In his autobiography My Memories, assassinated Kurdish writer Musa Anter (1920-1992) relates a story from 1956 when he owned and ran a restaurant in Istanbul frequented by prominent figures, including former Turkish Foreign Minister Numan Menemencioglu.

After the two men had built trust, Menemencioglu told Anter about a meeting between former Turkish President Ismet Inonu, his US counterpart Roosevelt, and UK Prime Minister Churchill, during which the Western leaders were hoping to persuade Turkey to enter their alliance in the Second World War. 

After seeing Turkey’s reluctance, Churchill resorted to a well-prepared tactic: the Kurdish question. 

“Pasha, do you speak Kurdish?” asked Churchill. 

Inonu grew dismayed, and Menemencioglu jumped in to reply, “Your Excellency, there is no such language and nation.”

Churchill’s accompanying delegates, however, were experts in oriental languages. “Sir, is that so?’ Churchill asked one of them, “There is no such language called Kurdish?”

The man stood up and said, “There is indeed such a language, and it has a rich literature. I can read a piece of Malaye Jaziri’s poems if you like.”

Before that moment, the Turkish delegation had not heard that name. 

“Read it,” said Churchill, and the delegate read poetry that we did not understand, but we could discern a language resembling Persian with an interesting melody. 

“This is a Kurdish poem,” said the delegate. 

Churchill then asked him to write it down and translate it into English, French, and Turkish. “Let’s compare the translations,” he suggested. 

The group discovered no foreign words in the French translation, while the English version one had a few Latin-origin words. But the only Turkish words in the Turkish translation were ‘dır’ and ‘ile’ – the rest were Persian and Arabic with a few others borrowed from European languages. 

Trying to embarrass the Turkish delegation, Churchill put the translations in front of us. “See gentlemen,” he began. “This is the richness of the Kurdish language, the native language of a large number of people who you deny that they live in your country.’ 

“During my whole career as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I cannot recall any other day to be cornered like that day,” Menemencioglu recalled. 

Baker Schwani is a Kurdish writer and translator based in Germany. He has published several acclaimed novels into Kurdish. Schwani was born in Kirkuk and studied geology in Baghdad before moving to Germany and obtaining a degree in oriental studies at the University of Bonn.