The state of kurdish language through public policies in Turkey after 1980

Abstract

Making of public policies is a process through which the state determines relevant topics for the sake of its citizens and implements them. In Turkey, the public policies about Kurdish language after 1980 are outstanding such that the actors of coup d’état eagerly embraced the former idea of nation state which theoretically requires one common language in the borders of the given country. In parallel with this notion, the soldiers, who are the impeccable followers of Kemalist idea, put much pressure on local languages in Turkey, especially Kurdish language. They made some laws and forbade other languages than Turkish. But later, the conservative governments reigned in Turkey which had different ideas about this topic. As they got the opportunities, they made use of them so as to improve the situation for that language. The conservative governments handled this topic in the realm of freedom and human rights and created different public policies, so the adventure of Kurdish Language followed a much different track under different governments. This is a qualitative study, and the data were compiled from the related literature and evaluated accordingly.