The Kurdish language is at the heart of one of the world’s largest stateless nations and has long faced “linguicide”—deliberate efforts aimed at erasing it from cultural and public life.
There are between 36 and 46 million Kurds spread across multiple countries—Iran, Iraq, Türkiye, and Syria. The roots of this distribution trace back to the aftermath of World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Although the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres briefly raised hopes for an independent Kurdistan, these aspirations were crushed with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which redrew borders without acknowledging Kurdish sovereignty. This left Kurdish-inhabited lands divided among neighbouring states, planting the seeds of long-term political and linguistic fragmentation.
Kurdish inhabited areas. Credit: Central Intelligence Agency, USA.
Without a state to protect their rights, the Kurds have experienced generations of suppression and exclusion across national borders. As political theorist Hannah Arendt observed, stateless people suffer the “calamity of the rightless,” existing outside any community that might grant them legal and political protection. For the Kurds, this statelessness has meant decades without a sovereign advocate for their cultural and linguistic rights, further entrenching their marginalisation. Left unprotected, the Kurdish language has been vulnerable to both overt repression and subtler forms of exclusion, eroding its visibility and threatening the diversity of its dialects. Language remains the last anchor for a people separated by force, yet Kurdish faces a complex web of challenges that undermine this vital connection across borders.
How statelessness drives Kurdish linguicide across borders
Statelessness has enabled longstanding oppression, marginalisation, and even efforts to stifle the development of Kurdish or deny its existence entirely across multiple national contexts. While Iraqi Kurdistan has been an exception since 1992 with Kurdish experiencing some revitalisation due to the region’s semi-autonomous status, the language lacks uniform standards in spelling, grammar, and educational resources compared to those fully supported by state institutions. Meanwhile, governments in Türkiye, Syria, and Iran employ a range of suppression tactics—from overt bans on Kurdish education to cultural and political restrictions—that systematically diminish the presence of the Kurdish language.
Bakur, the Kurdish region in Türkiye, stands as one of the most prominent examples of linguistic oppression. Linguist Tove Skutnabb-Kangas describes Türkiye’s actions as “linguistic genocide”—an open and systematic effort to exterminate the Kurdish language, which she considers analogous to physical genocide. This suppression has deep historical roots, stemming from the founding years of the Turkish Republic, when leaders sought to enforce a singular national identity through the principle of “one language, one nation.” From the outset, policies of “Turkification” targeted Kurdish identity, restricting cultural expressions, including language, clothing, and traditions. In 1937, terms such as “Kurd,” “Kurdistan,” and “Kurdish” were officially banned, and following the 1980 military coup, speaking Kurdish was prohibited even in private life.
Until 1991, Türkiye legally categorised Kurds as “Mountain Turks,” denying their distinct ethnic identity and language. A significant instrument of suppression was the 1983 Act, ‘Law on Publications in Languages Other than Turkish,’ which banned the public use of any language other than Turkish. This law epitomised Türkiye’s linguicide approach, outlawing Kurdish in both public and private spheres. According to Sociologist İsmail Beşikçi, the Turkish state sought to erase Kurdish identity and language through legal decisions. He cites a 1990 statement by Attorney General Cemalettin Çelik, who declared, “In Türkiye, there is no other nation other than the Turkish nation, no other language other than the Turkish language. To say that there is a nation other than Turks and a language other than Turkish, and to support this language and culture, is a crime.”
The oppression of Kurdish continued into the 1990s, when it was frequently referred to as an “unknown language” in Turkish legal records. This categorisation symbolised the state’s refusal to acknowledge Kurdish as a legitimate language, often recording Kurdish words spoken in court as “unknown sounds“. This denial persisted until 2011, when Kurdish was finally acknowledged as a language in Turkish courts. While this represented a symbolic shift after decades of erasure, it fell far short of granting substantive linguistic rights.
In 2009, Türkiye launched a “”Kurdish Opening” to ease restrictions, introducing Kurdish as an elective in schools and legalising its use in election campaigns. This progress continued with the 2013 peace process, which saw negotiations between the government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). However, the collapse of the peace process in 2015 led to a sharp policy reversal, with renewed military strategies and political repression severely impacting Kurdish political and cultural rights.
The 2016 coup attempt triggered a renewed wave of repression, as the government declared a state of emergency and intensified its crackdown on Kurdish rights. Kurdish organisations, media outlets, language schools, and cultural institutions were shut down, reversing many of the limited gains achieved during the previous decade. Over 11,000 teachers in Kurdish-speaking regions were suspended, 20 Kurdish media outlets were closed, and bilingual Turkish-Kurdish street signs were removed. This hostile environment extended to acts of violence against Kurds for simply speaking their language. In 2019, 19-year-old Şirin Tosun was tragically murdered in Sakarya, allegedly for speaking Kurdish. In 2017, a Kurdish-language audio library for disabled children and Kurdish-language kindergartens, or Zarokistans, were closed, exemplifying the state’s systematic cultural erasure.
