Kurdish Lessons Now Allowed in Some Turkish Schools
November 28, 2012
Students at a school in Cameroon
From VOA Learning English, this is the Education Report in Special English.
Speaking Kurdish was a crime in Turkey until about twenty years ago. More recently the government has been easing some of its restrictions on the use of the language. Now, the government is letting some schools offer Kurdish language classes.
Halil Cecen teaches beginning Kurdish to medical students at Dicle University in Diyarbakir, in mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey. He spoke to reporter Dorian Jones about the change in policy.
"He says it's a beautiful feeling because the people had so many expectations, and the government responded. He says unfortunately it has taken many years – fifty or sixty – and it is only just being implemented."
A class like this would have been unthinkable even just a few years ago. Sabri Eyigun is the Kurdish deputy rector of the university.
"He says with the government's democratic initiative, many taboos have been broken. And life has begun to become normal. The Kurdish language was one of those taboos, he says."
Student Mazlum Ozer says he welcomes the classes. He speaks only a little Kurdish, he says, and he sees the classes as a big step but only the beginning. He thinks learning Kurdish should be required, especially in health education. He says it would be even more successful if Kurdish were taught starting at a young age.
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