Dear all,
This is my first contribution to the forum and I find it an honour to have a say on this very topic: Kurdish words versus foreign words on Kurdish places. May I first of all stress how important it is to realise the seriousness of the situation Kurds find themselves in: being defined by their enemy; the very enemy that wants them dead. By puting a name on you, they make you theirs. You belong to them. You are no more. You are finished.
The Kurds need to reclaim their (in this case) geographical names to live: their life depends on it. Why?
It is my sincere belief that language contains life itself. How?
Through words you define reality or/and make sense of it. So language is the link between you an reality. But every word comes from a place. That place is your heart and mind. There are feelings associated with them. So language is also the link between your innermost truths and the outer reality.
Words contain ways of seeing. I don't know if you experience that or have thought about it but for me there is a difference between when I speak Kurdish and when I speak English or Swedish (live in Sweden, by the way). I feel whole when speake in Kurdish. I feel a connection to history, ansectors, the beginning of time... There is a line from the past in present to the future, going through me thanks to the words.
Language is identity. Identity is what makes us human and not just shelves. Without an identity, both individual but also national, we are nothing but empty shelves with no sense of the self. It is the sense of the self that makes life interesting, meaningful. You are strong when you are aware of your true self. As Wim Wender, the German film-maker, has said: without a strong sense of the self, there is no meaning and therefore no beauty. (I paraphrase actually, but he ment something like that).
A Kurdish name of a street, town or mountain is authentic and therefore full of meaning. Why? Because Kurds have lived in Kurdistan in thousands of years and developed a relationship with the land. They've become a part of one another. In contrast, the occupying bastards (excuse my French) see the land as their property, as a prostitute, something to use and throw away. They have no respect for the land and can easily name it in amasingly stupid and meaningless ways. Whereas the Kurdish names of places come from people's lives, the enemy's names can have been determined over a cup of coffee, just like that.
The Kurd made love with the land,
Listened to it, spoke to it
And he heard the land wisper:
"Call me Kurdistan".
The same could be said about the Asyrians (and others). They too had a relationship with the land and deserve to have those names preserved. And it is in highest degree the Kurds' responsibility to help the Assrians (and other "authentic" people's of the region) maintain their values and culture because it is the Kurds that are developing as a political power, not the Assyrians. (Anyway, that's politics and I am looking forward to those discussions too).
What I am saying is this: every Kurdish word contain the life of the entire Kurdish nation, with all its past, present and future.
That's why the enemy, most notably the barbaric Turks, attacted our language. Why? because the language is what differed us from the Turks in the most stricking way. The Turkish state has in 85 years tried to assimilate us into Turkishness and our only weapon against it is our language. As long as we preserve our language we will be safe.
But there is something else. And that's the land. Language and the land is what will help us survive and ultimately win. The enemies of Kurds have always tried to mass-deportate Kurds away from Kurdistan. Why? Well, several reasons but ultimately in order to cut the link between the Kurd and his/her land. That done, the Kurd will just wither away... By naming the place in Kurdish, you reclaim it. You make it yours. You strengthen the ties. You make the land happy because she sure has missed you a lot. She will tell you about the ugliness of the enemies and ask you to never live her alone again.
I once saw a map of Ireland that was divided along tribal lines. Big families, clans etc. I remeber seeing a similar map on Kurdistan, defining the geographical territories of Kurdish tribes. I would appriciate anyone sharing with us all such information, maps etc. Don't think of it as something that would "divide" us but see it as us re-uniting ourselves by naming our belongings one by one: making an inventory-list, if you will.
Dirî's initial list and later Vladimir's extended list are good and useful. I am not an expert (on anything I've been talking about for that matter) but such truths should be widely spread on every opprotunity. That's how we would make the words alive and thus make ourselves alive.
Can I also suggest to everybody to go on a trip in their head. From your home in Kurdistan out to the street. What did you call that street? Not the official name but what did the people living there call it? For instans, our road was officially called Marmara Sokak. "Marmara" is where Istanbul is and I am thinking what the hell! What has the road outside my house to do with a place thousands of miles away?! People living there called that road "kuça mezela" (Graves' Road, as down that road there was a graveyard). Perhaps not very exotic (or is it?
) but it is ours, has come out of our lives. It is real, not plastic.
So, make that trip. Write it down. Perhaps do a simple drawing. Go further. Write down, I dunno, the yard you pass by, the streets, minarets, kanî's you see, the mountains, the valleys... Whatever that has a name... Write it down. Make that trip and engrave Kurdistan into your heart. You will simultaneously make Kurdistan come alive: in you and in itself.
(Do it and save your documents. I might ask for them one day for a wider project)
Greetings again and thanks for this opportunity to share with you my views and beliefs.
)
