Ben 10 Alien Force | Kurdish

: Fans have created montages featuring Kurdish text and localized credits in the opening sequences. Technical and Voice Work

When a Kurdish child heard "Ez Ben Tennyson im... û ev Omnitrix e" (I am Ben Tennyson... and this is the Omnitrix), they weren't listening to an American hero. They were listening to a Kurdish hero. In a world where the Kurdish language is often erased from official media, Hêza Biyanî remains a fortress of memory.

In the English version, Ben (voiced by Yuri Lowenthal) was a confident, slightly arrogant teenager. In the Kurdish version (specifically the Kurmanji dialect spoken in Bakur and Başûr), the voice actor chose to make Ben sound like a local hero—someone you would find in a bazaar in Erbil or a village in Duhok.

If you are a fan, an archivist, or a linguist, consider contributing to the preservation of these dubs. They represent a grassroots media movement – rough, unpolished, but full of heart. And for millions of Kurdish millennials, Ben 10 didn’t speak English. He spoke Kurmanji. He fought the Highbreed from a village near Duhok. And he will always be their hero.

In Kurdish culture, children often gather at a "rich uncle's" house because he had satellite TV. The memory of ten kids huddled around a 21-inch CRT TV, passing around bags of tirşo (sour candy), watching Ben turn into Dengê Dojeh (Echo Echo) is a shared nostalgia.