Kurdish language

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Kurdish كوردی, Kurdî, К'ӧрди
Spoken in:	Turkey,  Iran,  Iraq,  Syria,  Armenia,  Lebanon, (see article for full list)
Region:	Middle East
Total speakers:	39,500,000(disputed)[1][2][3][4]
Ranking:	39 (disputed)
Language family:	Indo-European  Indo-Iranian   Iranian    Western Iranian     Northwestern Iranian      Kurdish
Writing system:	Kurdish alphabet (modified Arabic alphabet in Iraq and Iran, modified Latin alphabet in Turkey and Syria, modified Cyrillic in the former USSR)
Official status
Official language in:	Iraq (Kurdish Autonomous Region)  Iran - constitutional status as provincial language
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	ku
ISO 639-2:	kur
ISO 639-3:	variously: kur – Kurdish (generic) ckb – Central Kurdish kmr – Northern Kurdish sdh – Southern Kurdish
Areas where Kurdish is spoken as mother tongue
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The Kurdish language (Kurdish: Kurdî or کوردی) is a term used for the language spoken by Kurds. It is mainly concentrated in the parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.^[5] Kurdish belongs to the northwestern sub-group of the Iranian languages, which themselves belong to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. The most closely related languages to Kurdish are Balochi, Gileki and Talysh, all of which belong to the north-western branch of Iranian languages. Also related to Kurdish is the Persian language, which belongs to the south-western branch, especially the Lori and Bakhtiari dialects.

Contents 1 Origin and roots 2 History 3 Current status 4 Dialects 4.1 Sorani 4.2 Kurmanji 4.3 Kurmanji and Sorani 5 Indo-European linguistic comparison 6 Writing system 7 Phonology 7.1 Consonants 7.2 Vowels 8 Dictionaries 8.1 Kurdish-only dictionaries 8.2 Kurdish-English dictionaries 9 References 10 See also 11 External links 11.1 Religious texts 11.2 Kurdish broadcast programs

Origin and roots

From about the 10th century BC, Iranian tribes spread in the area now corresponding to Kurdistan, among them Medes, speakers of a Northwest Iranian dialect. Gradual linguistic assimilation of the various indigenous peoples to this Median language in the course of the Iron Age marks the beginning of Kurdish ethnogenesis.^[6] Some evidence of Hurrian influence on Kurdish is detected in its ergative grammatical structure.^[7] A linguistic group influential on Kurdish to a lesser degree was Aramaic. M. R. Izady (1993) identifies three-quarters of Kurdish clan names and roughly two-third of toponyms are as deriving from Hurrian,^[8] e.g., the names of the clans of Bukhti, Tirikan, Bazayni, Bakran and Mand; the rivers Murad, Balik and Khabur; Lake Van; the towns of Mardin, Ziwiya and Dinawarand Barzan.

History

Although Kurdish has a northwestern Iranian root, little is known about Kurdish in pre-Islamic times. The most notable language in this group is Median, of which little is known either. From the 15th to 17th centuries, classical Kurdish poets and writers developed a literary language. The most famous classical Kurdish poets from this period are Ali Hariri, Ahmad Khani, Malaye Jaziri and Faqi Tayran.

Current status

Today, Kurdish is an official language in Iraq, while it is banned in Syria where it is forbidden to publish material in Kurdish.^[9] Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish, prohibiting the language in education and broadcast media.^[10] Up to 2001, the use of Kurdish was still widely restricted by the Turkish government and singing in Kurdish was not allowed^[11].

The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q which do not exist in the Turkish alphabet has led to prosecution and harassment as recently as 2008. Over the past two years, numerous human rights activist and politicians all over southeastern Turkey, have been taken to court due to use of Kurdish, sometimes as minor as only a few words: sending a greeting card with the words happy new year in Kurdish, for example, or saying my dear sisters in a speech at a political rally. Such lawsuits have become so common that in some cases the accused is simply fined for using the letters W, X or Q — present in the Kurdish but not the Turkish alphabet — in an official capacity. In cases involving elected politicians, like Abdullah Demirbas (mayor of Sur, Diyarbakir's central district), the language usage is sometimes considered disloyalty and can carry a prison sentence^{[12][13] [14]}.

In Iran, though it is used in some local media and newspapers, it is forbidden in schools ^{[15] [16]}. As a result many Iranian Kurds have left for Iraqi Kurdistan where they can study in their native language^[17].

