Saying your “A, B, C’s” will be a lot less stressful soon in Turkey. In an effort to clamp down on the use of foreign languages, especially Kurdish, lawmakers had made it illegal to use the letters X, W and Q.
According to PRI.org, Turkey’s prime minister is now proposing to end the ban. The letters were originally banned from public usage in the 1990s because of their close association to the Kurdish language.
Kurds make up 20 percent of the nation and the minority has been fighting both a political civil rights campaign and a decades-long violent insurgency.
The letters are commonly used across the nation despite the official ban. But there have been several high-profile government attempts to enforce the ban.
PRI.org reports that the mayor of one of the nation’s cities was prosecuted in 2007 after sending out a greeting card celebrating the Kurdish New Year which contained the letter “w.”
The case was later dropped.
via Turkey may end ban on parts of the alphabet | www.ajc.com.