What was your experience living in Kurdistan with assimilation policies

[u/Money-Issue3022]

I’m currently writing an article about why the Kurdish language is so poetic especially in daily speaking.

My main argument is that the oppression of Kurds by the Iranian, Iraqi, Turkish and Syrian government forced Kurdish people to use poetry as a shield against linguistic erasure, weaponising metaphor for political resistance and articulating the trauma of loss and displacement where I will be writing about the halabja massacre, anfal and many more

I just want to ask
Those who grew up around assimilation policies or anywhere where your parents warned you to avoid speaking Kurdish or letting anyone know you’re Kurdish,

1. How did you learn Kurdish as a language?
   
2. What methods? What books?
   
3. Do you agree that Kurdish is poetic because of the years of oppression?
   
4. And lastly, what phrases or/and sayings did you grow up with that really highlights Kurdish poetry in daily speaking

[u/Mansur754]

I live in the KRG so i can't really answer for others but I've also wondered why kurdish sounds so poetic and I'm passionately waiting to read your article.

One of the sayings i grew up with was

ئەگەر دار کرمی لەخۆ نەبێ سەد ساڵی ئەژی.

If a tree does not contain a worm within itself, it'll live a hundred years.

This is about the constant kurdish movements for success but gets destroyed by internal conflict ( highlighting the dispute between political parties and their unequal ground leading to failure for kurds )

Sayings or phrases change depending on the city and whether the struggles of those places were more religious or not because we also have religious sayings like

عەرەب بە دەستەچی شمشێری وێیە و بەدەستەچی قوران، ئەگەر زەلیل بوو قورانی بریند ئەکات و ئەگەر بەهێز بوو شمشێر.

The Arabs with one hand hold the Quran and the other a sword, whenever they get oppressed they'll raise the Quran but if they gain power they'll raise the sword.

This directly summarizes the current situation in rojava, the Arab tribes under the SDF were preaching coexistence and islmaic brotherhood ( raising the Quran ) but now they're picking up weapons and attacking kurds ( raising the sword after they gained power ).

[u/Ashamed_Bumblebee750 → u/Mansur754]

The first one is one of my favorites and my mom always quotes it lol. At one point, I told her to tell me all these and I am gonna write it down.

[u/Mansur754 → u/Ashamed_Bumblebee750]

Well don't leave us hanging, share them with us.