In March 2006, Turkey allowed private television channels to begin airing Kurdish language programming. However, the Turkish government said that they must avoid showing children's cartoons, or educational programs that teach the Kurdish language, and can only broadcast for 45 minutes a day or four hours a week. The programs must carry Turkish subtitles.^[18] Kurdish blogs have emerged in recent years as virtual fora where Kurdish-speaking Internet users can express themselves in their native Kurdish or in other languages. Kurdish satellite television is also available in the Middle East and Europe.

Dialects

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According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Kurdish has two main dialects: a northern and a central one. The central group, called Sorani, is spoken in west Iran and the central part of Iraqi Kurdistan. The northern dialect, Northern Kurmanji also commonly referred to simply as Kurmanji (and sometimes Bahdini), is spoken in northern half of Iraqi Kurdistan, Caucasus, Turkey, and Syria. ^[19]. Linguists often classify both dialects as part of the same Kurmanji branch (as well as the larger branch) of the Kurdish language.

A third group, the southern dialects (ironically are spoken in both Northern and Southern Kurdistan regions) are largely referred to by linguists as the Zaza-Gorani branch.^[20] While some scholars reject the classification of Zaza-Gorani as belonging to the Kurdish branch of Indo-Iranian languages as much of the words are from the same root and the grammatical stractures are the same as kurmanci and sorani. Even though there is evidence through a recent genetical research that Zazas indeed are Kurds[4], many Zaza-nationalists claim Zazas are a different people only based on linguistic differences. Such ideas can therefor be considered mainly political since no explanations and no proven facts are represented on the history and causes of the lingustic differences and how the linguistic differences conclude Zaza-Gorans are separate from Kurds. Furthermore, the Gorans of south Kurdistan and the majority of the Zaza population consider themselves as a part of the Kurdish people, the genetical test that was made also confirm the Zazas who were the subjects felt as they were Kurds. Another classification of Southern Kurdish dialects suggests as following: Kalhori, Feyli, Gurani and classifies these dialects as one branch of Kurdish language dialects.

Sorani

Main article: Sorani

Sorani is named after the Soran Emirate which ruled for more than six centuries until it was removed by Ottoman troops in 1835. Soranî is the central Dialect, it is spoken by the Majority of Kurds in Iraq and Iran. Sorani is written with the Arabic Alphabet. Sorani has official status in Iraq , and it is official language of the Kurdistan province of Iran. It is spoken by 10-15 million Kurds , majority of them in Iran and Iraq.

Kurmanji

Main article: Kurmanji

The main theory about the etymology of Kurmanji is that the term Kurmanji comes from Kurd+man+cî which means, those Kurds who remained in their places. In earler publicatons of this century, the term Kurmanji was sometimes spelled with a "d" like "Kurdmanji" but the standard spelling of the term is Kurmanji in English and Kurmancî in Kurdish. It is written with the Latin script. It is spoken by 15-20 million Kurds, majority of them in Turkey.

Kurmanji and Sorani

The use of the word "Kurdish" to describe the language or languages that Kurds speak may be the very cause of controversies regarding the differences among the dialects or languages. Outside of foreign conversation or literatures, the majority of Kurds use the name of the dialect they speak in order to describe their dialect or language, and sometimes even one another. The use of the word, Kurdish, by contrast, has been used more often to simply describe the ethnic identity of the Kurds reflecting the significant differences between the dialects or languages.

Some linguistic scholars assert that the term "Kurdish" has been extrinsically applied in describing the language the Kurds speak, while Kurds intuitively have used the word to simply describe their ethnic or national identity and refer to their language as Kurmanji, Sorani, Hewrami, or whatever other dialect or language they are native to. Some historians have noted that only until recent history have a small minority of Kurds who speak the Sorani dialect begun referring to their language as Kurdî, in addition to their identity, which is translated to simply mean Kurdish.^[21]

According to Philip Kreyenbroek (1992), it may also be misleading to call Northern Kurmanji and Sorani "dialects" because they are in some ways as different from one another as German and English.^[22] However, both dialects are widely accepted as part of a Kurmanji branch of languages spoken by Kurds.

Kurmanji or Northern Kurmanji is more archaic than the other dialects in both phonetic and morphological structure, and it is conjectured that the differences between central and northern dialects, have been caused by the proximity of central group to the other Iranian languages.^[23].

According to Encyclopaedia of Islam, although Kurdish is not a unified language, its many dialects are interrelated and at the same time distinguishable from other western Iranian languages. The same source classifies different Kurdish dialects as two main groups of northern and central. Northern group (Kurmanji) is spoken in Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Mosul and Bahdinan regions in Iraq and Kurdish communities in Khorasan (northeast of Iran). Central group (Sorani) is spoken in Arbil, Sulaimaniya, Kirkuk (all in Iraq), Mahabad and Sanandaj (in Iran). ^[23].

