Hawar Alphabet
The Kurmanji dialect is written in an extended Latin alphabet, with 31 letters:
- Aa Bb Cc Çç Dd Ee Êê Ff Gg Hh Ii Îî Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq, Rr Ss Şş Tt Uu Ûû Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz
In this alphabet, the short vowels are ⟨e i u⟩ and the long vowels are ⟨a ê î o û⟩. (See the IPA equivalents in the table below.)
When presenting this alphabet in his magazine Hawar, Jeladet Ali Bedirkhan proposed using ⟨ḧ ẍ '⟩ for غ, ح, and ع, sounds which he judged to be "non-Kurdish" (see page 12,13). These three glyphs do not have the status of letter and serve to represent these sounds when they are indispensable to comprehension.
The Turkish state does not recognise this alphabet. Use of the letters ⟨q w x⟩, which do not exist in the Turkish alphabet, has led to persecution in 2000 and 2003 (see, p. 8, and ). Since September 2003, many Kurds have applied to the courts seeking to change their names to Kurdish ones written with the letters ⟨q w x⟩ but eventually failed.
Read more about this topic: Kurdish Alphabets
Famous quotes containing the word alphabet:
“I believe the alphabet is no longer considered an essential piece of equipment for traveling through life. In my day it was the keystone to knowledge. You learned the alphabet as you learned to count to ten, as you learned “Now I lay me” and the Lord’s Prayer and your father’s and mother’s name and address and telephone number, all in case you were lost.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)