According to Kurdpress, despite the fact that millions of people in Turkey speak Kurdish, this language is still excluded from the education system, public services and digital infrastructure of this country. Now a new educational platform called "Kurdolingo" is trying to fill a part of this historical void; An initiative that, while teaching the Kurdish language, also deals with the issue of Kurdish language rights and digital inequality.

Jihad Ilbash, the founder of this platform, who has been working as a Kurdish language teacher and translator for more than thirteen years, says that the idea of ​​launching Cordolingo was formed directly from the real needs of the Kurdish community. According to him, the expansion of online education, especially after the Corona epidemic, made the severe lack of Kurdish educational resources more obvious.

Ilbash explained in an interview with Amarji media: "I could not send physical resources to my students who lived in different countries. That's why I had to produce my own digital content." He says that this process gradually led to the formation of a collection of educational pamphlets, dictionaries, audio files and Kurdish books.

Although the Kurdish language is still present in the daily life of a large part of Turkish Kurds, it faces serious limitations in areas such as education, media, and digital production. Immigration and urbanization have also fueled the reduction of the natural spaces of using this language; While the Turkish education system does not provide effective support for Kurdish education.

After the establishment of the Republic of Türkiye in 1923, the Kurdish language was removed from the public arena for decades. Its use in education and official communication was prohibited, and government policies practically stopped the growth and development of this language. Although some limited openings have been made in recent years, especially during the peace negotiations with the Kurds, Kurdish is still not recognized as an official language of education in Türkiye.

In the Turkish Constitution, Article 3 introduces Turkish as the only official language of the country, and Article 42 prohibits education in a mother tongue other than Turkish; An issue that is still considered one of the main obstacles to the officialization of the Kurdish language in education and public life.

As an internet platform, Cordolingo strives to provide a wide range of educational resources; From video and audio lessons to audiobooks, vocabulary exercises and various teaching tools in one space.

This platform also announced that it is developing tools based on artificial intelligence to translate between different Kurdish dialects, convert alphabets and generate sample sentences.

Ilbash says their main goal is not just to entertain the user: "Many apps just keep the user on the platform, but they don't really teach the language. Our goal is for the Kurdish language to enter everyday life."

The founder of Cordolingo emphasizes that the problem of the Kurdish language is not only educational, but this language also faces a kind of "data poverty" in the digital world; In the sense that there is not enough data and content for training artificial intelligence models and effective presence in the technology space.

He warns: "Kurdish language has not sufficiently benefited from the benefits of technology, and digital developments are mainly in favor of the dominant languages."

Studies related to "European linguistic equality" also show that many languages ​​are not sufficiently represented in the digital space, and this issue can deepen linguistic inequality. Since the majority of Internet content is produced in English, languages ​​such as Kurdish, which do not have institutional support, They are more exposed to cultural erosion and digital exclusion.

The data of the Samer Socio-Political Research Center also indicate a decrease in the daily use of the Kurdish language in Türkiye. This research, which was conducted with the participation of more than 1,500 people in Anatolia and Marmara regions, shows that Kurdish is mostly used in the home environment; So that 50% of the participants speak the Kermanji dialect at home, but about 60% use Turkish in the public environment.

Many people who have little ability to speak their mother tongue have cited the lack of educational facilities, language bans and interruption of language transmission between generations as the reason.

This trend is more intense among the younger generation. Although almost all participants wanted education in the mother tongue, many Kurdish parents said that they do not speak Kurdish to their children because of the dominance of Turkish in the society, their own weakness in Kurdish, or concerns about their children's academic problems.

Samer's report concludes that the public arena in Türkiye provides limited opportunities to use the mother tongue, and this issue has led to a decrease in the visibility of the Kurdish language in society.

Ilbash believes that simply increasing the number of people who "know" a language does not mean that the language is alive. He points to the experience of regions such as Catalonia and the Basque Country; where, despite extensive government support and formal education, everyday use of local languages ​​among the younger generation continues to decline.

In Catalonia, the influence of Spanish, English and digital networks has caused a decline in the daily use of the Catalan language, and in the Basque region, research centers are developing artificial intelligence tools to strengthen the digital presence of the Basque language.

In recent years, the issue of language rights has become one of the main axes of discussions related to the Kurdish peace process and the Turkish government. Supporters of reforms believe that sustainable peace in Türkiye will not be possible without recognizing the linguistic and cultural rights of Kurds in the law and in the public arena.

Although limited measures have been taken during different periods of peace negotiations, such as the establishment of Kurdish language departments in universities or the provision of an optional Kurdish course in schools, the guarantee of the rights to education in the mother tongue and the official use of the Kurdish language remains unresolved.

Platforms like Cordolingo create a new opportunity, especially for immigrant Kurds and generations with limited access to native language education, and can help strengthen the presence of the Kurdish language in the digital space.

However, even the project's founder emphasizes that digital solutions alone cannot solve structural inequalities. According to him, in order to preserve and expand the Kurdish language, the participation of cultural institutions, language centers and local administrations is necessary.

In a situation where the Kurdish language still has a limited place in official education, public services, and cultural productions, projects like Cordolingo, although they fill part of the existing void, still cannot replace the legal and institutional support of the Kurdish language.