Q, W, X 

The Turkish alphabet, adopted in 1928, has 29 letters and does not contain these three. When one hears about the “Turkish alphabet,” one would think it was invented by the Turks and used since time immemorial. ..

because these threatening letters already existed in the Latin alphabet at the time it was Turkified by executive order of the republican elite. Like everything else, the Turkish bureaucracy denied the Kurds of Turkey the ability to use these three letters in their native tongue and made life miserable when they did.

The Kurdish language needs these letters in order to express several sounds that are part of its phonology. But strict laws and even stricter interpretations of them have put many people in prison and had them tortured for years on end just because they insisted in using them. The ban was taken to such extremes that invitations or holiday greeting cards issued by Kurdish mayors became subjects of prosecution or even their sacking (as was the case with the mayor of Diyarbakir´s Sur district).

Yet in an international Turkish Language Symposium that convened in 1991 with the participation of all Turkic nations, most of them decided to adopt the Latin alphabet, including these letters, as their national alphabet. So q, w and x became Turkish letters in other Turkic countries. ...

.....While any foreigner or bystander would be puzzled, the nationalists and chauvinists of all sorts must be very relieved to have saved their alphabet from alien influence!

But then how shall we reconcile with the Kurds, who feel victimized and denied basic rights? A similar nationalist reflex emerged when a university (in Mardin) wanted to initiate a department of Kurdish language and literature. ..

Once again our bureaucracy, be it academic or judicial, showed that it is not yet ready for the “opening.” This is so because they do not see themselves as free and independent academics and/or people of the law (for everyone). Instead, they see themselves as agents of the state, and their first priority is upholding the state apparatus with its existing institutions, practices and principles.

Unfortunately, they fail to grasp two things: 1) The old ways and means and the institutions that employed them so far have failed. They have produced a tutelary regime devoid of the rule of law, a nation fed on artificial (fabricated) information about itself, and hence one distanced from its past and present reality. Turkey is a relatively poor country despite many advantages that many others lack. 2) Giving rights to other groups of citizens and having them voluntarily participate in the politics of their country with their cultural identities is not subversive or divisive. The Turks will not lose what is theirs; the others will gain, too. There is no loss in this equation; on the contrary, everyone wins. But the nationalists and chauvinists of this country, just as those of any other nation, are so mentally blocked and full of fear of losing what they think is “theirs” that this has led to an unjust and authoritarian system which has alienated large chunks of people who debate the legitimacy of the system -- and that is explosive.

Full article from Prof. Dogu Ergil

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/columnists-188104-q-w-x.html

This is how those bloody Turks oppress the angelic Kurds. The lack of q and w in alphabet is a crime against humanity!

"The Kurdish language needs these letters in order to express several sounds that are part of its phonology"

but the Turkish language does not! and the formal language of the Turkish Republic is Turkish. and we don`t give a f**k if it suits kurdish or any other language.

btw, what should be done about the lack of   çýðöþü in the english alphabet as it  limits my ability to express myself?

The moral of the article was

the nationalists and chauvinists of this country, just as those of any other nation, are so mentally blocked and full of fear of losing what they think is “theirs” .

That is proved once more!!!

the moral of this piece of crap is kurdish fascism is good fascism, and Kurds don`t have to integrate into the society, but the society must adopt their rules.

hahahha yeah, but it`s a big problem when evil muslims don`t integrate into the western countries, right?

Comparing Kurds (who happen to be living in their own land for thousands of years) in Turkey to Muslim (mostly refugees)  in western countries is  not a  ´bright´ idea!!!

I sincerely think that Turkish politics is not an area you should be posting to..

Anyway

The topic was Turkish alphabet and why some letters which are necessary for Kurdish are not included in Turkish alphabet and what is stopping us to include those letters ..So the answer was our own nationalists who have the mental block!!

Posts deleted for personal insults.

Tamiki -- your habitual harassment and name-calling is not going to be tolerated. I urge you to stick to arguing the subject, not the person, because we are all sick and tired of the way you make some of these threads turn into a slanging match.

hahahaha yeah it`s only me who is doing it! as for insults and name calling, I have to remind you that you called me "asshole" not long ago.

Anyway

Once more..The topic is

Some letters being missing from Turkish alphabet, how they went missing in the first place, why the other Turkish speaking countries accepted those letters and we do not, why we are unable to rectify it..!!!

It´s real that I´m blocked somewhere because it sounds nonsense to me.

Why don´t we include "w,x,q" in the turkish alphabet?

Simply because every language has its own phonetics and even if the majority of the european countries use the latin alphabet, in each alphabet there´re particular letters that are not found in another. In turkish you never use the "w" sound, if it were the arabs who converted their alphabet to latin, they would include logically "w" because they have this sound. While they are saying "wallah", this same word is pronounced "vallah" in turkish.

The Kurds adopted the latin alphabet as well. While they have Ê-ê, Î-î, Û-û letters differently from some other latin alpahabets, they do not have turkish "ö, ü, ð" letters. Could it be then asked that these letters are included in their alphabet as well?

If you asked kurdish to be an official language in Turkey or a fully recognized second language , it would be more open and have a sense, but here what is asked is the kurdification of the turkish language. At least, that´s what sounds to me.

I can understand your reasons..

You are talking as one of the Turkish citizens..

But there are millions of Kurds and they are Turkish citizens too and they want those letters to be included!!

And they are saying that those letter are necessary for their language.

You can not simply say that ´NO because  I am the majority´!! 

I dont want to get into phonetics of the languages but Just a simple example:

How are you planning to write Sivan Perwer´s  name into his ID when we give him back his citizenship? 

I think in the end, the question is how we, as Turks and Kurds, can live together.

Just think that what kind of Kurd will have seperatist ideas:

a-The Kurds whose language recognised and respected and at the same time they can use their names freely etc

b-The Kurds who were told ´NO you can not have W,X,Q and you can not use any names with these letters´ 

In the end, I dont think we Turks will lose anything at all if those 3 letters are added into alphabet..

PS..there is a very sweet website about it too :

http://www.qwx2009.org/

It is called Errorist project:

The Errorist project is centred on the search for failures. Its art project „qwx - show ur lingua“ aims to counter the politics which homogenise the subjectivity of people living within the boundaries of Turkey, people who have a variety of ethnic and cultural identities. By prompting people to upload images of their tongues sticking out „qwx - show ur lingua“ aims to create a space of resistance.

I´ll look at the site you noted later, but to answer: I´d include it in my last post. I think letting people  use their names as they are with the letters w,x,q is another thing and I would be favorable for it. It should be up to people to choose how their kurdish names be written on their identity. It´s understandable because it´s a proper name and we have the right to keep our original name in any language, but why we need to include these letters in the turkish alpahabet, I do not understand.

That said, say my name is Çaðrý Özgüç and I have applied for UK citizenship and been accepted. Can I use the Turkish letters in my name officially? Somebody from UK would please enlighten us?

I am not sure if I´m understanding this correctly, but I think what this means is that with the language reform, an alphabet was imposed on the Kurds and they were unable to spell some important words in their language. It appears that these letters were deliberately left out to make part of the population miserable, since other Turkic nations have included these letters as apparently useful in the language. I think this is the point of the story..

