suggests.
Another Radikal daily columnist, Hakkı Devrim, is against the addition of these letters to the Turkish alphabet. “They want to say the number of letters in the 29-letter Turkish alphabet has increased to 32 with the addition of q, w and x. Such a thing is not possible. Occupying senior posts in Ankara does not grant politicians the right to make decisions on scientific issues,” says Devrim.
