The play ‘Mountain Language’ by Harold Pinter revolves around the minority people of Kurd who hail from the Mountain region, whose language has been forbidden. The conflict between Turkey and the Kurds has been ongoing for a long time. It became worse towards the end of the First World War, following the signing of Treaty of Versailles. It handed rights to the Turkish government to rule over the Kurds. The situation got out of hand, following the decree by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, which outlawed all the non-Turkish activities, their language included.
The repression of the Kurdish language has led to imprisonment of people. The repressive regime does not want to hear anyone talking the mountain language. In the prison, the officer in charge keeps reminding the women that their language is dead and forbidden. Even in the prison, they are prohibited from speaking Kurd with their men. They are reminded that their language is forbidden, and they are supposed to speak language of the capital. Otherwise, they will be punished. In view of the afore-mentioned incidences, it is obvious that authority is determined to oppress people in a bid to forget their language. As is often the case, language is inherent and it is hard to make grown adults to forget the only language they have spoken in their entire life. For instance, one of the women tells the guard that she can only communicate in Kurd. In a bid to wipe out the Kurds, the oppressive Turkish regime banned their publications, organizations, schools and anything that was associated with them. They took away all their property and land. However, the attempt to oppress the language was an uphill task. Ironically, even after imprisoning the Kurdish men, their wives would visit them in prison and speak Kurdish language. No amount of intimidation is enough to make people forget their language.
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