The Relationship of City-Individual in Zazaki Literature: Missing Bodies, Narrowing Roads, Expanding Imagination

Abstract

According to UNESCO'S language report (Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger), Zazaki/ Zazaish, Turkey's third most spoken language, is endangered.The Zaza language is shown as one of 2,500 languages that are endangered on the 40th page of the report. It is extremely important to produce literary works in this language in order for the language to survive. Authors who write works in Zazaki are aware of the importance of their work. When the authors create content, they attach great importance to village life, where Zazaki is spoken in its pure form. Villages, with their isolated structures, maintain homogeneity of language and culture by ensuring continuity between generations. On the other hand, cities don't have pure languages and cultures because of their heterogeneous structures. The city phenomenon is often portrayed negatively in Zazaki literature such that some of the works have characters afraid of the word city. In some works written in Zazaki, there are many negative adjectives for cities, such as cemetery, hole, and curse. People keep a distance from the city because of marginalization, cultural difference, linguistic adaptation, and income inequality between classes. The biggest source of consolation for the individuals who struggle with the city is to return to the old, happy days they lived in their villages through dreams. In this study, we will focus on the city-individual relationship through the novels, poetry, and stories written in Zazaki. We will attempt to analyze the aforementioned relationship through cultural, economic, and linguistic factors.