How can you compare this to you not being able to use your alphabet when you CHOOSE to live in another country?

Obviously, some more details of the story would be important to know..

When I watch TRT-þeþ, I see qwx on the screen. So they can use those letters for Kurdish.

This is about having citizenship names in Turkey.

Say the Turkish community in UK started to cry "we cannot use Turkish letters in UK we need to be able to use them in our names. English alphabet should include those letters for us".

I guess there would no problem for Brits in adding çýðöþü in their alphabet if they started to complain for something like that, right?

I am not defending the proposed theory, I just thought that maybe you misunderstood the point. The difference is that Turks who live in the UK, they moved there by their free will, understanding that they have to adjust to the norms and traditions of that country. But, when the language reform was done in Turkey, Kurds had lived there already, they were part of the population, and their needs should have been taken into consideration, otherwise, it is called oppression of the minority by the majority.

As I said.. I would need to know more details about this in order to judge this for myself. Different aspects of the story could change the justifications of it.

How about American Indians? I am sure they have a language that requires some different letters. What if they demand a new alphabet be designed for them and ask for the extra letters to be included in American alphabet so as to be used their names? Shouldn´t be any problem, I guess.

What happened to American Indians is an utmost barbarism, they were completely exterminated, and those who were left, were put into reservations, like animals. They are the poorest group in the US, worse of then African Americans, and few people care about their plight, mainly because they don´t have a political lobby, like African Americans do. Their language, culture, land, families were all destroyed... it´s a tragedy.

Oh yes, they were left out because Turks hate kurds and want to drive them mad. That`s the level of shallowness of kurdophiles.

Same applies to hungaro slovakians in slovakia, even they are being fined if they speak their language  as far as i know, this is valid for some Baltic countries such as Estonia as well. Besides for instance in Bulgaria or Greece they write your names with their alphabet though it is not latin alphabet they use. Shortly every country has its own official alphabet and it is used  officially.

So what would my name (say Çaðrý Özgüç) be with Greek letters? I don´t think Greek alphabet has these Turkish specific letters. So how do the Turkish minority deal with it? Was there any complain (or demand like Kurds do today) for adding Turkish specific letters in Greece?

 I don´t know about the UK, but I do know about my country. Yes, you can demand (!!) to use Turkish letters on official documents as passports, birth certificates etc. I know people whose name is: Özuberk, Böyukünlü, Çiçek etc.

 Does this apply to all languages or just latin alphabets, I mean can one use arabic, hebrew, persian, japanese, chinese etc etc  alphabets ? !!!!  I strongly doubt, the situation would be so confusing

I assume they have Holand citizenship, right? and you don´t have those letters in your alphabet?

And I think there are some claims by Turks about it as this link reports.

Well I doubt they will be quite harsh in the UK either, considering they opened welsh assembly, they use their own language, their own names etc..

UK is one of the countries in the world sorted these problems ´very elegantly´.

I can think UK as an example for Turkey the way they handle the different groups and multi nationalism.. 

I think in Turkey, there is still this law that you can go to jail if you use those letters in writing!! 

(How primitive it is as a law and imagine how enthusiastically nationalists  would interpret that law!!) 

It is great how some countries have more than one official language and this does not cause major conflict, example switzerland, belgium.

May be if aramaic , pheonician  or even turkish  is used instead of arabic and hebrew it would ease some tension in the middle east

Well obviously, there was a serious Turkification about everything  at the time..

I am not sure if there was a deliberate  thinking ´ah lets deny these Kurds from these 3 letters in the alphabet´  But I am not going to be surprised if there was any!!!

Because the same people prepared "sark islahat plani"  in 1925!!!

But  yes..

The writer of this article is saying that "Turkish bureaucracy denied the Kurds of Turkey the ability to use these three letters in their native tongue "..

And Dogu Ergil, the writer, is a professor in political science.. 

But I dont think it is that important.

What we know that people were put into jail because of use of their language  and use of these letters (from the original article):

"But strict laws and even stricter interpretations of them have put many people in prison and had them tortured for years on end just because they insisted in using them. The ban was taken to such extremes that invitations or holiday greeting cards issued by Kurdish mayors became subjects of prosecution or even their sacking (as was the case with the mayor of Diyarbakir´s Sur district)."

I would also ask my Turkish friends about the seriousness of how these letters were decided upon..

There is a laugable story about how letter Q was managed to get away without being  put into alphabet. (If Ataturk knew how to write capital Q, we would have had Q apparently)

Anyway the problem is that there are people living in Turkey and they are not Turk..

They are Kurds..

If we are at the position of accepting the idea ´we have kurds in Turkey´, if we are opening Kurdish TV  channels, if we are talking about Kurdish sections in universities, then  we have no alternative..

You can not do these things without those letters!! That is the bottom line..

And also, comparing Kurds as refugees in the West is not a nice thing..

It shows people´s  level of understanding of this problem!! (No wonder why we lost 70.000 people in last 30 years!!)

These people are not refugees in Turkey...

They are the citizens of Turkey!!!

This is simply nationalists mental blockage to think that ´ah we give these things more to come and it is our loss´..

Well it is not!! 

 They have not all Dutch citizenship, some have a 5-year visa. We don´t have these letters in our alphabet/language though we use sometimes loanwords from France (ç ) or Germany (ü ) who have. The þ, ð, ý and ö can be demanded as well, I don´t know if they exist in other languages.

 It only applies to the Latin alphabet, simply because we can´t read others. Sure, most of us don´t know Turkish but even with a bad pronunciation we can say names and we can write them. That´s not the case with the other types of alphabet, so sorry for those people....

In Poland you cannot register a name with letters that the Polish alphabet doesn´t have. Thus if, say, your name has ö it will most likely be recorded as oe. It´s the same in Ireland - they cannot record characters specific to the Polish alphabet so instead of Ł they´ll put L, A instead of Ą.

I don´t think minorities whose language is not an official language of the country they live in should be able to register names with the letters the official alphabet lacks. However, they should have the right to have their own press and media in their own language.

is  ö the same thing as oe? ok than we have the same thing in Turkey too, for example if your name has ph it will be recorded as f. see they are the same things!

I am not sure considering Kurds as minorities will be right thing to do..Minorities and their  rights  were mentioned in Treaty of Lausanne.

Kurds are not mentioned over there for example..

Apart from everything, those letter are being used in daily life anyway..

If we are able to do write George Washington as George Washington not as “Vasington”, why should not we show the same flexibility to our own people?

It is all in mental blockage of nationalists..Not in daily life..

We normally use f instead of ph but in most cases we keep the original name as long as there are no funny characters

The H - can you really write Vaþington? Wow! In Polish we write Washington but read it with v, not w. In Czech they have this cute rule to apply feminine endings to female names - thus listening to the news you get Steffi Graffova, Nicole Kidmanova etc

I don´t know..I think I would be offended if registering in another country and they didn´t spell my name correctly... What´s the big deal really?  Do you know how many ways you can spell Lori here in the states...what if you were told sorry we will only accept this way!

you don`t accept my name as it`s written in Turkish in America. Should I be offended?

it is really rideculous,languages differ,have different letters and sounds.Isn´t it rideculous to demand proper spelling in case of  foreign names of which there are no equivalents in country´s alphabet?Try to imagine spelling Chinese or Japanese ones in Latin way.

