DİYARBAKIR - MED-DER co-chair Şilan Elmas pointed out that the May 15 Kurdish Language Day events are women-oriented this year and said that they will receive video messages from 5000 women in places where Kurds live, and that they will broadcast it.

 

May 15, the day when Celadet Alî Bedirxan published the Kurdish-language Hawar journal, published in 1932, is celebrated as the Kurdish Language Day. The language day, which is celebrated with different events every year, was held online last year. This year, again, due to the pandemic bans, it will be held online first, and after the ban, the events will be held face to face.

Mesopotamia Language and Culture Research Association (MED-DER) co-chair Şilan Elmas talked about the activities they will organize this year and drew attention to the importance of the language festival.

 

MED-DER will launch a campaign with the slogan "Happy Kurdish, Kurdish Language Day, not just one day." Şilan shared that within the scope of the campaign, four-week online education will be given to citizens who fill out the forms to be published on the social media accounts of the association on May 15, with the titles "Kurdish alphabet", "Kurdish literature" and "Reading and writing".

 

‘A holy day for the Kurds’

 

Şilan said that May 15 Kurdish Language Day is a holy day for Kurds. "Language development is also the development of a nation. Nation-language, woman-language, society-language relations are discussed. As a result of this, May 15 is a really exciting day for us. Despite the pandemic ban, we will celebrate our various programs and events on our social media accounts," she said.

 

‘There will be many activities related to the language day’

 

Describing the activities they will carry out within the scope of May 15, Şilan noted that they especially focus on women as part of the program. Underlining that they will send a letter of thanks to Kurdish women writers on this occasion, Şilan said: "Our work on this issue is still continuing. We will prepare an image with Kurdish figures. Then we will send a card for democratic and diplomatic work to the European Parliament. Kurdish women brought the Kurdish language and history to this day with their words and folkl poets. We will also organize women's events in Botan, Amed and Serhat. We also have a program for children. We will come together with children in three villages and run some mother tongue programs. We will introduce them to the Kurdish alphabet and inform them about the importance of the language."

 

‘We will convey our history in our own language’

 

Referring to the relationship of women on language and society, Şilan said that one of the May 15 events was to receive and broadcast video messages from 5000 women from all countries where there are Kurds. Şilan said: "As women, we say that we will write our existence and history in our own language. Let's build our future in Kurdish. Therefore, we organized this year's language day with women-oriented activities. We are not alone in our studies and activities, we will carry out activities from four parts of Kurdistan to all over Europe."

 

‘Language studies eliminate the pressure on Kurdish’

 

Şîlan stated that studying on language will eliminate violence against Kurdish and that there should be a strong ownage for this. Stating that Kurdish women will play a leading role in adoption, Şilan drew attention to the fact that the biggest struggle starts with language. Şilan also noted that as long as there is no language, the society will remain incomplete no matter how much work is carried out.

 

‘Commissions were established in every city’

 

Referring to the campaign launched on February 21, International Mother Language Day, at the end of her speech, Şilan said: "We are still working on the campaign to make Kurdish an official language. Commissions were created for this campaign in each city. This campaign was a very important step. As we said, the language depends on the nation and therefore the language should be spoken and passed on to future generations."