In Rojhelat, the Kurdish region in Iran, the Kurdish language faces a blend of linguicidal tactics. While Kurdish is not formally banned, government policies impose severe restrictions that limit its use in official and educational contexts. Persian is the official language, mandated for all government documents and educational materials, while Kurdish and other minority languages receive no state support and are actively suppressed. Kurdish is excluded from schools and Kurdish-language media is largely absent, which keeps Kurdish invisible in public life and reinforces its peripheral status.
This systematic exclusion mirrors the Iranian state’s deep-seated goal of assimilating non-Persian communities. In place of outright bans, Iran often employs a subtle but equally damaging tactic in which policies promoting Persian as the dominant language gradually erase Kurdish from public consciousness. Kurdish, like other minority languages, is referred to in Iran’s Constitution using terms such as “regional and tribal languages,” which serve to delegitimise and marginalise these languages. Kurdish linguist Amir Hassanpour describes this policy as a form of “linguicide,” a strategy that has persisted from the Pahlavi monarchy (1925–1979) through to the Islamic Republic after 1979, both of which enforced a “one language for a united nation” policy under the guise of promoting national unity.
A stark example of this policy in practice occurred in 2019, when Iran’s Deputy Minister for Primary Education introduced a proposal requiring all children entering school to pass a Persian Language Proficiency Test as part of their health and school readiness assessment. Framed as a measure to reduce dropout rates by ensuring students could “comprehend and understand in Persian,” the policy implicitly positioned Persian as the sole gatekeeper to education. While the extent of the policy’s implementation remains unclear, its underlying message penalises children who speak Kurdish or other languages at home, further reinforcing linguistic marginalisation. The Deputy Minister even equated a lack of Persian proficiency with physical or cognitive impairments, such as low vision or hearing disabilities, suggesting that Kurdish-speaking children faced a comparable disadvantage.
The broader reality is that the impact of assimilation policies reaches far beyond the classroom, infiltrating nearly every domain of daily life. Kurdish speakers experience increasing marginalisation as Persian asserts dominance across workplaces, markets, the arts, entertainment, and modern communication, gradually pushing Kurdish to the periphery. This pervasive influence of Persian leads to the steady stigmatisation and diminishing currency of Kurdish, reinforcing its status as a minoritised language within both public and private spheres.
The Iranian state’s stance on Kurdish language advocacy is unambiguous: promoting Kurdish is seen as a direct threat to national unity and is often labelled as “secessionism.” Kurdish language advocates frequently face accusations of serious offences, such as “terrorism” or “forming a group against national security.” Farzad Kamangar, for instance, a Kurdish elementary school teacher, was executed in 2010 on charges of being an “enemy of God.” As the Washington Times poignantly summarised, his true “crime” was simply “being a Kurd.” Similarly, Zahra Mohammadi, a Kurdish language teacher, was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2019 for allegedly “forming a group against national security” by organising Kurdish language lessons.
In Rojava, Syria’s Kurdish region, the Kurdish language has historically been banned, with the Syrian government labelling Kurds as “alien Turks” and refusing to recognise Kurdish identity. This policy of erasure extended to prohibiting Kurdish names, renaming Kurdish towns, and banning Kurdish schools, books, and publications. Since the inception of the Syrian Republic in 1946, and intensifying under the Ba’ath Party from 1963, Kurdish language use was strictly forbidden. School materials, including geography textbooks, omitted any mention of Kurdish presence, and mother-tongue education was entirely denied.
Although Kurdish in Syria has long faced harsh suppression, a turning point came in 2012, when Kurdish-led groups gained control over Kurdish-majority areas, paving the way for Rojava’s self-administration. By 2014, Afrin, Kobani, and Jazira formally declared autonomy, introducing Kurdish language classes and fostering cultural expression in public life. Yet, Kurdish remains excluded from Syria’s official curriculum, as the Syrian government continues to withhold recognition, sustaining discrimination against the Kurdish community. Meanwhile, in northern Syria, areas occupied by Türkiye since 2018 have seen renewed threats to Kurdish expression. Under the pretext of national security, Türkiye’s operations have displaced Kurdish populations, leading to “ethnic cleansing.” In Türkiye’s so-called “safe zone,” a region in northern Syria established after military operations in 2018, Kurdish communities have been replaced by Arab and Turkmen families, particularly in Afrin, where Kurdish instruction has been banned, Turkish symbols dominate, and Turkish has become the primary language. This policy, justified by Türkiye as a counter-terrorism measure, effectively erases Kurdish cultural and linguistic presence in these regions.
Marginalisation within marginalisation: The double bind of Hewrami
Hewrami students and their teacher in traditional Kurdish clothing in Sarriz village, Kurdistan, Iran (2019). Credit: Author.