Kurds are not foreigners of Turkey..

Because ´some Turks see them as foreigners´ was  part of the reason why we had the kurdish problem in the first place..

 I have never met a Turk who claimed Kurds are foreigners.On the contrary those I met called them brothers and sisters and had large circle of Kurdish friends.

All I met wanted to leave in peace and bring up their kids for better future,ready to forget differences and harm.

Now there´s a debate over adding these three letters to the alphabet. What will we hear next?

If they are not added, it means that you do not accept the Kurdish existence.

Why do not just the letters stay in their own alphabet? Kurdish can be taught at schools with their own alphabet if that is what is wanted. You do not change your alphabet when you teach english at schools.

I think this has become the new strategy to get what you want. Demanding something extreme to get the thing that is below the extreme as degree (and the thing you really want). It´s really an efficient technique talking from my personal experience.

 They will to0 accept Hassovanni!  And yes you should be offended!

The next thing they will want is to change the name of the country to Kurdistan. Because it`s a crime of humanity to force the Kurds to live  in a country whose name is not Kurdistan.

wish that was the only thing that offends me in America. It`s not so difficult to live with that.

I think your ignorance stems really from your hatred, because some crucial facts have been explained too many times for any half brained person to get it. I think you have NO right to complain about American nationalists, because your behavior is the exact Turkish equivalent.

I don`t remember anyone wanting Americans to change their alphabet to better suit their language. actually, even an imbecile  could figure out the difference.

I dont think so Mltm..

I dont think it is a great deal to add those letters to the alphabet..

As I said, we are already using those letters in our lives anyway..

It only matters to a few nationalists Turk really.. I still insist that it is a mantel blockage!!

Otherwise you can not logically explain why some of our OWN citizen´s wish to use those letters should make people jump and down with childish furry..

As if the alphabet we use is a pure Turkish invention and adding those 3 letters will take that Turkish invention from us.. As if it is an alphabet we inherited from our ancestors!!

It is really comical!!!

Pfffffff

Once more!!!!

The topic is

Some letters being missing from Turkish alphabet, how they went missing in the first place, why the other Turkish speaking countries accepted those letters and we do not, why we are unable to rectify it and why on earth some people would not object abd mind the name Brunswick when writing  and not changing it to Brunsvik but would object to its own citizen having a name ´Walet´ .!!!

 That´s because the Romans had already perfected it for us.

It´s a complex issue. A nation´s language (and consequently its notation) are part of heritage and culture. Turkish notation as we know it today is a relatively new thing. I think it would be wrong to force a language to include sounds that are not typical for this language, I might be a bit biased though because of my love of linguistics

Adding "Kurdish" letters to an already existing perfect system of notation would be an unnecessary action corrupting Turkish.

it is another issue, however, whether to recognise minority´s right to use their system of notation while registering birth etc. Since the discussed letters already exist on all keyboards used in Turkey, it might be a nice gesture on behalf of the Turkish government to allow Kurds celebrate their ethnicity officially. On the other hand, all minorities might demand similar decision for their systems of notation...

 I think it is another topic to disscuss.

http://www.washington.emb.mfa.gov.tr/

It is not the matter of flexibility.Daily life and official documents are different things.

I think that allowing Kurdish citizens of Turkey to use the Kurdish alphabet when registering their names is a separate topic from adding the Q, W and X letters to the Turkish alphabet, I think allowing Kurdish-origin citizens to use the Kurdish alphabet is reasonable, however, I don´t think those letters should be incorporated to the Turkish Alphabet, they are not necessary.

In Spain, since Catalan is an official language in Catalonia together with Spanish, Catalan names can be used and sometimes they use the grave accent (`) which is never used in Spanish, or the l·l combination, which doesn´t exist in Spanish either, those are allowed in ID cards, but nobody except the stupid Catalan nationalists would even think of adding those diacritics to the Spanish alphabet.

So I´m open to the idea of letting Kurds, who are Turkish citizens too, use the Kurdish alphabet in their names, after all they can use Q, W and X in TRT-6, but including those unneeded characters in the Turkish alphabet just to please the Kurds would be a very bad idea in my opinion.

FWIW....it seems to me it would only confuse things. 

As an example; Spanish is the largest non Anglo group in the US, and they have the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to fall back on regarding linguistic issues, however there are none of the extra Spanish letters in official USA documents.  This results in people pronouncing names in a unintended manner. 

If a Turkish citizen comes to the US there is no allowance for any of the special Turkish letters on official documents...........nor are there Japanese letters...and on and on...no Arabic....no Mandarin....In areas with large concentrations of a particular ethnic group, you may see signs written in multiple languages....but still, official documents remain in English.

Turkey has a national language, as do most countries.  The effect of a national language, and of course alphabet, is to simplify things so as to allow everyone to communicate with each other.

I think you are simply confusing Turkish citizens coming to USA and Some Turkish citizen LIVING IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY... 

Any of Turkish citizens should be able to register their names without anybody telling them off or without being put into jails..

This problem is as simple as that..

Why should idea of  ´pleasing Kurds is not a good idea´? 

We are talking about the ´basic human rights here´..right? 

Which Kurd do you think will think of separation? A Kurd who who thinks his language is not free to use/he is turned down at registry offices /living with the idea that he might be prosecuted because of those 3 letters in their names  or a Kurd who thinks that his language and his culture being respected after years of forced assimilation? 

Adding those 3 silly letters to the Turkish alphabet, which doesn´t need them would just make the Kurdish nationalists feel emboldened because of their ´victory´ allowing Kurds to use the Kurdish alphabet, a separate alphabet for a separate language, which already uses those letters is more reasonable, but if they see they can impose their reivindications on the rest of the country, and can even force everyone in Turkey to use an alphabet modified to cater to the Kurds,they will become like the Catalan or Basque nationalists in Spain, who expect (and often get away with that) the rest of the country to indulge their every whim.

But since you live in Commie La-la Land where everyone is good and people like the DTP are just well-meaning representatives of  ´oppressed´  peoples who would never feel emboldened by a perceived victory, I don´t think you see their aims are far from good, and that rather than just equal rights, they want to have their own Kurdish autonomic region where they can discriminate against other Turkish citizens who happen to be of  non-Kurdish origin, just as Catalan and Basque ´autonomous´ governments do in Spain.

Seriously, sometimes it seems you don´t live in the real world.

You dont feel that Catalan and Basque regions have a point? 

Alphabet is a system of symbols..

It is not that important..Less than 100 years ago we took a different alphabet ..We replaced it completely I mean.. Adding a few letters is not worth to argue.

We, TURK will NOT lose anything at all..We will gain!!

Since you see Kurdish people´s (and their parties) aims very well and align yourself with the fascist of my country there are no words for me to say really....

Good luck with your political preferences!!  

