![\"Led](\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/1118-world-oturkey_full_380.jpg\" "\\"Turkey's")
For 20 years, Tekin Cifci explored his native Kurdish language in secret, hiding behind a pseudonym when writing for semi-underground Kurdish magazines. For much of that time in Turkey, the use of Kurdish was banned \u2013 an utterance on the street could mean time in jail.<\/p>\n
But today Mr. Cifci is writing the thesis for his master\u2019s degree, in Kurdish and about Kurdish \u2013 and under his real name \u2013 as part of Turkey\u2019s first-ever graduate program in Kurdish language and culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still not used to this new period,\u201d says Cifci, who is part of the pilot Kurdish program of Mardin Artuklu University in southeast Turkey\u2019s ethnic Kurdish heartland. The region has been plagued by civil war between Kurdish rebels and the state security forces since 1984, and witnessed tens of thousands of deaths.<\/p>\n
That conflict has eased in the past decade. And the Turkish government last year announced a \u201cKurdish Opening\u201d aimed at improving the lives of ethnic Kurds, by restoring some long-denied cultural rights.<\/p>\n
But while many Kurds feel that little has changed \u2013 and point to some 1,500 Kurdish politicians and activists rounded up and jailed across the region since the \u201copening\u201d \u2013 the Kurdish language program is planting new seeds that could transform attitudes.<\/p>\n
New opportunity<\/p>\n
\u201cEach time our teachers explain about Kurdish language and culture, I find myself in a different world,\u201d says Cifci. \u201cIt\u2019s like coming into the world again, like being reborn to the culture\u2026. Kurdish was a forbidden language for many years; never mind academic work, even speaking was forbidden…. Now the Kurds are recognized as a nation in Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cifci says he is proud to be one of Turkey\u2019s first crop of \u201cKurdologists,\u201d one of 30 accepted for the two-year master\u2019s program. The university began its work in Kurdish last summer, teaching a crop of 50 language instructors whose certification will allow them to teach elsewhere in Turkey as new Kurdish programs are founded.<\/p>\n
The interest was overwhelming. Some 550 people applied for the three-month summer course, and 350 to be candidates for the master\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s incredible for me to see the numbers,\u201d says Abdurrahman Adak, assistant chairman for the \u201clive languages\u201d program, which will include the Syriac and Arabic languages, as well as Kurdish. So far only Kurdish faculty have been chosen. \u201cThis is making preparation for coming years, if Turkish universities have these [Kurdish] branches. We are preparing from now.\u201d<\/p>\n
When setting up the program, the directors visited other well-established Kurdish programs at universities in northern Iraq and in Europe. In coming weeks Mardin will host a number of experts from the Center for Kurdish Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n
via In Turkey, Kurdish writers once needed pseudonyms. Now they have a master’s program. – CSMonitor.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Scott Peterson,\u00a0Staff writer \/ November 18, 2010 Mardin, Turkey For 20 years, Tekin Cifci explored his native Kurdish language in secret, hiding behind a pseudonym when writing for semi-underground Kurdish magazines. For much of that time in Turkey, the use of Kurdish was banned \u2013 an utterance on the street could mean time in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":26144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[4388],"class_list":["post-26142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-kurdish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}