Nestled in the northwestern tip of Turkish Kurdistan are the Zaza people, often considered to be part of the Kurdish ethnicity. The Zazas speak their own language—Zazaki—found solely in eastern Turkey. However, the language is considered endangered in large part due to the decades-long political repression of the language. Nonetheless, more than half of Zazas identified Zazaki as their primary home language in a 2015 survey.
Finding high-quality Zazaki translation services isn’t easy. Most translation agencies aren’t willing to work with endangered and minority languages because they don’t offer a lot of profit, leaving languages like Zazaki without adequate translation resources. At TranslationServices.com, we’ve recognized this problem and have decided to form our own Zazaki translation team to provide the high-quality translation this minority language deserves.
Why not reach out to us today to ask for a quote for our Zazaki translation services?
Zazaki: Surviving decades of linguistic repression
Linguistic minorities in Turkey are no strangers to heavy-handed linguistic assimilation policies. A decades-long ban has slowly eroded away at the Zazaki speaker base, although more media and even a university department on the Zazaki language have come out since the ban was lifted in 1991. The number of Zazaki speakers is estimated at around 2 million, spread out across the eastern Turkish provinces of Sivas, Tunceli, Bingöl, Erzurum, Erzincan, Elazığ, Muş, Malatya, Adıyaman, and Diyarbakır.
Zazaki is grammatically similar to the Kurdish languages and is even sometimes considered a Kurdish dialect. It’s particularly close to Kurmanji. However, unlike most Kurdish languages (but like Kurmanji), Zazaki makes use of grammatical gender for all nouns. Gender influences the way nouns, accompanying adjectives, and any other modifier are declined. By default, nouns are considered definite (“the”) and can be made indefinite (“a”) with a suffix. Zazaki is also known as a split-ergativity language, where the verb agrees with the subject most of the time but agrees with the object in past and perfective sentences.
The many complicated aspects of Zazaki grammar make it a tricky language to translate—but it’s not hard for pros like the translators on our Zazaki translation team. Send us a message today to learn more!
We’re here to accommodate your every Zazaki translation need
Our translators are native Zazaki speakers who care about preserving their native language for future generations. This means they’re excited to tackle your Zazaki translation projects, whether that means translating to or from Zazaki. Projects translating from Zazaki could include historical documents or literary works that promote Zazaki culture, helping the world better understand this minority group. Conversely, you may be interested in translating into Zazaki if you’re doing research on this population or if you want to increase the amount of media, websites, literature, and other texts in Zazaki. Our team is prepared to take on both types of translation.
Providing high-quality Zazaki translations is the mandate of our translation team. Try sending us a message today so we can discuss how we can help you.