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<h5>Kurdistan</h5>
<h1>Still in Turkish prison, Demirtas supports Kurdish language preservation</h1>
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<img src="http://kurdistan24.blob.core.windows.net/filemanager/resources/files/2018/10/logok24.jpg" style="vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);" class="gmail-authorPhoto gmail-img-circle" alt="Rawa Barwari" width="25">
<a class="gmail-reader-auther" href="http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/reporterprofile/b2ab42af-f1bc-40e4-80fe-cee6b368198a"> Rawa Barwari</a>
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<span id="gmail-registerdate">November 02-2018 <span class="gmail-glyphicon gmail-glyphicon-time"></span> 11:34 PM</span>
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<img class="gmail-img-responsive" src="http://kurdistan24.blob.core.windows.net/filemanager/resources/files/2018/11/SelahattinDem.jpg" alt="Still in Turkish prison, Demirtas supports Kurdish language preservation" width="100%">
<div class="gmail-caption">Jailed Kurdish leader Selahattin
Demirtas seen with his wife Basak during a visit in this picture taken
in the Turkish jail of Edirne, Nov 1, 2018. (Photo: Basak Demirtas)</div>
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<a href="http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/tagreader/tag/KurdishLanguage"><span>KurdishLanguage</span></a>
<a href="http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/tagreader/tag/Linguicide"><span>Linguicide</span></a>
<a href="http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/tagreader/tag/UNESCO"><span>UNESCO</span></a>
<a href="http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/tagreader/tag/Zazaki"><span>Zazaki</span></a>
<a href="http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/tagreader/tag/Kurmanji"><span>Kurmanji</span></a>
<a href="http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/tagreader/tag/Sorani"><span>Sorani</span></a>
<a href="http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/tagreader/tag/Demirtas"><span>Demirtas</span></a>
<a href="http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/tagreader/tag/TurkeyCrackdown"><span>TurkeyCrackdown</span></a>
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<p>ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - Selahattin Demirtas, the jailed former leader
of Turkey's Kurdish opposition voiced support for efforts to preserve
the Kurdish language in a letter Friday from the prison in which Turkish
authorities have held him for the past two years.</p>
<p>"I am very pleased with Kurdish parties' decision about our mother
language. I wholeheartedly back every attempt for the Kurdish language
to be used without hindrance and freely in every aspect of life
including education, business, society, and politics," Demirtas wrote in
Kurdish in the letter his lawyers delivered to the outside world.</p>
<p>Despite Kurdish being the mother tongue of over a fourth of Turkey's
population, by some estimates, the Ankara government still forcefully
retains a policy of linguistic Turkification that has at times amounted
to what could be called linguicide.</p> </div>
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<div class="gmail-caption">The handwritten Kurdish letter by the Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas imprisoned by Turkey. (Source: HDP)</div>
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<p>Demirtas, the former Co-chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP)
and a previous presidential candidate was detained and promptly put in
prison in November 2016 along with nine other lawmakers in a crackdown
that purged President Tayyip Erdogan's political rivals shortly after a
failed military coup attempt.</p>
<p>Earlier this week, representatives from nine Kurdish parties and
factions gathered at a workshop in the city of Diyarbakir where they put
out a joint statement urging people to prioritize Kurdish in their
daily life and demanding that Turkey enshrine Kurdish as the second
official national language.</p>
<p>Although often regarded as the heart of Kurdish liberation movement,
Diyarbakir is one of a score of Kurdish cities where Turkish has
effectively replaced Kurdish as the conventional means of everyday
communication.</p>
<p>"We extend our people's cry against the assimilation policy [by
Turkey] to the United Nations, UNESCO, European Union, and the European
Commission," the statement read. "We demand their help in preserving our
mother language."</p> </div>
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<div class="gmail-caption">A Kurdish party
representative reads a statement at a workshop aimed at preservating the
Kurdish language, Diyarbakir, Oct 29, 2018. (Photo: Kurdistan 24)</div>
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<p>According to a 2016 UNESCO report, among other minority languages in
Turkey, the Kurdish dialects of Zazaki and Sorani (found in central
Anatolia around the Turkish capital of Ankara) are especially vulnerable
to extinction due to linguistic suppression that began in the immediate
aftermath of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's proclamation of Turkey as an
ethno-centric republic.</p>
<p>Demirtas himself spoke little Kurdish until recently, though he has
made progress in teaching himself both his native Zazaki and the more
prevalent Kurmanji during his stay in the supermax prison in Turkey's
northwesternmost Edirne Province.</p>
<p>Editing by John J. Catherine</p> </div>
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<br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div></div>