Nationalism and Language in Kurdistan 1918-1985 the Language Factor in National Development

This is the first comprehensive study (in any language) of the historical, literary and sociolinguistic foundations of Kurdish nationalism and the conflict with the Iraqi state since its emergence under the British mandate. While it is focused on the Kurds of Iraq, the conflict between the Kurds and the central governments of Turkey, Iran, Syria and the USSR receives adequate research attention. Language is the most important indicator of Kurdish identity. The right to native-tongue education and media has been the most important demand of Kurdish nationalism in the post-WW I period. In their attempt to survive linguistic genocide, Kurdish intellectuals, political activists, and religious leaders struggled for the development of a unified national language. Standardization is treated as language development, similar and closely related to social, economic, and political development. The approach here is interdisciplinary, cutting across a number of fields in social sciences -- sociolinguistics, political science, mass media studies, education, and policy studies.