Hassan Ghazi (1946)

Hassan Ghazi (Kurdish: Hesen Qazí, حه‌سه‌ن قازی) was born in the city of  Mahabad (Sablax) in Mukriyan Province. He was born in the residency of the president of Kurdistan Republic of 1946, Qazi Muhammad. Like many Kurdish intellectuals of his time he has been forced to spend most of his adult life in exile. His long life passion for linguistic research started early in his life when he collected Kurdish  ballads and words in Mukriyan villages and studied their etymological roots. In early 70s he was honoured to be one of few students of Kurdish legendary linguist T. Wehbi in London. He says “T. Wehbi was an amazing teacher. In his class everything was about “purity “of Kurdish language and deep studies of words and their etymological roots. He was very much concerned with Kurdish phonetics in his lectures, a subject which most of the students found difficult”.

H. Ghazi has published several dictionaries such as a Swedish-Kurdish dictionary compiled with Hiwa Cardoi. He also has managed to publish a few Swedish-Persian and Swedish – Kurdish Social and political terminology booklets . Hassan Ghazi have translated numerous information material from Swedish into Kurdish for the benefit of Kurdish refugees in Sweden. In 1993 he he managed to publish  a translation of the “A new approach to Grammar” by Dr Muhammad Reza Batini which mainly deals with Chomskiyan  Generative Grammar. He worked as a lecturer at  teacher training school in Stockholm  1986-1987. Ghazi  was a Kurdish expert for evaluating the Kurdish literature at Swedish  Cultural Council for 4 years .He has translated into Kurdish a great number of Professor Martin van Bruinessen’s (masterly) essays on Kurdish society from English into Kurdish and have published them in numerous Kurdish reviews in Europe. He has worked as program producer and presenter for couple of Kurdish satellite TV for many years. His program focused on the scholarly approach to Kurdish issue in particular on Sociology and linguistics. Among his famous interviews  were  the panel with Dr. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas the world renowned expert on bilingualism and linguistic Human rights, Prof. Amir Hassanpour, Prof. Martin van Bruinessen, Prof. Kemal Mezher Ahmad and  Iranian linguist and philosopher Dariush Ashuri (please view this program on Google video), just to name a few.

Hassan Ghazi have been a member of editorial board of several Kurdish journals. His translations contributed to several Kurdish coinages in Kurdish which are now popularly used in middle-Kurdish written language such as “Mangile” for satellite, “péshwecún ” for development  and “naséne” for  identity. Even the terms “Syd” and “Nord Kurdiska” ( Southern and Northern Kurdish) is his contribution to enhance Swedish vocabulary.

Hassan Ghazi is fluent in 5 languages namely Kurdish, Persian, Swedish, English and Turkish which has enabled him to translate more than 70 scholarly essays and articles related to different aspect of Kurdish issues from English, Swedish, Persian and Azerbaijani Turkish into Kurdish.

In Ghazi’s view many obstacles in Kurdish linguistic studies  particularly in Iraqi Kurdistan which Kurdish is recognized as one of the two official and state languages there is due to the lack of knowledge about sociolinguistics.

Right now he is working on a pictorial history of Kurdistan republic of 1946.

List of Publications (to be completed)

1. Zorbey zimane zínduwekan fire stendard u fire nawend in,  Rojhname No. 228, 26/05/2008
2. Yexirbun biyutuhum bi eydíhum, Rojname No.#,  14/04/2008
3. Pévajhoy stendard búní shéwazekan berdewame, Hawlatí No.423, 18/5/ 2008, p18
4. Swedish- Kurdish Social terminology, 1993
5. A New Approach to Grammar, 1993
6. Swedish-Kurdish Dictionary, co-author Hiwa Cardoi, 1992
7. Swedish-Persian Social terminology, 1992
8. Edited Kurdish phonetics by Dr.Kemal Foad, Arzan publishing House, Sweden, 1985

This biography was prepared by Dilan Roshani