Kurdistan Region
The project
The project aims to investigate the multiple historical, linguistic, cultural, social and political factors that determine the linguistic situation of the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) today and that are responsible for the recent rise of English. The special features of Kurdish lie in the linguistic-cultural and to some extent also political emancipation that is possible for a Kurdish community within the KRI for the first time in modern history, and in the tension between self-determination, political reality and economic-social constraints.
Linguistic questions and problems such as the relationship between the two main Kurdish varieties (Badinani and Sorani) and the relationship between Kurdish and Arabic and English are embedded in these contexts. English, as a promise of modernity and prosperity, may become a greater threat to Kurdish cultural identity in the near future than the attempts at Arabisation by the Iraqi state, which Kurds have bravely fended off for decades. The discourse on this topic within Kurdish society is also taken into account and lends the project additional social relevance.
The team
Ludwig Paul is Professor of Iranian Studies at the Middle Eastern Department of the Asia-Africa-Institute at the University of Hamburg. His main research interests are Historical Linguistics, focusing mainly on Persian and West Iranian, and the cultural history and current development of Iranian languages.
Contact: ludwig.paul"AT"uni-hamburg.de
Shabang Sardar is a PhD student at the Faculty of English and American Studies at the University of Hamburg.
Contact: shabang.salih"AT"uni-hamburg.de
Dr. Zana Ibrahim is the Dean of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Kurdistan Hewlêr. His research interests lie mainly in the area of second language acquisition and pedagogy, applied linguistics, second language motivation, complexity theory, and positive affect. For more information: https://www.ukh.edu.krd/faculty/zana-ibrahim/