Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP16086
Authors: Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde; Victor Ginsburgh; Hossein Hassani; Shlomo Weber
Abstract: Kurdish languages and multiple dialects spread across several nation-states under variousregimes varying from regional recognition (e. g. Iraq) to persistent attrition (e. g. Turkey).Kurdish linguistic faces a variety of challenges which can be attributed to different causes suchas the historical background of the language, sociopolitical reasons, and forced compliancewith national linguistic policies in some of the countries where Kurds live to name a few. Inthis paper we do not discuss the normative issue of linguistic rights entitlements of the speakersof different varieties of Kurdish. We consider their complex sociolinguistic situation from thepoint of view of communication efficiency in the face of the following dilemma: Eitherunification through the adoption of a lingua franca or standardized Kurdish, with theimplication of disenfranchisement of some speakers, or the maintenance of multiple dialects,with the risk of fractionalization and its political and economic consequences. For reasons suchas the multi-dialect feature of the language and its sociocultural attributes, the attempts tostandardize Kurdish have not succeeded. To address this dilemma, we proceed to compute thelexical-linguistic distances between six dialects of Kurdish: three which are representative ofKurmanji and three of Sorani, i. e. the two main linguistic and regional varieties of Kurdish.Our selection of dialects, although incomplete, covers about 75% of the whole population ofKurdish speakers. Our study is the first one to propose an application of the Jaro-similarityindex on a Swadesh-list of dialects of Kurdish. Our results reveal some significant distancewithin Sorani and Kurmanji dialects, and an expected more significant distance between Soraniand Kurmanji dialects. The latter distance is sufficiently important to favor a three-languagepolicy rather than any other one: an international language, the national language (Turkish,Farsi or Arabic), and the local Kurdish variety. This policy maximizes efficiency, Kurdishidentity as well as within and without group intercommunication. We compare it to similarlinguistic policy attempts in India, Nigeria and Kazakhstan.
Keywords: Kurdish languages; linguistic distances; three-language formula
JEL Codes: D63; Z13
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| linguistic policy (F68) | Kurdish speakers (Y70) |
| adopting a lingua franca (F01) | communication efficiency (L96) |
| adopting a lingua franca (F01) | disenfranchisement of speakers of minority dialects (J15) |
| dialectal distances (Y80) | proposed linguistic policy (E69) |
| average distances within Sorani dialects < average distances within Kurmanji dialects (R12) | likelihood of intercomprehension within each dialect group (Y80) |
| linguistic distance (Y80) | policy outcomes (D78) |