You have diagnosed Turkeys problems in a very short time I must say!!  

No they don´t, they have the same rights as everyone in Spain, but they just want more, so they demanded, and got, public schools paid by everyone´s taxes, where they teach 90% of the time in Catalan or Basque, they have got hospitals where all informative materials may be written only in Catalan or Basque.

That last thing I saw it personally in Barcelona, all brochures about preventing some diseases were written only in Catalan, while I am not Spanish, I can empathize with a Spanish citizen who would feel insulted by something like that,  even if a native Spanish speaker can read Catalan competently (knowledge of French helps), a Spanish citizen should not be expected to take time trying to decipher something written in his own country because the government there is a bunch of dorks who feel so ´different´ that they enjoy rubbing it on everybody else´s face.

But I guess something like that situation would make DTP mayors really happy.

 Wales is part of the UK, but if I visit wales I expect to see signs/posters/brochures to be written in Welsh not English.  Why do Spanish have more rights? 

You have simply no idea what "multi culturalism or multi ethnicity " is. 

Not giving equal rights to other ethnicities always but always goes badly:  Either you have to break them, which what we have been doing all those years with Kurds, or they will simply leave in the end. 

But we Turks and Kurds want to live together and we will live together..

The only problem is the nationalists who are having mental blockage..

But even they are begining to realize the situation..

Look at the government´s Kurdish initive ? Look how it was supported by the people!!

People want peace after 70.000 deaths..

@handsom, I understand that it´s a reflex for every leftist to scream ´fascist´ at someone who happens to disagree with them, but I am by no means a fascist, I am not advocating banning the use of Kurdish, or closing TRT-6 down am I?

And I have seen well what people in Spain with the same ideas as the DTP have done, and how they support the Basque terrorist group ETA while pretending to ´reject´ violence, people who try to speak Kurdish in the Turkish parliament, fully knowing that most of their colleagues aren´t going to understand a thing, people who call Öcalan ´leader of the Kurds´, thereby insulting millions of Kurds who have nothing to do with terrorism, and dance around the issue of stepping to the front and saying that yes, PKK are a band of murderers and terrorists, and denouncing their irrational violence, are certainly not too democratic or peace-loving themselves, actually, last time I checked, fascism made a point of stressing ethnicity and glorifying it, so maybe you´re aiming at the wrong target.

I would expect to see signs/posters/brochures in BOTH English and Welsh, read my post again, I complained about brochures being in Catalan ONLY.

I have nothing against the use of Catalan, Basque or Galician in government materials or signage, same for the use of Welsh in Wales, but they should always use the common language of the country as well.

Same for Turkey, I would support the Health Ministry printing bilingual Turkish/Kurdish brochures in Diyarbakýr as example, but not monolingual Kurdish materials of any sort.

 Dont go to Wales then   There are many road/information signs in Welsh only - and rightly so....

It was not a reflex at all..It was just an answer to your comment ab0ut lala land..

I do not think you have enough knowledge about the subject.. You do not know the history of the problem but however, ´you not knowing them is not preventing´ you to comment on the issue..

I would recommend you to read more about the subject before side lining yourself  with the ideology which resulted in 70.000 people´s death!!!

But however, of course, you are a free person and I would respect any ideas as long as my ideas are respected..

I would be extra cautious about trashing aside  people and groups as terrorists..

You should really check abit more about the politics..

First of all..Most of the KURDS supporting Apo..

They, Kurds voted the party DTP which publicly supports PKK.. Almost every single Kurd will say to you that ´they would be still at the state of -THERE ARE NO KURDS but mountain TURKS only-´ if there was not PKK..

Do you know that Ocalan is the person who can stop all these?

do you know that Turkish state is being negotiating with him for a long time? 

...And rightly so...Sad, very sad, I´m sure Welsh people who don´t speak too much Welsh, or visitors from other parts of the UK are very appreciative of Welsh-only signage.

@handsom...I won´t waste more time with you on this subject, I may not know as much facts and details as you do, but calling a terrorist leader by an affectionate nickname is just appalling  I´m sure families of people who died and still die to the PKK´s bombs, including people who are no part of the Turkish security force and therefore not "military objectives" also call that madman "Apo" affectionately when they remember they lost their friends or relatives to a random terrorist bomb.

No grievance some  Kurds may feel gives them the right to place bombs or spring mines on unsuspecting people, but maybe I am a "fascist" because I denounce their insanity and violence instead of sitting down trying to "understand the other" or some other claptrap that is maybe good when you´re dealing with deputies in the parliament, NOT cold-blooded psychopaths like the PKK.

I don´t care about the details and whatnot, when someone starts a terrorist group like the PKK, all that is needed to know is that they are more than willing to kill innocent people to avenge whatever thing they are trying to avenge, or to get whatever political gains they seek, and people like that deserve no affectionate nicknames.

And I like your open-mindedness when you accuse me of siding with the ideology that caused 70.000 deaths, typical only "fascism" can be responsible of deaths, because the PKK´s "revolutionary nationalist socialism" (hint, mix up nationalism and socialism and see what you get) is not responsible of anything, only the big bad fascism of some racist Turkish ultranationalists (which I don´t like) can bring about death, the Soviet or Cuban-inspired violent ideology of PKK is responsible for absolutely no problems...next time you will tell me that all 70.000 deaths were poor innocent Kurdish babies killed by big bad Turkish fascists.

As far as I know welsh people are quite happy and I dont think they will ever take arms for banning their language or Brits  trying to assimilate them..

Actually UK is a great example how these problems can be sorted ´elegantly´ without killing each other.. 

Well..Calling Ocalan as Apo is not calling him with affectionate nickname. I am telling you..You are jumping easily into band wagon without even knowing that much about the subject and NOW you are trying to say something that it will make sense purely Turkish context.. Apo  is not an affectionate nickname at all.. Everybody uses it in Turkey..So what?

Do you see yourself that you are assuming something a Turk has said  in Turkish context and accusing the Turk?

Come on..I can understand and respect you not knowing the details and the history of this conflict but trying to come on me with your assumptions in Turkish is not excusable!!

I dont care about the people and what they say if those people not even know how many people died in that conflict, how many of them got killed with the army bullets, how many of them were Kurds Turks etc..

Do you know those values? do you know the details of that70.000? do you know that 17.000 people gone missing?!!

Anyway..I think you should stop this ´ah I know this much I dont know this I dont know that but blah blah ´ type of arguments..

 We should ban the Welsh Assembly though!

It´s not only for making it possible to have names with personal names with qxw in them but also to have place names with those letters which is even more important. This is an EU project. (EU have already compiled the old place names in Black Sea region which will follow this one. You can be sure EU will come up with demands for changing the place names in that region after they make Turkey change this one) Current  laws don´t make it possible to have qxw letters for Kurdish names (people/place). We will see how the current political party at power will handle it. Probably they will find a way but how?

In the Netherlands we have two official languages, Dutch and Frisian. Frisian is the language of the province Friesland, in the north of my country, and outside that province hardly anyone understands it (I certainly don´t). It means that all official papers from the local government are not only written in Dutch but also in Frisian. Street signs with place names have first - in big letters - the Frisian name and below it - in smaller letters - the Dutch version. So far I have never heard of anyone complaining that these two languages go together. Wouldn´t that be an option?

