Several Thoughts on Mother Tongue

In the following opinions, the following paragraphs discuss the importance and profound dimensions of mother tongue:

1. Mother tongue, in its deepest and most basic intellectual and cognitive sense, is never just a collection of words and sentences to convey a simple message, but the primary space in which human existence takes shape.
2. From a phenomenological point of view, especially for thinkers such as Edmund Husserl and Maurice Mirlo-Ponty, the mother tongue is “the first space of truth; that is, it is the first theater in which the truth presents itself. This space, as Mirlo Ponty described it in his Phenomenology of Perception, is the place where body and soul meet. It is the magical place where the fragmented human senses “seeing, hearing, touching” change from the slow state to “meaning” and the meanings become “feelings”. This is the intense and complex process in which one can see and understand the world as a meaningful phenomenon, not as a collection of unrelated objects.
3. For a nation that has been under threat of physical and cultural extinction throughout history and whose territory has become an arena of conflict between foreign forces, the mother tongue takes on another existential role that goes beyond its normal role. The Kurdish language is not only the “home of being” for the Kurdish individual, as Martin Heidegger said, but has become the “last home and the last fortress of resistance”.
4. At this time I want to relate a personal experience that changed my view of language in an indirect way. About six years ago, in the spring, I was sitting in the Jumhuri Tea House in Sulaimani drinking tea. A handsome white man sat next to me and we got into a mixed argument. He was obviously an educated man; He said he was a biology teacher and now retired. When our conversation turned to language, the teacher said a short and profound sentence that still echoes in my mind. “Language has bones,” he said. This simple expression painted an unparalleled picture of the true nature of the Kurdish language. Bone symbolizes the solid inner structure that sustains our existence; it is something that cannot be seen from the outside, but it is the basis of all movement and posture. The Kurdish language is the same “bone” of national identity.
5. Hence, the Kurdish individual, consciously or unconsciously, performs an act of political and intellectual defense in speaking, writing and reading, singing and telling stories in his mother tongue. Every Kurdish word uttered is like a stone in a defensive fortress and a declaration of the existence of “self” in the face of attempts to erase “other”. This language is the place where Kurds can be “themselves”, without fear and without censorship, and rebuild the world they have been deprived of.
6. We can say; Mother tongue is man’s “natural hermeneutics” for understanding the world. A prominent German philosopher and author of Truth and Method believe that any understanding occurs in advance within the horizon of language. But the mother tongue is the primary hermeneutical foundation on which all subsequent understandings, even those of foreign languages, are based. This makes the mother tongue not only the means of understanding, but also the very means of understanding and the possible condition of any other understanding. When we learn a foreign language, we always consciously or unconsciously try to compare the new concepts to those in our mother tongue. This is clear and indisputable evidence that the main framework of our understanding comes from our mother tongue and that our world is fundamentally shaped through it.
7. In Martin Heidegger’s view, language is the home of being. Man resides in this house, through which he communicates with existence and guards it. The mother tongue is the first and most basic home of man; it is the refuge where one feels at peace and present.
8. Mother tongue is the cultural genetic code of a nation. This code not only conveys information and ways of thinking, but also carries ways of feeling, enjoying and aesthetics. Therefore, when a language dies or sprouts, not only a system of communication is destroyed, but a particular way of being, understanding and perceiving the world.
9. This language also has an unlimited ability to create new concepts through its active prefixes and suffixes. For example, the prefix “self” in words such as “self-knowledge” (cognitive journey inward), “resilience” (inner strength to resist), and “self-giving” (giving of self for a higher value) expresses a subtle deep concept about the relationship between self and action. This ability in vocabulary and conceptualization makes Kurdish a dynamic and innovative language that can adapt to the changes of the times and formulate new concepts for new phenomena of science, technology and philosophy, without resorting to foreign words. The ability to create words such as “universe, number, line, space and context” and hundreds of other words is a sign of the vitality and ability of this language to grow.
10. Finally, as we have seen, the Kurdish language as the mother tongue of the Kurdish nation is not only a means of communication, but also a complete cognitive and intellectual system in which history, culture, tradition and art are combined to create a special worldview. This language, like the last fortress and the last home, has become our destiny. Preserving this worldview and this unique way of being.