Berkeley University offers Kurdish language course
LOS ANGELES, United States (Kurdistan24) – For the first time, the Kurdish language will be taught at one of the most prestigious American universities, University of California, Berkeley.
“Hûn bi xêr hatin Pola Kurdî ya Destpêker - Welcome to the Beginner Kurdish Course,” announced the Near Eastern Studies of UC Berkeley.
The course will introduce complete beginners to the Kurmanji-dialect of Kurdish, a language that is rarely taught in the United States.
Deniz Ekici, the language director for the University of Arizona’s new Kurdish Language and Culture Studies program in Diyarbakir, Turkey, will be teaching the course at Berkeley this fall.
Ekici is a former Visiting Professor at Middle Tennessee State University. He received his Ph.D. from the Centre for Kurdish Studies at the University of Exeter, UK.
“UC Berkeley has some funding for a pilot project involving Kurdish language and area studies. Within the framework of this pilot project, the university offered a Kurdish history, politics and culture class taught by Nicole Watts last year," Ekici told Kurdistan24.
"This year UCB want to follow up with Kurdish language courses for fall and spring semesters. Depending on their funding and interest they might continue offering Kurdish courses. I think this is a great accomplishment for the field of Kurdish studies and I hope more universities offer similar courses,” Ekici added.
He is the author of Beginning Kurmanji Kurdish DVD-Rom, University of Arizona Press (July 2009) and Kurmanji Kurdish Reader, Maryland: Dunwoody Press (February 2007).
The course will “introduce basic grammatical forms, essential frequent vocabulary and key aspects of pronunciation,” UC Berkeley announced.
“Participants of the course will have opportunities to practice communicating in Kurmanji-Kurdish in class on daily topics such as routines and activities, hobbies and habits and so forth,” the university added.
The course hopes to enable students to communicate on everyday topics in various social contexts.
Interested individuals can then progress to the “Beginners Kurdish 2” class in the Spring term.
Berkeley’s Near Eastern Studies Department, founded in 1894, is one of the oldest and most distinguished departments in the country.
The department offers both general instruction and specialized training in Archaeology, Art History, Assyriology, Egyptology, Iranian Studies, Judaic and Islamic Studies, Comparative Semitics, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish.
Reporting by Ava Homa
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany