Photo: İnegöl newspaper

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Language, as a means of communication, is also a bearer of the histories and cultures of societies. We cannot talk about the common values of a society in any field if they do not have a common language. Therefore common language has always been the cornerstone of nations and communities unable to preserve their languages were lost within other nations in time, also losing their identities.

Mother tongue is important for every person. The mother language is an inseparable part of the personality, emotional and mental development. When it is lost, it is difficult to maintain emotional and mental integrity. Thus our mother tongue is as real as ourselves and our identity and equally important.

Languages may tend to become extinct resulting from the roles of the communities that speak them in history or their dependency.

When we take the history of modern nation-states, however, many different languages spoken within a state may be banned and therefore risk extinction. There are states that ban and try to wipe out a language finding them harmful or dangerous while they are a part of our common cultural heritage.

Protecting the richness of languages

We know that the policies pursued, especially in the processes of constructing nation-states, have resulted in serious threats to cultural and linguistic diversity. Scientific circles argue that eliminating such threats and protecting linguistic diversity can only be possible by teaching mother languages and by education in the mother language.

Multi-language education models have been developed in many countries taking this scientific approach into account. One example is Switzerland with four official languages. However, in our country which also is a multilingual country, we are only at the stage of discussion.

Besides Turkish which is the official language, many other languages such as Bosnian, Albanian, Kurdish-the Zaza language, Arabic, Hebrew, Georgian, the Laz language, Circassian, Abkhazian, Romany, and the Pomak language, and people speaking these languages exist in our country. These languages constitute a very important part of the rich cultural heritage of our country.

However, the discussions in our country are not made around the necessity of protecting the richness of linguistic diversity as the common heritage of humanity, or the pedagogical principles, or the right to education; but only in the context of the Kurdish problem and fixed to it. This prevents us from broadening the discussion and transforming it so that it is not a polarizing discussion anymore.

Teaching is important

It is so important that the languages will be able to live, and so important it is that these languages are taught. More precisely no language will be able to live if it is not taught. Therefore if we do not want a language to become extinct, that language has to be used, therefore used in education. It needs to be taught and there should be education in that language.

"Education in mother language" describes an education system in which the students learn all lessons in the mother language. The children learn the whole curriculum with educational materials (books, magazines, maps, etc.) in their own language.

"Teaching of the mother tongue," on the other hand, describes a system where the mother tongue is taught like a second language.

UNESCO has indicated in the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger of Disappearing published on February 21, 2002, that half of the 6,000 languages spoken throughout the world risk extinction.

The disdain towards people who have been subdued or enslaved was also shown towards their languages. The effects continue even today, even if less strong.

History of Turkification

There are different dimensions of the extinction/elimination of a language. First of all, those who have the perspective of globalization, argue that it is inevitable that a single language will be predominant in the world. This language is English in today's world.

For instance today in more than 60 of the over 200 sovereign states recognized by the UN, the dominant or the official language is English. Sixty percent of their radio or television broadcasts are in English. Today almost all of the internet world is dominated by English.

Education in the mother language is a complicated subject that has political, social, technical, and economic dimensions. Therefore it has to be dealt with and planned to take into account all these dimensions.

It should not be overlooked that the guidance of the school administrations, the uncertainties, and hesitation were factors in why only 21,000 students took elective Kurdish lessons.

The multi-national Ottoman state was taking into consideration the beliefs of the peoples rather than their ethnicities.

The Turks were disdained in the Ottoman period before the Republic, while later in the period of the Republic, the opposite was true.

The construction of a nation in Turkey was very similar to the experiences in other countries.

Founded as a nation-state, the Republic of Turkey was constructed over the "Turkish identity" in line with the beliefs of the founders and the ideologues.

This new Republic, facing the West, wishing to depart from the East and founded on the remains of the Ottoman state, rejected the pluralism inherited from the Ottoman and tried to establish a homogeneous "Turkish" identity and culture by melting the differences in a common nation-state melting pot.

