EVERY DICTIONARY REPRESENTS A CIVILIZATION

A person's existence and identity depend on the language he has. Self-expression and inclusion in a community can be achieved through language. However, the phenomenon of language not only causes conflicts and rebellions, especially in non-state societies, but is also used as a tool of exploitation. For this reason, a real, pluralist and solutionist democracy must be structured in order for the languages that have only taken place on archaic grounds and are on the verge of extinction to continue their existence. One of the languages that is ignored and subjected to various pressures is Kurdish.

Languages are like living organisms; they develop and become fertile as they are used in a free environment. Since the Kurdish language is one of the oldest languages of history and civilization, it has been able to preserve its existence by resisting all prohibitions and policies of destruction. In this sense, linguistic studies are of great importance. Linguistic studies are fields that require discipline and large-scale research.

There are very few people working in this field. Ali Husein Kerim, who has been living in Romania for many years,'s new book, Kurdish Etymological Dictionary (Comparative), published in May 2019, can be considered one of the important works in this sense. Ali Husein Kerim is one of the intellectuals who continues his work passionately despite all the fractures, exploitation and murder of the geography where he was born and proves his belief in the necessity of cultural struggle with his works. Oppressed societies must live with their own languages and cultures in order to maintain their existence and become liberated. Because a person who loses his connection with his mother tongue becomes alienated from himself, becomes an object and a thing instead of being a subject!

THE RESULT OF NOT RECEIVING EDUCATION IN THE NATIVE LANGUAGE IS LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL TRAUMA

The author refers to being late when positioning his field of study in terms of time as "The work I have done or am currently doing was done and is being done by intellectuals in other geographies tens or even hundreds of years ago." In addition, he says the following about the obstacles, distortion and exploitation of cultural studies in the Kurdistan geography: “Although such studies have been carried out with a delay in our geography, ultimately something that exists needs to be re-expressed and the doors of historical memory need to be reopened. The political, social and cultural developments in our country have become so complex that it is difficult to predict where and how things came from and to whom they belong. Because we have become alienated even from the things that belong to us. Our language and culture, like the name of our country, have been stolen, distorted and banned.” In fact, the problem of education lies at the heart of the view that summarizes the tragedy that most of us have witnessed in the past and today.

The result of not being able to receive education in the native language in the geography of Kurdistan is linguistic and cultural trauma. For this reason, bonds are established by holding tightly to the forbidden language that is under pressure, and respect for the true self finds its meaning in Kurdish names. Husein Kerim explains the way he follows the traces of human heritage as follows: 'Ibn Khaldun stated that 'Geography is destiny'. In such a situation, my evil fate was determined according to the geography of my broken, wounded and exhausted country. I, too, had to do something to 'rivet and unite the broken', 'treat the wounded', 'rest and strengthen the exhausted'. “I believed that it was necessary to put an end to the distortion that apples plus pears equals all quinces, and I started by tracing the words.” Husein Kerim, who traces human memory through words, continues to work against all the powers that crush the hope of society. He expresses his views on this subject with the following words: 'I realized that it is a very important - in fact the most important - point of liberation for our people. It is essential to be a people; "Just like the first step to freedom, it starts with freeing our language from captivity."

We know that the world's languages are not independent of each other and that they can survive as a result of their interactions with each other. On this subject, Husein Kerim said, 'When an etymological dictionary of any language is prepared, it is not enough to just know that language. All social combinations that enabled the emergence of that language also need to be investigated. Each dictionary represents a civilization. Etymological dictionaries investigate where and how that civilization emerged. In this case, it examines the interaction of languages with the question "Can we talk about languages being completely independent?" The author makes statements about the Kurds making significant progress in social, economic, cultural and intellectual fields, and gives some of the following words as examples:
nêçîrvan: hunter, şivan: shepherd,
bêrivan: milker cotkar: farmer,
hesinkar: blacksmith, karker: worker behremend:
talented, hunermend: artist,
dewlemend: rich

When the above words and their equivalents are carefully examined, we can see how the life of the Kurdish society, from art to farming, is included in the words. The examples given by the author are extremely important in terms of shedding light on many issues: ʺBecause they express the course of development of a civilization. Vocational words ending in –van belong to the hunting and shepherding period. Words ending in –kar/-ker express the transition to a settled life. Such words belong to the period of agriculture and mining. Those ending in -mend emphasize the period when cultural concentration, intellectual accumulation and capital accumulation began. These three groups of words above reflect the transition processes to civilization. That's why the author says, "Every dictionary represents a civilization." When we ask the author about the foundations of hope and happiness that enable his work to be continuous and that provide the basis for his work, we get the following answer: "The most obvious thing that provides the basis for my work is my perspective on life. What helped shape me spiritually were the lullabies my mother sang to my ears when I was a child. Those lullabies provide spiritual formation and contribute to the formation of a tribe, people or nation. Its impact on me was to deeply research the words that make up lullabies. Meanwhile, I forgot neither my mother nor myself and believed in the importance of the mother tongue.” The fact that the author is far from his country increases the difficulty of studying his own culture. He explains these difficulties as follows: “Living in another country causes three fundamental changes in people. First, you cannot break away from the past; Secondly, when learning a new language and culture, you compare it with the old one; Thirdly, you start researching the past in line with the experiences you have gained. In short, the most important asset of a people is their language and this should be investigated in every aspect. This is what I did. "It is a great honor for me if I have helped my people and human science even a little bit." It seems that the author is satisfied with the honor of being able to contribute to science and its people despite everything.