Making fun of the standard tongue: Enregisterment, social difference, and Kurdish language humor

Abstract

This article analyzes how humor around contrasts between standard and non-standard Northern, i.e., Kurmanji, Kurdish spoken in Turkey contributes to the enregisterment of standard Kurdish, arguing that Kurdish language jokes promote the recognition and, to different degrees, uptake of standardized linguistic repertoires among differently situated Kurdish audiences, while also promoting alternative ideological perspectives through which the contrasts between standard and non-standard language can be evaluated. In developing this analysis, the article also considers how Kurdish language humor functions to both reproduce widely circulating language ideologies and subvert them, inviting Kurdish audiences in contemporary Turkey and North Kurdistan to be reflexive about language and the ideological processes through which value is ascribed to it. It argues that for many Kurds in Turkey, Kurdish linguistic revival and national unity are premised less on the accomplishment of Kurdish linguistic uniformity and more on the ongoing recognition and valorization of linguistic and social differences; Kurdish standard language can function in ways that not only minimize but also draw attention to linguistic variation in socially consequential ways.