No, I am not counfused, perhaps you are...as you seem to have missed this important and central part of the post you chose to quote only a small part of....

"As an example; Spanish is the largest non Anglo group in the US, and they have the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to fall back on regarding linguistic issues, however there are none of the extra Spanish letters in official USA documents.  This results in people pronouncing names in a unintended manner."

.............these USA citizens are also in their own country...and have an agreement...a treaty!..then there are the Amerindians.....who have numerous languages....and treaties.

BTW............I have yet to meet a Turk who can actually pronounce W

Don´t be fooled thehandsom...we have made every reasonable accomodation and more for the spanish speaking...just go to an atm or look at any instructions with an appliance.  Heck, call their customer service number and you may need to ask for an interpreter yourself..

I am not fooled at all..I know how it works in western countries and I KNOW HOW IT WORKS IN MY OWN COUNTRY TOO..

Just go to the surgery round the corner from my home, a Turk can ask interpreter freely and the state has TO PROVIDE it..

That is what states do for the people, for their citizens.

That is what the sates are for. Right

...can´t every Turk who speaks English pronounce the W? Or am I not getting the real sound of the W

Not only W but  other sounds Q and X are ALREADY IN TURKISH DAILY LIFE...

It is just the mental blockage of some nationalists and chauvinits about the issue (as I mentioned at the beginning and the title of the thread   )..

I think people in Turkey needs well paid jobs... more than such bullshits... it is really irritating to see that people of my country are missing the main plot of my countries problem with dealing such nonsenses...

I am paying 1 lira for a bread... and all the retired people need to work to continue their lives... anything more should i count? This is the real problem of my country...

for q you can use "k with wovels", w you can use "double v" and x you have "k and s"...

our alphabet is enough for everything...if i am easily spelling and pronouncing arabic and persian words... i can do as well as for kurdish...

Bilingual signs would be a very good and fair solution, but I doubt neither the hardline Turkish nationalists nor their Kurdish counterparts who are every bit as prejudiced and racist as their Turkish counterparts (in spite of someone who seems to believe they are brave defenders of the poor and opressed and unable to hurt people or kittens) would accept that.

I bet that unless the law strictly mandates bilingual signs, local governments in the Kurdish regions would start doing what many Basque or Catalan nationalist local governments do, put signs only in the regional language which is understood only in their province (especially true of Basque since it has no relationship whatshowever with Spanish), much to the justified annoyance of the rest of the Spanish citizens.

you should stop opressing them and give the right to get education in their own language!

 They already get educated in the language they want! And in parts of Scotland they get educated in Celtic.......

Why dont you ask Turks around you if they will accept  what you are suggesting?

tell them that there will be sign posts with both Turkish and Kurdish..

Tell them some prints will be both in Turkish and Kurdish..See if they will accept that..

I can assure you, Kurds will accept that.. (Just 10 years ago speaking Kurdish was an offence which will put you in jail..in 1980s it would secure a torture..)

What is the percentage of those who get educated in Celtic compared to those educated in English? I bet less than 5%, right?

why only parts of Scotland? stop oppressing all the Irish and Welsh!

we are not talking about ATM`s here. when will you stop oppressing the American Natives and Blacks and give them the right to get education in their own language?

%5 or not. At least you can not accuse the UK as a country oppresing some of its citizens..

Luckily not any more, at least not inside the country. I think they´ve done enough damage all over the world.

how come you can say that when they still oppress the Irish in the country?

I didn´t know there is a language for, as you call them, Blacks...

Double place names sound like a good idea, In Poland we have some villages with double names - Polish and German (although German minority is smaller than Kurdish in Turkey). The legislation process was simple - a public vote in each place German minority wanted to have double names. In some they won the vote, in others they didn´t. No big deal...

they can chose whatever subsaharan dialect they want. there isn`t a single language called Kurdish either. It`s basically Iranian.

Actually..

I was trying to explain in other threads. As a country we do not accept that Kurds are minorities.

Infact, We always denied that Kurds were minority..

Minorities are jews, greeks and armenians only (or at least Turkey treats only those 3 groups as minority).

When you are accepted as a minority you get serious rights!! Your language, your religion are being protected by the laws..

Kurds have never been considered as minority legely!!

If it was, it could have been easier and people´s mentality would be ready for giving ´this type of rights as  their basic rights´

 And also, apart from the definition of monitorities in Turkey, the perception of minorities is completely different when you compare Turkey and EU..

In a nutshell, in EU anybody who is not majority is considered as minority..And simply they try to treat these people who are not in majority as majority.

It means whatever the majority has as their rights, monorities will have the same rights!!

Providing the education in minority  language is one of their rights for example.

Because citizens who blong to the minority group must  have  the same rights as the  majority.

yes we can. it`s the same sound as "v". just because some indo european idiots have came up with totally nonesense letters it doesn`t mean they are all distinct sounds.

The Turkish alphabet is perfect in terms of assigning only one definite sound to each single letter, and there is definitely no need to pollute it. 

in fact, if you`ve ever studied the phonetic alphabet you will notice that the Turkish alphabet is almost the same as the phonetic alphabet.

Apart from the fact that famous mental racist blockage, there is a missing (historical) knowledge as well..

The alphabet is not ours.. I mean it is not a kind of thing we Turks invented it..

In the end, we took it from someone else!!!

So ´ah, our language is getting contaminated is a bit of rubbish´

One of the letters is Q for example..

And Turkish K makes ´ka´ sound (which is taken from arabic ´Kaf )´ We do not have a sound ´ke´, ´ki´ or ´kü´ for example..

That is part of the reason why we Turks will NOT loose anything at all..

In the end, the alphabet is just a symbol..If necessary you change it (as we did less than 100 years ago).

This is not an alphabet problem basically. Changing  our alphabet is not worth arguing. It should have been a very simply thing to do but the problem is the mentality here 

it`s true that some morons don`t even know what a "sound" means and they will even say that there is no the "sjkdgdejkdicfvmn" sound in the Turkish alphabet or argue that the Turkish alphabet is flawed because it doesn`t have certain Arabic sounds, but I can assure you that the Turkish alphabet suits the Turkish language perfectly. why it should include arabic sounds as well is beyond me. I don`t remember using an arabic sound speaking in Turkish before, if some people do, it`s not the problem of Turks.

I think you´re taking things too far, TheH, after all there is no need to change the Turkish notation. It works just fine for Turkish words and that´s all a notation should do. The language Kurds speak is not Turkish, is it? And since it´s not, why should the Turkish alphabet change?

Registering Kurdish names and double place names are a different issue and do not require changing the Turkish alphabet. I found it rather shocking that Kurds are not a recognised minority, after all, they are a pretty distinct ethnic group, aren´t they? I believe it´s enough if they are a recognised minority and then are treated like any other one.

the question is Do they want to be a minority? I hope this quote from the famous Kurdish fascist Musa Anter enlightens you;

"So we will get the arid lands of the south east while The Turks get Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara, the abundant lands of the west? We are not dumb, Istanbul will be ours too just like Ankara"

I think i should also note that this guy was also known as "ape Musa". That`s pretty self explanatory.

