The First Pahlavi's Language Policies in Kurdistan and its Implications (With an Emphasis on Schools)

The first Pahlavi intellectuals saw national unity as a prelude to the country's political integration and a solution to reduce ethnic conflicts and local riots. From their point of view, the realization of this meant eliminating all differences in the way of life, clothing, language, and so on. Meanwhile, the tendency and interest of all Iranian ethnic groups in Persian language and the historical role of this language in national unity had made the development of this language as one of the main pillars of the policy of unification. To this end and in order to achieve national unity, the government sought to promote the development of educational institutions, the recruitment of non-native teachers and the ban on the use of local languages and dialects to promote a single language. But the use of imposed methods, the involvement of institutions such as the army, the prohibition on using the Kurdish language and attempting to undermine it on the long-standing interest of the Kurds, and negatively impacted Persian language and literature, and provided a platform for increasing ethnic inclinations. The study of the aims, process and consequences of the language policies of Pahlavi government in Kurdistan, based on the documents, is the main focus of this study.