ABSTRACT
One major effect of the family's migration to Istanbul has been the vastly increased independence of the family's daughters, and the tensions this has engendered between Faruk agabey, his oldest son and able but unwilling lieutenant in domestic matters Seyhmus, and the two girls. Kurdish in compensation has Kubra making up new Kurdish words while translating from English. Living languages incorporate new words with their associated range of contested meanings, which both allow the elucidation of new practices and choke off the unproblematic continuation of the old. The ban on Kurdish has locked the language out of this process, ambivalent as it may be. Faruk agabey's assent to Kurdish nationalism's deconstruction of the founding myths of the Turkish Republic is perhaps summed up best by his decision to buy a satellite-sensitive antenna specifically to pick up the broadcast from England of the Kurdish Workers Party's illegal television channel, Med TV.