For stateless people like the Kurds, a unified language is crucial to strengthening their identity and advancing their cause. Without the protection and promotion of a state, Kurds rely on a cohesive linguistic identity to foster unity. However, this need for unity often comes at the expense of lesser-spoken dialects, which face marginalisation within the broader Kurdish community itself. This double bind imposed by statelessness not only exposes Kurdish to external suppression but also creates internal pressures that threaten its dialectal diversity.
Kurdish, an Indo-European language, includes five main dialect groups: Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji), Central Kurdish (Sorani), Southern Kurdish (Kermashani/Faili/Kalhuri), Zazaki, and Hewrami (Gurani). While major dialects like Sorani and Kurmanji benefit from some degree of recognition and resources, lesser-spoken dialects such as Hewrami (also known as Gurani) are increasingly pushed to the margins. Kurmanji, the most widely spoken, is prevalent across Türkiye, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, while Sorani has gained official status within Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. With institutional backing, Sorani and Kurmanji have seen resources such as dictionaries, grammar guides, and educational materials develop. Ethnologue, a database of world languages, classifies these dialects as “institutional,” while lesser-used dialects, including Hewrami, are marked as endangered.
Hewrami, spoken primarily in mountainous areas of Iran and Iraq, faces significant vulnerability: it is sidelined by state policies that actively suppress Kurdish language and culture; and overshadowed by dominant Kurdish dialects. This internal marginalisation is further complicated by a longstanding debate over Hewrami’s classification. While Western scholars such as Vladimir Minorsky and David MacKenzie argue Hewrami is a distinct Northwestern Iranian language, some scholars argue that Hewrami is an integral part of the Kurdish linguistic continuum. This debate has tangible implications, as it has often been influenced by political agendas aimed at weakening Kurdish unity. Amir Hassanpour argues that the classification of Hewrami as distinct from Kurdish has served political purposes, particularly in Iran, where such distinctions were historically used to deny Kurdish language rights, especially under the Pahlavi regime.
The layered marginalisation of Hewrami, by both Kurdish political priorities and state policies, creates serious barriers to its survival. Without formal recognition in education, media, or public policy, Hewrami is denied the resources necessary to sustain itself, leaving it at risk of cultural invisibility and decline. UNESCO categorises Hewrami as “definitely endangered,” underscoring the urgent need for preservation efforts to prevent its extinction.
Moreover, Kurdish political movements have primarily focused on preserving Sorani and Kurmanji, leaving Hewrami largely unsupported. Sociolinguist Joshua Fishman argues that neglect can effectively serve as an “anti-minority-language policy,” where exclusion from support strips a language of societal value and recognition. Fishman contends that minority languages require active protection and standardisation to meet the demands of modern life. Lacking institutional support, Hewrami and its speakers face increasing disconnection from both Kurdish and Iranian contexts, leading to cultural isolation.
The dilemma of statelessness for Kurdish
Statelessness marginalises the Kurdish language across borders in Türkiye, Iran, and Syria, leaving it vulnerable to suppression and erasure and creating hidden layers of marginalisation within the language itself. Without a state to protect and promote it, Kurdish lacks the institutional support necessary for visibility and growth, leading to a precarious existence across national contexts. As a stateless people, Kurds face external pressures to assimilate and suppress their language, while internally, they must build a cohesive linguistic identity to unify and mobilise the Kurdish nationalist movement. This drive for unity is crucial for resilience and political strength but often comes at the expense of internal diversity. To consolidate for survival, the Kurdish movement has focused on standardising widely spoken dialects like Sorani and Kurmanji, leaving lesser-known dialects, such as Hewrami, vulnerable to neglect and erosion.
Statelessness thus imposes a double bind on Kurdish language preservation: the lack of institutional support endangers both the language’s visibility and its internal richness. This dilemma raises a profound question: will the push for unity allow the survival of lesser-known dialects, or must diversity within Kurdish fade as part of the cost of consolidation? The suppression of Kurdish across Türkiye, Syria, and Iran reveals a deeper cause—the absence of a state framework to protect Kurdish linguistic and cultural rights. Without state support, Kurdish faces barriers not only to visibility but also to the standardisation and preservation of its primary dialects.
The unique case of Bashur, Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, illustrates the importance of state-like support. Since the establishment of an autonomous zone in 1992, the Kurdish language has enjoyed a degree of recognition, with institutional backing allowing its use in governance and education, spurring a vibrant wave of literary activity on linguistic, political, and social themes. This autonomy highlights how state-like structures can support language survival, though full protection remains elusive.
For Kurdish and other stateless languages, survival requires more than isolated acts of advocacy; it demands global recognition of linguistic diversity as essential cultural heritage. The plight of Kurdish underscores the urgent need to protect stateless languages, which embody not only a people’s communication but also their resilience, identity, and legacy.
Main image: Stepped houses in the mountainous Hawraman‐e Takht Village, Kurdistan, Iran, known for its terraced architecture and rich Hewrami heritage. Credit: Diyar se/Flickr.
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