Nationalism and Language in Kurdistan, 1918-1985

Nationalism and Language in Kurdistan, 1918-1985, by Amir Hassanpour. San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1992. xliii + 468 pages. Bibl. to p. 520. $109.95. Reviewed by Ernest N. McCarus The author's stated aim in this study is to present a "case study" that provides "considerable detail about the relationship between language and nation-building" (p. xxviii). The book is not only a linguistic but also a socio-political and cultural study of nation building that focuses, in part, on language standardization and the role of the various central governments in language planning and designing language policies. The area of geographical concentration of the study is those parts of Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, since World War I, where the Kurdish language was spoken. The evolution of written Kurdish literature, however, is traced from the 17th century to contemporary times. A mass of documentation is provided to support and/or refute conflicting claims about the Kurds' status; indeed, the author is to be commended for his meticulous and painstaking care in consulting publications, official documents and reports, and in personally interviewing trend-setters in Kurdish literature, politics, etc. in the preparation of his study. His balanced judgment is also commendable. He presents 65 tables of background data, 42 figures illustrating Kurdish language books and documents, and 14 maps that feature aspects of the Kurdish speech area. Hassanpour notes the lack of any theoretical approach in Kurdish language standardization, but presents models based on other case studies and proceeds to a systematic analysis of the data. He is scrupulous in his definition of technical terms, symbols, concepts and methods. Early on, the Kurds themselves recognized the centrality of the Kurdish language to Kurdish ethnicity. The early leaders of Kurdish nationalism, the mullas Ahmadi Khani (1650-1706) and Haji Qadir Koyi (1817-97), argued that "Kurds could achieve freedom only if they took up two weapons, the pen (literary language) and the sword (state power)" (p. xxv). Khani composed what has become a Kurdish epic, Mam u Zin, as an allegory to mobilize the Kurds to unite against the Persians and the Ottomans who had begun to extend their control over the various autonomous Kurdish principalities. The Kurds never united, and, with the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Kurdistan was cut up and divided among the five new nation-states. …