Rumi work translated into Kurdish

Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi's epic work, the "Masnavi," will soon be published in Kurdish and Ottoman Turkish following translation work by the Konya Metropolitan Municipality Cultural and Social Affairs Department.

Rumi, a famous 13th-century Sufi from Central Asia who made Konya his home, wrote the original work in Persian. Since 2005, when translation works began, it has been published in 23 languages. The book was recently translated into Azeri and will now be published in Ottoman Turkish and the Kurmanci dialect of Kurdish, which is spoken by most of Turkey's Kurds.

Alphabet will be Latinized

Translated into Kurdish by Iranian Kurdish intellectual Molla Ahmet ?erefhan, the "Masnevi" will be Latinized by the municipality and put on the market in the coming months.

Konya Mayor Tahir Akyürek said works were continuing to translate the work into various languages.  He said the book was being translated into 10 languages at the moment and that their goal was to translate it into 50 languages.