Shafaq News- Al-Sulaymaniyah

The Kurdish language needs integration into digital platforms to keep pace with rapid technological change, a seminar in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region heard on Thursday.

Omar Hassan, who coordinated the “Kurdish Language Between Authenticity and the Technological Revolution” event at the Technical Institute in Kurdistan, told Shafaq News that participants examined barriers limiting Kurdish use online, calling for cooperation between academic institutions, government bodies, and media organizations to develop tools supporting the language in education and media.

Kurdish has been recognized as Iraq’s second official language since 2005, but implementation remains uneven outside Kurdish-majority areas, where enforcement is weak and teacher shortages persist. Linguists estimate Kurdish is spoken by 30 million to 40 million people across Turkiye, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, as well as in diaspora communities.

Read more: Forgotten language: Kurdish sidelined in Iraqi curriculum