Review Journal 2

Title : Language and Gender: Sexism in Kurdish Language (Mukriani Dialect)

Authors : 

1. Manijeh Mirmokri
2. Ahmad Ahmadian

Journal : International Journal of Kurdish Studies

Publication : Vol. 2/3 (December 2016)

Abstract :

Language is a social phenomenon and reflects the existing beliefs in a community. It is possible to discover the institutionalized beliefs, orientations and ideologies through study of language even in case of male and female relationships. This research attempts to discuss the sexism or non-sexism of "Mukriani Kurdish" through compilation of male and female adjectives as well as terms of address. To this end, a number of widely used idioms, proverbs and terminologies were analyzed from among 7000 words in two books of (Hedi, 1999) and (Fatahi Ghazi, 1986). The results showed that Mukriani Kurdish is sexist and application of sexist language among individuals depends to a great extent on their gender, age, occupation, qualification, and social class. Moreover, failure of educated individuals to use such language may be due to their lack of familiarity with linguistic terms as a result of studying in a language other than native language.

Goals :

To discuss the sexism or non sexism of "Mukriani Kurdish" through compilation of male and female adjectives as well as terms of address.

Problems :

Failure of educated individuals to use such language may be due to their lack of familiarity with linguistic terms as a result of studying in a language other than native language.

Theories :

Brief Summary on Kurds and Kurdish Language. Kurdish is an Indo-Iranian language which is a branch of Indo-European family with nearly 25 to 30 million speakers in regions of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Armenia and also Azerbaijan. Kurdistan was one split between Ottoman and Safavid empires as a result of Zuhab Treaty in 1639 and then split for the second time between the countries of Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey subsequent to Language Treaty in 1922 (Khoshhali, 2007). Most religious Kurd are Muslim of the Sunni denomination (Encyclopedia Britannica 2007).

"Grammatical gender" is almost absent in Sorani Kurdish. Traditional and descriptive studies of standard Sorani and its sub-dialects emphasize the lack of gender distinctions in phonology, morphology (pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs and particles), and syntax. None of these studies deals with the dynamics of the semantic system. Writing about the gender of nouns, one of the best descriptive studies of Sorani dialects noted: 'there are no inflective morphmes and hence no distinction o grammatical gender or case. In the system of Vocative endings, however, a distinction of natural gender is observed' (MacKenzie, 1961:56-7).

Nowadays Kurdish is written in Latin alphabet as used in Turkish while it is also written in Arabic alphabet. Latin alphabet is used in this research in order to write the samples.

Methods :

Type of Research: This is a descriptive-analytic research. The linguistic data are first described in this research and then the reason for their application by different people in society is analyzed. 

Data Collection Method: Linguistic evidence was obtained through study of various books and taking notes from speech of people of different ages in a variety of situations. First, those expressions, terminologies, proverbs, phrasal verbs and adjectives that had been pigmented with sexism were derived from the books. They were then studied in order to facilitate the work in different stages. Name of author, year published and page number are cited in front of each term and as this researcher is a native Kurd, her own linguistic experiments and field studies are marked as "researcher's work".

Research Problems:  One of the obstacles and problems in conducting this research would pave the way for more profound and comprehensive studies, leading to establishment of non-sexist thought in this language to enforce social alterations and democratization. These criteria help examining the linguistic entities of the texts, which lead to uncover the ideologies lying behind these texts.

Findings:

The results showed that Mukriani Kurdish is sexist and application of sexist language among individuals depends to a great extent on their gender, age, occupation, qualification and social class. Moreover, failure of educated individuals to use such language may be due to their lack of familiarity with linguistic terms as a result of studying in a language other than native language.