NEWS CENTER - Panels were held in Van and Urfa as part of the 21st February Mother Tongue Day events. In the panel speeches, it was emphasized that if the language is not spoken, it would disappear and this would mean the disappearance of the people.

'LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT EXISTS TOGETHER'

Panelist Osman Özçelik started his speech by saying "Language and thought exists together". Özçelik said, "The absence of another means the disappearance of the other. Every nation has its own language. There is a common language spoken by the people living together. But every nation is known by its own language. The existence of a language is also the existence of a nation. For this reason, we say that we exist with our language. It is no longer enough to talk at home on the street to keep our tongue alive. We must develop and strengthen our language in education, science and art."

'LET'S RAISE THE CHILDREN WITH KURDISH'

Kurdish writer Adar Jiyan said that what a human being needs after the birth is first the milk, and second the language to communicate. Drawing attention to the assimilation policies that Kurdish language has been exposed to, Jiyan stated that the first way to learn Kurdish is the mothers who speak with their children in Kurdish.

'NO LANGUAGE IS SUPERIOR TO ANOTHER'

Writer Samî Hêzil emphasized that Kurdish should be spoken not only in a symbolic day, but every day and in all areas of life. Expressing that no language is superior to any other language, Hêzil said, “It is not right to hold a language superior to another language through political discourses. All languages are important. And for the Kurdish, we should note that it has been passed down from generation to generation for centuries until today."