Therefore the history of the Republic of Turkey is, in a sense, a history of Turkification of all. However, it was understood years after that in fact the differences were not eliminated, the diversity not reduced and a homogeneous society not established. Those who could not find something relatable in the notion of a nation of the new Republic forced this notion and the institutions to change.

The demands of this change in the fields of religion, language, culture, identity, belonging, equality, and an honorable life cause tensions and pain.

Languicide

Some argue that from a nation-state perspective, different languages prevent national unity and homogenization and defend to use of a "single language" under the name of "purification and unity." Some nation-states pursued very violent policies even reaching the elimination of minorities (genocide), and some others prevented the minorities from re-producing themselves through assimilation or integration policies.

Languicide was experienced in this situation. A more widespread policy has been assimilation.

Those who have another mother language than the dominant language are made to feel that their language and culture are inferior and not valuable. Refined methods are used in order for people to accept this. There can be refined, polite methods of assimilation policies while at the same time obstacles and bans preventing the use of different languages that are implemented in parallel.

It is clear that a language will not become extinct as long as there are people using that language. However, this does not mean that the bans are meaningless. Preventing the use of a language in publications and broadcasts, in national and local education institutions inevitably prevents the development of that language and the production of literature or science works in that language.

Such bans enslave a language to daily use only and this makes both the language and the intellectual world of the society using that language poorer. The most severe ban on a mother language is undoubtedly the ban on education in the mother tongue.

Foolish claims

The language policies of Turkey were built in connection with the education and culture policies. The purpose of the institutions such as the "Turkish Hearts," "Community Centers, the "Turkish Homeland," and the "Turkish Language Association" was to create a homogeneous Turkish nation. A single language policy was adopted and cultural diversity was denied and banned by means of these institutions. There have even been periods when there was a fine for speaking in a language different from Turkish. Campaigns were organized called for instance, "Citizen, speak Turkish." (1)

This approach went so far as to claim that "all languages and cultures have emerged from the Turkish language and Turkish culture," in the 1930s. Institutions such as the Turkish History Institution, and the Turkish Language Institute asserted that Turkish was the origin of many languages and that all great civilizations (Indian, Sumerian, Hittite or Egyptian, Greek) originated from the Turkish civilization.

Such foolish claims were, to a large extent, abandoned later but were again on the agenda following the September 12, 1980, military coup. The rulers of the period have made reservations about articles evoking ethnic or linguistic diversity in many international conventions. Later the names of villages, towns, districts, or other places that are not in Turkish were changed. This was one of the issues discussed in the 2000s and the people demanded that the old names are given back.

Article 42 of the 1982 Constitution drew the frame of the official language policy based on a single language. "No language other than Turkish can be used in education or taught to Turkish citizens in educational institutions. The foreign languages to be taught in educational institutions and the provisions governing such schools are regulated by law. Provisions of international conventions are reserved." The first article of Law number 2932 dated 1983 has regulated the principles and procedures related to the banned languages in relation to the security of the country.

Georgians

The Georgians are one of the communities in our country who have their own language different from Turkish. Starting from the 16th century when Georgia came under Ottoman rule, some parts of the Georgians embrace Islam by force. With the 1877 Ottoman-Russian war, the Muslim Georgian people have to migrate to the Ottoman land believing they will be facing religious oppression. The Ottoman rulers place the population in the provinces by the Black Sea and in the Marmara region. The Georgians placed in these locations begin to live their religion, language, and culture in their new homeland.

The Georgians coming from different villages and towns, and placed again in different locations, begin to live in their own worlds. This introverted type of life enables them to establish relations with the surrounding villages and towns at first, even if limited (since marriages between relatives were not approved).

This way different Georgian villages start to get to know each other thanks to marriages. Thus the common language and culture find a way to continue, while the language continues to live in a form to be sufficient for daily life alone. But where they come from, Georgian has an alphabet of its own and is an educational language. The Georgians in Turkey have to forget this alphabet and some potentials of their language and they turn into a closed society. They live under these conditions for decades and a population emerges who do not speak/learn Turkish even a little other than the men who do their military service. Until the 1970's the children who do not go to school and the women do not speak any language other than Georgian.

