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In:World Englishes in their Local Multilingual Ecologies
Edited by Peter Siemund, Gardy Stein and Manuela Vida-Mannl
[Hamburg Studies on Linguistic Diversity 9] 2025
► pp. 190–206

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Chapter 9
English in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Historical background, new status, and future implications

 | University of Hamburg
 | University of Kurdistan HewlêrErbil
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 24 April 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/hsld.9.09pau
Abstract
This article aims to give an account of the language situation in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), with a focus on the use and position of English within the KRI’s linguistic ecology. As an autonomous region, the KRI tries to navigate its way through a volatile time in a politically instable area. It has to cope with constraints and pressure from the Iraqi government, and from neighboring countries like Turkey and Iran. The KRI’s cultural and language policies, and the development of the linguistic situation, can only be understood against the overall political situation, with its specific historical background. The article contains also a state of the art about English in the KRI, which is only about to emerge as a field, and a series of interviews with educational experts and policy makers, on the linguistic situation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The historical background
  • 3.The present times
  • 4.State of the art
  • 5.The linguistic situation: A historical overview
  • 6.Current status of English in the KRI
  • Appendix: Interviews with educational experts and policy makers
  • Notes
  • References
  • Theses
References (23)
References
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Theses
Ahmed, Yaseen Shamsaddin. 2021. EMI in Kurdistan’s Basic Schools: Motives, Quality of Education, and Attitudes. M.A. thesis, University of Kurdistan Hewlêr, Erbil.
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Fateh, I. 2022. Multilingualism and the Place of English in the Linguistic Landscape of Erbil: A Comparative Study of Language Use on the Signs of the Two Socio-economically Diverse Commercial Streets. M.A. thesis. University of Kurdistan Hewlêr, Erbil.
Mustafa, Baydaa Mohammed Saeed. 2023. An Empirical Intergenerational Study of Language Choice and Language Attitudes among the Kurdish Population in the Multilingual Governorate of Duhok. P.h.D.dissertation, Universität Bamberg.
Rahman, Jihad Shwan. 2021. The Policy of EMI from the Perspective of Lecturers at an HEI in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: A Case Study. M.A. thesis. University of Kurdistan Hewlêr, Erbil.
Saeid, Moslih Aowni. 2014. Two Varieties of Kurdish in Competition: The Problematic of Modelling a Language of Instruction in Iraqi Kurdistan. P.h.D.dissertation, Universität Wien.
Sofi-Karim, Mahdi. 2015. English Language Teaching in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. M.A. thesis University of Kurdistan Hewlêr, Erbil.
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