To my surprise, though dialects of a single language should be mutually intelligible, I am told by Iraqi Kurdish colleagues and students that they only understand around 50 percent of Kurmanji, the Kurdish dialect spoken by Turkish Kurds. I have also been informed of the existence of other Kurdish dialects that I have never heard of: Zazaki spoken in Central Anatolia around Tunceli (formerly known as Dersim) and Gorani and Lorani commonly spoken in Iran. Research conducted by the Institute of Kurdish Studies at St. Petersburg University in Russia mentions the presence of 8,000 to 10,000 Kurdish words whose distribution is 22 percent Persian, 21 percent Arabic, 12 percent Turkish and 33 percent Assyrian, Armenian, Greek, Russian and Georgian. A simple lexical comparison increases the likelihood that Kurdish is a member of the Iranian language, a branch of the Indo-European languages. To exemplify, the English word “star” has the following meaning in the listed languages: Turkish (yıldız), German (stern), French (astre), Persian (sitare), Greek (astron), Kurmanji Kurdish (ster) and Sorani Kurdish (astera). Similarly, the syntactic analysis of Kurdish indicates that it is obviously not related to Turkish, a member of the large Altaic language family. To illustrate, the following sentence in English “I went to Ankara yestday” would translate in Turkish as “Ben (I) dün (yesterday) Ankara’ya (to) gittim (went)” and in Sorani Kurdish “Min (I) duwene (yesterday) chom (went) bo (to) Ankara.” This example plainly shows that the syntactic word order of Kurdish is similar to English, in which the verb of the sentence comes in the middle between the subject and the direct object is different from Turkish where the verb comes at the end of the sentence. I would like to list other linguistic differences between Turkish and Kurdish that I have learnt; however, I think I should stop here before this commentary turns into a boring linguistic lesson and turns you off.While in Arbil one evening, I was invited to a restaurant which looked very similar to its Turkish counterparts in Adana both in setting, service and menu. As we were waiting for the tempting kebabs to be cooked and appeasing our hunger in the meantime with various tasty appetizers on the table, I noticed that a large LCD TV placed on the wall was broadcasting live from Turkey. As I remember, it was the day when a group of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists decided to surrender and continue their life in civilized society in support of the Kurdish initiative promoted by the ruling party in Turkey. Unlike the PKK sympathizers in Turkey who over-exaggerated and used the welcome celebration to provoke hatred among Turkish society, jeopardizing the act of goodwill and peace, I witnessed no sign of sympathy and support for either in the restaurant or in the city. On the contrary, all Kurdish people with whom I interacted in Arbil were very friendly and pleased when I said I had come from İstanbul. I was amazed when I saw many Kurds watching Turkish soap operas in some shops and restaurants, especially “Kurtlar Vadisi.”
Finally, I also learnt from other Turkish passengers during my flights, who mainly work for Western petroleum and infrastructure companies, that Turkish investment in northern Iraq will be limited to some bakery, textile and furniture shops if Turkey wastes time and energy on myths like “Kurds are mountain Turks,” “Kurdish is a Turkish dialect” and “all Kurds are PKK sympathizers” and continues practicing unbearable extra security checks on Iraqi passengers at İstanbul Atatürk Airport. From my trips to Arbil, I can comfortably comment that Iraqi Kurds feel historically, culturally, geographically, religiously and commercially connected to Turkey and look forward to mutual collaboration and cooperation on all kinds of issues. Therefore, before it is too late, Turkey should immediately accept her present role as the strong and charismatic neighbor in this region and act accordingly to provide peace and prosperity to all people.
*Dr. Yakup Çetin is an instructor at Fatih University.