I met Turkish at school

I did not speak Turkish either until I came to İnegöl at the age of six. I met Turkish at school.

This meant living with a shallow and closed-circuit Georgian language and a Georgian culture that such a language could express.

We should talk about an event that reflects this situation. In 1988, when the Georgian scripter Alexandre Chkhaidze came to Turkey, he wanted to go to a mountain village in Gölcük. We went to the Nüzhetiye village. Chkhaidze started to chat with the villagers in the coffee house. He watched them speak the Georgian language showing great interest and surprise.

When he asked them, "How nice it is that you can speak your language. So many years have passed, how did you preserve your language and your culture?" an old man stood up, hit the heater with his walking stick, and said, "My friend, this Chveneburi is our language. Whether we preserved it or not, this is our problem. How do you know our language, you should tell us that." This was because those villagers were not aware of a Georgian state and those speaking Georgian apart from themselves. (2)

Georgians shy away from using their language

The Georgians in Turkey were able to use their language as far as the other minorities living in Turkey were able to. The only language used as the education language and the language in official affairs are Turkish, and the Georgian language is not used in any official dealing or in any publications. In fact, even if there is no official ban, it is looked down on, just like the languages of other minorities.

Therefore the Georgians who speak their language freely among themselves, avoid or shy away from using it when with others. Old people or elders even avoid teaching their children Georgian so that they speak better Turkish and advise them not to speak Georgian.

It will be only after Ahmet Özkan's studies and publications on the Georgian culture and their mainland that this situation starts to change and the Georgians start to embrace their language and their culture more consciously. The first publication in this field was a book called "Georgia" published again by Ahmet Özkan Melashvili.

Özkan was killed in 1980 by fascists, but in reaction, the Georgians showed greater interest in their language, and the cultural and linguistic worlds of the Georgians living in Turkey started to develop further after this event.

Relations between Turkey and Georgia developed through magazines, books, and translations, and the Georgians in Turkey founded associations, and foundations and supported this development. The spirit of the time carried us to today when the Georgian language is studied academically at universities.

Today there are "Georgian Language and Literature" departments at Caucus University (since 2006), Rize University (since 2012), Ardahan University (since 2012), and Düzce University (since 2013).

The "Solution" process

The developments in the period named the "solution process" made it possible to discuss new regulations for mother tounges never thought of before. One was the Ministry of Education developing programs for teaching Georgian and other languages (...., the Laz language, the Zaza language, and Kurdish). Books started to be prepared to be used for teaching these languages. However, the writing of these books was largely laid aside when the solution process ended.

Two books were to be prepared for Georgian. And three people, Kevser Ruhi, Ahmet Dinçer, and Ercan Eroğlu were assigned by the Turkish Education Board for evaluating these two books.

One of the books was closer to the standards of the board, it was re-edited to a great extent but this work was brought to an end with the ending of the "solution process."

Courses and magazines in Georgian

Another development is related to the Georgian courses organized by the Georgian cultural associations. These courses that are on the rise every day can make a great contribution to developing links between the Georgians. The Georgian embassy is also supporting these courses with books, or teachers, etc.

As a last point, I would like to mention the magazines, published in order to continue their culture and to carry the past to the future.

The Chveneburi Magazine, founded in the presence of Ahmet Özkan Melashvili, published 59 issues without any interruption between 1993-2006 and distributed them throughout the whole country. This year on the other hand the magazine Chveni Sopeli (Our Village) started to be printed in Hayriye village of İnegöl, Bursa.

The Mamuli or Pirosmani (two-language) magazines did not, unfortunately, live long.

(1) ATATÜRK'S MIGRANT POLICY, https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/arsiv/2733.pdf

(2) Chveneburi: The common name/adjective the Georgians in Turkey use for themselves meaning "from us."