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ARBIL, Iraq, May 27 (AFP) - 5h40 - Most Kurdish
students in northern Iraq learn English as a second
language these days, alarmingly for a country whose
official language remains Arabic and where fear of
Kurdish separatism still runs deep.
As Kurdish former rebel leaders test the limits of
their hard-won influence in the new Iraq, some say
that even traditional Muslim prayers must be said in
Kurdish, and that speaking Arabic is out-dated and
out of touch.
"Certain extremists would like to say prayers in
Kurdish," said Salam Khoshnaw, a professor at
Salaheddin University who speaks perfect Arabic.
"Others, even more radical, dare to say that Arabs
sent their language to us on the humps of camels,
and we must return it to them in a Mercedes."
It's not necessarily the students' fault that they
don't learn Arabic well -- following the 1991 Gulf
war when Western intervention established a Kurdish
safe haven in Iraq's three far-northern provinces,
many schools and universities switched their
teaching to Kurdish.
Salaheddin University students learn in Kurdish,
Arabic or English as do teenagers at Arbil high
school.
"Our 1,442 students study in their own language and
don't know Arabic these days," said Hany Kader
Khoder, 42, the high school director.
No longer bound by the rules of Saddam Hussein's
ousted Arab nationalist regime, high school teachers
now hold lessons for four or five hours per week in
Kurdish and Arabic, one hour less in English, Khoder
said.
"Arabic became a third language for us," the
principal told AFP. "The pupils prefer English,
because, to them, Arabic is the language of
oppression and the atrocities of the former regime.
For adults, however, the language issue is a
paradox.
The Kurds' historic failure to establish insitutions
to promote their cultural identity means there is no
single recognized standard form of their language.
All four principal dialects of Kurdish, none of them
readily intercomprehensible, are spoken within
Iraq's borders and the differences between the two
most widely spoken -- Kurmanji and Sorani -- lie at
the root of the continuing division between the two
main Iraqi Kurdish factions.
As a result many Kurds use Arabic as a lingua franca
to communicate with members of their own ethnic
group from other parts of the country.
Teachers complain that even though students are
learning the language of Mohammed, their speaking
ability is often poor.
"No high school student can claim to express himself
correctly at baccalaureate time," said Abdullah
Yassin, an Arabic professor at Salaheddin University
for 11 years.
"They have 73 students per class and the textbooks
stress grammar to the detriment of conversation,"
said the 35-year-old teacher.
The switch to Kurdish as a teaching medium has gone
hand in hand with a radical rewriting of history and
geography books from Saddam's time, said Sabah Aram,
55, an education official in the Kurdish regional
administration.
"Before, the books did not mention Kurdistan.
Students knew the history and the geography of all
other Arab countries but not their own," Aram said.
"From now on, students first study their native
area, then Iraq, and finally, the rest of the
world."
Authorities in Baghdad still recognize a high-school
baccalaureate from northern Iraq, teachers said.
"We were in conflict with the Arabs for 1,400 years.
Their language was the language of torture," said
Ali Mahmoud Jukil, a senior faculty member in
languages at Salaheddin University.
"English, on the other hand, is the universal
language of modernity."
Of the students enrolled at Salaheddin, 999 study in
English, 555 study in Kurdish and only 359 study in
Arabic.
"Those who study in Arabic do so because they did
not have good enough grades in the baccalaureate to
study in English, or for religious reasons," said
Taher Mustafa, 42, who is one of only four Arabic
language lecturers at the university.
"They might want to understand the Koran, or to work
as intermediaries between Kurdish northern Iraq and
the rest of the country," said Mustafa.
Khoshnaw said intellectuals must push to keep the
Arabic language alive.
"We certainly suffered from Saddam Hussein but as
intellectuals we must fight against this state of
mind and explain why it is necessary to work within
an Arabic environment," Khoshnaw said.
AFP
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