Well said Sui....+++++

and I agree 100%

  What i observed is, people are very disturbed about this initive issue, because people dont know anything about the contents, they are hiding it like a secret. So it was not supported by the people except the kurdish racists and the ones who are willing to advertise themselves, dont try to fool people here. I ask again what Kurds want from Turkish Republic rather than other ethnicities have.  Kurds have the right of being turkish citizen but they thrust this aside and they prefer to segregate that is Kurdish racism supported by imperialists of course, and because of this Turks gave begun to question the Kurds in every part of life for a few years, this increases the tension between Kurds and Turks.

In Turkey there are millions of people from different ethnicities living, none of them has problems except the Kurds who creates problem for themselves.  They can be parliamentarian even prime minister, Kurds too, so what is the problem? Why do Kurds always the only ethnicity used by colonial imperialists who cannot still digest the Turkish war of Independence.  Turks are witnessed lots of hypocrisy through past decades.  They had seen how Kurds tried to seek asylum in European countries by spreading lies like "We Kurds are being tortured, oppressed in Turkey, no equal opportunities for Kurds.". When the issue is complaining about Turkey in Europe they easily say they are Kurds, but when they are caught committing a crime, they proudly say they are Turks. While they are supporting terrorists freely in Europe, they can talk about democracy-human rights, what a terrible conflict is this.

Now lets talk about the truth, why other eyhnicities do not terrorize the country but Kurds? Why always we see Kurds dealing with illegal organizations such as terrorism, extortions, honor killings, drug smuggling, women trade, selling girls like goods? Why only Kurds are disturbed by being Turkish citizen? Why only kurds have inferiority complex? Why only Kurds request everything from state, why only Kurds accusing everyone except themselves rather than self-criticism? Why only Kurds spreading the lie of that they are being assimilated whereas we still see Kurdish people who do not know a single Turkish word?

For instance we have Turks with Arabic origin, who speaks Arabic in daily life at the same time they can speak Turkish very welll and no problem for them to be presented as Turkish. Kurds say they request education but they support the terrorist leader who killed teachers that sent to educate Kurds. Kurds say they want job but they support terrorists who are sabotaging the enterprises always. Kurds say they cannot learn their languages, state opened Kurdish courses which was closed because of phlegm.

Nobody ever said in Turkey to Kurds "you cannot do this job, you cannot enter this city.".  There are many Kurds among the richest people of Turkey. So what happened to their lie of "not having equal opportunity"?

But still these Kurdish fascists talking about democracy and human rights, i wonder where are those merits when they are stoning women and children? Where are those merits when they are attacking police with molotov-cocktails or when they are setting fire to buses, cars in Istanbul for example? They will realize human rights and democracy by killing people and causing terrorism, sorry but people do not believe these lies anymore.

Lastly if Kurds are still supporting these terrorist acts, they should first look at themselves. The ones who want justice and rights as they put forward, firstly should respect the people of Turkey and Turkey´s unity. People of Turkey never liked the pawns and i hope this hadnt been changed.

 So if akp is negotiating with terrorist leader, and i agree with you surprisingly , why do they hesitate to announce this and why are they denying the claims that they are negotiating?  One of the aim of terrorism in that is to make Turkish habitants escape from that region and they succeeded, very few Turkish citizens living there except Kurds. By the way as far as i know sympathizing with terrorist pkk is forbidden in this forum, is it not? Anyways, we got used to see those who are always talking about democracy and at the same time supporting terrorism, no problem for me.

It´s called creative trolling, I guess.

Creative trolling

The nature of trolling is to be disruptive, and one of the most disruptive things that can be done is to find new ways to cause trouble that are not quite against the rules. No matter how great your definition of trolling may be, a dedicated troll will find something you have not thought of yet.

This, then, is something of a catch-all category — if a user is being continually disruptive, and no amount of politeness, consensus, mediation, or anything else is reining them in, they are trolling. When a user, in a conflict of any sort, insists on the letter of a rule while grossly violating its spirit, this is often a sign of trolling.

Recognising Kurds as minority was very important topic during the negotiations of Lausanne treaty. The British delagate insisted on it much but finally Turkish side won because it was a give-and-take and in return British side managed to keep apart Mosul and Kirkuk from Turkish territory. They however didn´t forget it and they are still after it. Imperial powers didn´t like the Lausanne treaty at all. Because they failed on their plans on Anatolia badly.

I don´t think Kurds want to be a minority in Turkey. This is a EU project and they keep pushing on it for obvious reasons.

Well said, but try selling that to the DTP/PKK crowd, they are the same as Basque nationalists in Spain, they go around playing the victim and demanding everything from the State, and keep pushing Spanish outside the education system, so they can do a ´great´ service to their own people by making sure they struggle with the Spanish language questions in the university entry exams, but I´m sure a LOT of them would be proud of having the same in Turkey, schools in the Kurdish villages where the language is 90% Kurdish, making sure they youth find it harder to see even just the rest of their own country, but they can preserve all their traditions (including less savory ones like honor killings), and more importantly, keep voting for the racist ethnicity-based party...

Those guys are every bit as bigoted or worse as their counterparts on the other side, sadly there are some who just swallow all their lies because they have a cute red star and/or a ´socialist´ slogan in their rallies.

 I think you will Celtic is far more wide spread than you think and is spoken in Cornwall (a county in the south of England) Wales, Isle of Man (who also speak a language called Manx), Scotland and Ireland, plus Brittainy in France.  But that does not mean we provide translations in every day life as those areas mentioned above except Brittainy, would learn English as the first language although there are some parts in the Scottish Islands that are trying to re-introduce Celtic as their first language.

In Wales and England there are over one million Welsh speakers and much is provided in Welsh as well as English.  I know is the north of Wales, there is a strong nationalistic feeling and some people only speak Welsh.  We provide training courses in Welsh for Welsh speakers.

But then Great Britain is a bit different from Turkey, as we are know as the 4 nations, and each nation have some of their own laws or variations on English law and govern themselves to an extent.  As for Wales, they have their own parliament.  Scotland as you know from the recent release of the Lockerbie bomber also have their own regulatory body.

Because some Kurds are rich, it doesn´t mean that there is equal opportunity. Just because the major of one city in Rotterdam is Maroccan, doesn´t mean that people with Maroccan names get the same treatment when applying for a job interview through a letter.

The Kurds not being a minority was done on purpose, which one should know if you would study the history of Turkey. Calling a group of people with their own cultural expressions, their own language, and a distinct region from which they originated "mountain Turks" doesn´t make them ethnic Turks.

I also don´t think comparissons can be made with other countries. For example, the thing in the Netherlands with the double name signs works very well, but we have to be honest that the history of the Frisians and other Dutch has not been so complicated as the history in Turkey. An important aspect of the current day conflicts have to do with big wars, promises Ataturk made, alliances and such. Too long to mention on here, but people should really study history from every side possible, and then try to make up their mind.

