The State of the Mother Tongue Between Parent and Child

According to the findings of the research we conducted in collaboration with Rawest Research in September–October 2019, across 8 provinces and 25 districts with Kurdish parents:

While the vast majority of parents want their children to learn Kurdish, only one-third of them make above-average efforts toward this goal. One out of every four parents stated that they make no effort at all to help their children learn Kurdish.

The most common complaint among parents is that the overwhelming majority of stimuli in the child’s environment are in Turkish, and that their individual efforts are not sufficient to overcome this.

There is a significant decline between the use of the mother tongue in communication with one’s own parents and its use with one’s children. While 48% of the participants reported speaking only Kurdish with their own parents, this rate drops to 13% with their children. The rates of speaking only Turkish also confirm this trend. When comparing the surveyed parents and their children, Kurdish usage has decreased by one-third, while Turkish usage has increased by the same proportion. In cases where both languages are used, the process tends to evolve in favor of Turkish increasing and Kurdish decreasing.

While the vast majority of parents want their children to learn Kurdish, only one-third of them report making an above-average effort toward this goal. One in four parents states that they make no effort at all for their child to learn Kurdish. The most frequently cited complaint is that the overwhelming majority of stimuli in the child’s environment are in Turkish, making it difficult for parents to overcome this situation through their own individual efforts. In this context, families often name Zarok TV as their most important source of support.

The vast majority of parents want to send their children to schools where Kurdish is included in the educational curriculum. Similarly, approximately three-quarters of them demand that Kurdish be recognized as an official language alongside Turkish.