KCDK-E celebrates Mother Language Day

Celebrating International Mother Language Day, KCDK-E asked every Kurdish citizen to speak their mother language and pass it on to future generations.

In its message marking 21 February, International Mother Language Day, the Congress of Democratic Societies of Kurdistan in Europe (KCDK-E) invited "to frustrate the assimilation policies of the colonialists by approaching the mother language with the sensitivity in which all dialects of Kurdish are spoken and developed."

The statement said: "The main goal of all forces that have been trying to carry out a genocide against the Kurdish people for centuries has been to prevent the Kurdish people from speaking their mother language. They are trying to prevent us from speaking our mother language in a thousand and one ways, in order to transform us both culturally and mentally, through assimilationist policies and policies of denial in every part."

The statement added: "For this reason, every Kurdish citizen must speak and write in one of the dialects of their native language, Kurdish, and enable others to speak it as well. We know that language is the most fundamental feature of a nation and a people. Language, which is the most basic human right that the nation and the people have from birth, is also the most basic tool for the human being to carry out and develop his activities as a political and social being. As such, language is the main element in the nation's survival and the production and creation of art, culture and literature."

The statement continued: "All our institutions must defeat the assimilation policies of the colonialists by approaching the mother language with a sensitivity in which all dialects of Kurdish are spoken and developed. We can protect our existence and build our free future to the extent that we protect our mother tongue. As KCDK-E, we celebrate the Kurdish Language Day, and we respectfully greet everyone who works for the Kurdish language and education and wish them success."