I´ve spend too much time on reading up on the history of Kurds in Turkey, talking to people of every possible side, and it has left me confused an unable to make up my mind

+10000 

People should really study the history. Otherwise, there is no other way of understanding this conflict..

You should be a bit careful before accusing some parties and then accusing people living in Turkey..

Kurds are the ones here we Turks tried to assimilate since the beginning of republic. 

They are the ones their villages were destroyed; Kurds are the ones we Turks famously said ´there are no Kurds here..You are not mountain Turks´; Kurds are the ones here their language was denied..

17.000 Kurds gone missing for example!! (this value itself must be enough for any straight decision)

And you are still turning your head around and saying ´ah but they are supporting DTP´. Do you expect them to support CHP or MHP type of fascist nationalist parties?

Who do you think they will support?

can you seriously think that they would support parties that support the army, single nation idea  and no understanding what so ever about multi nationalism or the party whose members were jailed because they were fighting for  Kurdish people´s rights?  

Living under same flag and talking the same language by keeping our ethnical and cultural rights and specialities the best solution i think.But if aim is political benefits or a power fight,i´m afraid guns never will stop on this lovely country.And i think main mattter is to be a nation  with the ethnical and cultural diversities,we can name it ´´Türk´´ or ´´Türkiyeli´´.Our Kurdish siblings musn´t have any fear with this words to...

I think you should really read about how we negotiated in Lausanne !!

Some wordings for you: 

"We defended our arguments in Lausanne as ´we Turks and Kurds as a nation´ and then we got our arguments accepted"

Ismet Inönü

"Turkish goverment is a goverment belongs to Kurds as much as  it belongs to Turks; ...

Mustafa Kemal

Inonu used the words ´a nation as great as Kurdish nation´ in laousanna.

But a few years later, they prepared that sark islahat plani:     http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_29206

Just briefly really..

  What i observed is, people are very disturbed about this initive issue, because people dont know anything about the contents, they are hiding it like a secret. So it was not supported by the people except the kurdish racists and the ones who are willing to advertise themselves, dont try to fool people here. I ask again what Kurds want from Turkish Republic rather than other ethnicities have.  Kurds have the right of being turkish citizen but they thrust this aside and they prefer to segregate that is Kurdish racism supported by imperialists of course, and because of this Turks gave begun to question the Kurds in every part of life for a few years, this increases the tension between Kurds and Turks. 

 Kurds only want to be treated as Turks. They want to have same rights.. We talked about assimilation policies; what we have done to Kurds (denying their existance; language etc.)

So what Kurds want is not a valid question anymore!!

In Turkey there are millions of people from different ethnicities living, none of them has problems except the Kurds who creates problem for themselves.  They can be parliamentarian even prime minister, Kurds too, so what is the problem? Why do Kurds always the only ethnicity used by colonial imperialists who cannot still digest the Turkish war of Independence.  Turks are witnessed lots of hypocrisy through past decades.  They had seen how Kurds tried to seek asylum in European countries by spreading lies like "We Kurds are being tortured, oppressed in Turkey, no equal opportunities for Kurds.". When the issue is complaining about Turkey in Europe they easily say they are Kurds, but when they are caught committing a crime, they proudly say they are Turks. While they are supporting terrorists freely in Europe, they can talk about democracy-human rights, what a terrible conflict is this.

"Kurds are tortured and oppressed in Turkey" is not a lie. Check the EU human rights court´s decisions..Check how many time we as a country had to pay compansation!! 

Now lets talk about the truth, why other eyhnicities do not terrorize the country but Kurds? Why always we see Kurds dealing with illegal organizations such as terrorism, extortions, honor killings, drug smuggling, women trade, selling girls like goods? Why only Kurds are disturbed by being Turkish citizen? Why only kurds have inferiority complex? Why only Kurds request everything from state, why only Kurds accusing everyone except themselves rather than self-criticism? Why only Kurds spreading the lie of that they are being assimilated whereas we still see Kurdish people who do not know a single Turkish word?

Kurds living in medievil state suited very well into agenda..

We have been quite happy with them until they started to ask question about their identity or language.

If they did not, you would not care to talk about how underdeveloped they are..

For instance we have Turks with ...

But still these Kurdish fascists talking about democracy and human rights, i wonder where are those merits when they are stoning women and children? Where are those merits when they are attacking police with molotov-cocktails or when they are setting fire to buses, cars in Istanbul for example? They will realize human rights and democracy by killing people and causing terrorism, sorry but people do not believe these lies anymore.

That is still the case that Turkish fascist hate anything about the democracy.

They can not bear it.

.Because they dont want to hear or see their fascism or think that their ideas have been  the problem of Turkey..

Lastly if Kurds are still supporting these terrorist acts, they should first look at themselves. The ones who want justice and rights as they put forward, firstly should respect the people of Turkey and Turkey´s unity. People of Turkey never liked the pawns and i hope this hadnt been changed.

As the president said : ´We either solve this problem ourselves or somebody will solve it´.

In order to solve this problem we have to ´clean´ Turkish racists first and teach them that THEY ARE THE PROBLEM 

I agree with what you are saying.

But Mrx67 put your hand on your heart and tell me who opposes the word ´´Türkiyeli´ most?

Well.

That may look like I am taking the things too far..But however, there are people in Turkey and they think that adding those 3 letters is not a bad idea.

I dont care that much to be honest is they are included or not. I mentioned that alphabet is not that important..it should not be treated as ´ah it is a pure Turkish thing and it will be contaminated´.

Because, personally, I dont think it will be contaminated.. It is an alphabet..We adopted it less than 100 years ago..We  deliberately excluded some of the words. They could have been included at the time..they can be included now..

It is not a great deal!!  

But denying some Kurdish names is an important issue..

In the end, we do have a problem here: 

We have our citizens here..Some of them are having w, x in their names..

We have a citizen there and his name is ´welat´ for example

-He wants to register his name as welat.

What we are saying :

- ´NO you can not..Because we do not have W in our alphabet´

-Then why can not we add w into alphabet?

-No it will be contaminate our alphabet.

Well in the end, what do we do?

We do have a problem..

Check how many of these Turks posting here will accept that person´s right to register his name!!

TheH - exactly! The issue is not the alphabet but willingness of the Turkish government to recognise Kurds as minority/separate ethnical group and granting them the right to use their language, place names and proper names according to their own spelling as well as allowing them celebrate their holidays and practising customs that do not contradict the Turkish law.

This way, the Turkish alphabet would stay as it is and nobody would pointlessly tamper with it, Kurds would feel appreciated and the Turkish government would have something to prove that they want all citizens feel at home in their country. Assimilating doesn´t mean surpressing but rather granting rights within reasonable limits. A small gesture like allowing registering proper names and place names could be beneficial for both sides at a relatively small price

SAID, WERE DESTROYED, WAS DENIED...I see the past tense here, now I haven´t heard any news about villages being destroyed,  there is even a Kurdish-language tv channel now in Turkey, yet many Kurds who expressed their support were called ´Kurds of the State´ by the PKK shills known as DTP, the ones someone here thinks are some heroic band of Robin Hoods standing up for the oppressed.

How about if the Kurds showed some support to the AKP for giving them TRT-6, of course not, millions of them (but not all) preferred to vote for the racist ethnicity-based party who insulted fellow Kurds who showed support to the new tv station, but yes, I forgot the left´s usual double standard,  an ethnicicty-based nationalist party who doesn´t idolize Che Guevara, Öcalan or another violent ´liberator of the poor´ is a big bad fascist party, but when a party promotes an ethnicity-based nationalist program but identifies itself as ´left´,  it´s not racist or bigoted, how convenient.

I am not sure you are sure what you are talking about Ice..

I mentioned several times here  that I find Ocalan or Apo ´quite primitive´ and still surprised why he is that popular among the Kurds..

Please read a bit more about the subject..

The fact that he´s still popular amongst some Kurds should highlight the fact that racist fanatics dreaming of ethnically pure homelands  are not found only on the Turkish side, so they too should take a good look at themselves instead of just playing the victim.

If you consider Öcalan and his friends as primitive that´s good to hear, I completely agree with you on this, his ´thinking´ is just a relic from the 60´s when the Cuban example (and Soviet/Eastern European wasted money) set a bad precedent for terrorist groups springing up to take up the cause of every minority.

Well

I will keep telling you to read..If you have read, you would have seen that it has been long Ocalan decided NOT to demand for a pure homeland..

Apo or PKK are not asking for a separate country (that has been for a long time actually).

They want to live with Turks in the existing borders!!

So your argument is not valid!!

But, why do you think Ocalan is that popular among the Kurds?

Do you really think that "one morning", we suddenly decided that ´ah we were wrong to say that there are no kurds. Actually there are kurds and there is a language called Kurdish as well´?  

The main matter on this problem Kurdish side not to enough  genuine on their demands,and they never declared their demands  clearly  paragraph by paragraph till today by hiding behind democratical rights.Ýf  they want a definite&permanent solution they must be more genuine,otherwise this huge problem will take many innocent lifes...

Funny they would want that, considering they have not abandoned arms have they? I will believe PKK´s honest intentions when they decide to give up armed struggle, and surrender their weapons, as long as they are in arms, I will not believe in their good intentions.

yeah.

Good intentions are not enough

You should join hands

And raise ´em up

Handsom, you are trying to get rid of mosquitoes instead of drying the swamp.

The primary problem of the Kurds is to eliminate the feudal system in which they have been living their lives for thousands years. As some here know they still live in tribes that are called aþiret where one chief (aþiret reisi) resides with absolute authority over the tribe,often owning most of the land the aþiret live on. Only those who somehow moved the other parts of the country may have freedom and their own lands to operate. Unless the feudal system in the region eliminated, no problem will be solved. Do you think being able t0 use the letters q, w, x or having the road signs in kurdish makes sense to a people who are starving from hunger and demanding for food? Didn´t you see on TV the poor in Diyarbakýr crushing each other to reach the lorry on which the municipality gave bread for free? Do you think those 3 letters or any other stupid idea will fill their empty stomachs? An aþiret reisi driving Ferrari may need the road signs in Kurdish, but a poor maraba even with no donkey to ride never needs them. The key of the problem is the land reform.If you really want democracy for Kurds, you must start with land reform.The rest of the ideas are just a pile of rubbish.    

Good points scalpel.  You say people are starving but when you take a closer look at the number of average children in a family (one husband and more than one wife is not something uncommon), isn´t it a paradox? How can they have so many children if they are starving?

This problem is typical in poor families around the world. Probably because of the lack of money for contraception and no sexual education. It´s a vicious circle

Poor families and and 10 to 15 children with 2 to 5 wives? Is it typical everywhere?

 Paradoxes are everywhere yet we tend to ignore them.The answer to your question is statistics.It is a well-known also curious fact that the poor have more children than wealthy.Just because most of the famillies in south-west Anatolia have many children doesn´t mean they are not starving.You can find many sad stories here and there about it.They will tell you a lot about the paradox.

Since PKK is a socialist organisation mainly based on marxist theory,since Kurdish people are religious Apo is not so popular among Kurds. By saying popular if you mean he is a well-known figure, he is popular among Turks also.Find below some of the municipality elections statistics  2009:

Diyarbakýr - DTP 65.6% - AKP 31.3%

Þanlýurfa - SP 44% -AKP 39.3% - DTP 10.5%

Þýrnak -DTP 53.7% - AKP 42.6%

Hakkari - DTP 80.2% - AKP 15.1%

Mardin - AKP 45% - DTP 36.3%

Batman DTP 59.7% - AKP36.7%

and so on

Why all the Kurds didn´t vote for DTP? Any idea? The other thing is that at least 1/3 of the votes for DTP was just because of fear.PKK doesn´t ever allow people to vote freely and forces people to support DTP.Didn´t you know that?

They are the votes of religious order (tarikat oylarý). If you put them aside, they didn´t vote for any other Turkish party either (MHP,CHP etc).

What is the average in south-west and what is it in south-east? What is the average number of wives in south-west and what is it in south-east? I guess there should be huge a difference.

And can it be explained only by saying the poor have more children?

An additional information: Before the election Kurds fanatically supporting PKK  declared that the vote would serve as a kind of referendum on federation and they used all the possible tactics not regarding if it is an antidemocratic attitude to increase the vots for DTP. And the result didn´t at all make them happy.

Religion accounts for the number of wives, the number of children is justified by what I said earlier. 10-15 children with 2-5 wives makes almost the same percentage as 5-7 children with one wife

 If you reread my post a bit more carefully than you did first time,you will find the answer.I said Kurdish people are religious.Do you think MHP and CHP are good addresses for religious votes to go? Why would I put the religious votes aside when the main struggle now is between religious Kurds and PKK? I think you are confusing things.

If you search for the former elections, in 70´s for example, you will find CHP the strongest political party in Diyarbakýr.

 Do you really think this is the reason?  I know here in the states you can go to any plan parenthood facility and get contraceptives no matter what income level you are at.   In my opinion they keep having babies because the bigger their welfare checks & tax credits will be.   I understand that the poorest countries don´t have the resources, but how can mothers sit there and have kid after kid knowing they don´t have the ability to feed or provide for them.  That alone would make me keep my legs closed.

See - that´s the difference: in the USA you get benefits for children so people who have many of them might naively see it as a way of getting additional income. What else other than lack of money and sexual education can account for numerous children in poor countries? Besides, living in a society where a man can have more than one spouse usually means that women can´t just close their legs if >>the master<< feels horny. And do you think they really care about the welfare of their children in such families? I bet for them it´s just the way it always has been. And I´m sure their children will continue this tradition.

What else? Uhm...for example, lack of pension funds or other kinds of elderly care. In that case the only care you get is the care from your children when they grow up. More children, the bigger the chance is that you´ll be taken well care of when you´re older.

I would like to add that no amount of money will guarantee good care.

Below are a couple of cases of a lot of money, but little love.....

Doris Duke

Howard Hughes

 This is why I am extra nice to my kids! 

Hmmm you do have some smarts, even if you are a Texan...gdrvf

(Grinning, Ducking and Running Very Fast)