The reality is that the average Diyarbakir Kurmanji speaker will not find it easy to communicate with the inhabitants of Suleymania or Halabja.^[24] Another fact is that when a Sorani( Iranian Kurdistan and Iraqi Kurdistan ) and Bahdini( Turkish Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdistan ) Kurd get together in America, they have no choice but to speak English in order to communicate.^[25]

A potentially unified form, emerging either via natural or organised merger of Kurmanji and Sorani is humorously dubbed Soranji by Kurds.

A new term coined recently by Mehrdad Izady, a writer on Kurdish subjects is Pahlawani which tries to link the Iranian languages of Zaza-Gorani branch to Kurmanji and Sorani.[5] Zaza and Gorani are two languages from north-western Iranian branch and are distinct from Kurmanji and Sorani.^[26]

Indo-European linguistic comparison

Because Kurdish language is an Indo-European language, there are many words that are cognates in Kurdish and other Indo-European languages such as Avestan, Persian, Sanskrit, German, English, Norwegian, Latin and Greek. (Source: Altiranisches Wörterbuch (1904) for the first two and last six.)

Kurdish	Avestan	Persian	Sanskrit	Greek	English	German	Norwegian	Latin	Lithuanian	Russian	PIE
ez,min "I"	äzəm [ezìm]	mān	aham	egō	I (< OE ić)	ich	eg	ego	aš	ja (from old ES jazŭ, related to OCS azŭ)	*h₁eĝh₂om
lepik,dest "Hand"		dāst			(OE lōf "fillet, band")	(OHG lappo "palm (of the hand)")	lóve "palm (of the hand)"		lṓpa"paw, claw"	lápa	*tlāp-[6]
jin "woman"	ghenãnãmca [ghenâ] "woman"	zan	janay-	gynēka	queen	(OHG quena)	kvinne	femina	(OPruss. genna)	žená "wife"	*gʷenh₂-
leystin(bileyzim) "to play(I play)"			réjati	paizo	play	leich	leke		láigīti		*(e)lAig'- "to jump, to spring, to play"[7]
mezin "great"	maz-, mazant		mah(ī)-/mahānt-	megas	much (< OE mićil, myćil)	(OHG mihhil)	mykje "much"	magnus	milžinas "giant"	mogúčij "powerful", "mighty"	*meĝh₂- "big, great" [8]
mêzer "headband/turban"		mitrā- "god name"(Old Persian)	mitrah	mitra "headband, turban",	mitre "bishop's tall hat" - from Greek[9])	Mitra - from Greek	mitra - from Greek)			mir "world, peace"	*mei- "to tie" ([10], p38)
pez "sheep"	pasu- "sheep, goat"	boz	paśu "animal"		fee (< OE feoh "cattle")	Vieh "cattle"	fe "cattle"	pecus "cattle"	pekus "ox"	pastuh "shepherd"	*pek̂-u- "sheep"[11],[12]
çiya,kash "mountain"		kūh, chakād "peak/summit"	kakúd-, kakúbh- "peak/summit"				kinn "steep mountain side"	cacūmen			*kak-, *kakud- "top"[13] [14]
zîndu "alive" jiyan "to live"	gaêm [gaya]	zind[e] "alive", zî[stan] "to live", zaideh "child"	jīvati	zoi "life", zō "live"	quick	quick "bright"		vīvus "alive", vīvō "live", vīta "life"	gývas	žyznj "life", žyvój "living, alive"	*gʷih₃(u̯)-
[di][a]zan[im] "I know" zan[în] "to know"	zan-	[mi]dān[am] "I know", dān[estan] "to know"	jān[āti]	[gi]gnō[skō]	know	kennen	kjenne "to know (a person)	nō[scō], [co]gn[itus]	žin[au]"I know" žin[oti] "to know"	znatj "to know"	*ĝneh₃-

Writing system

Main article: Kurdish alphabet

The Kurdish language uses three different writing systems. In Iran and Iraq it is written using a modified version of the Arabic alphabet (and more recently, sometimes with the Latin alphabet in Iraqi Kurdistan). In Turkey and Syria, it is written using the Latin alphabet. As an example, see the following online news portal published in Iraqi Kurdistan. [15] Also see the VOA News site in Kurdish. [16] Kurdish in the former USSR is written with a modified Cyrillic alphabet. There is also a proposal for a unified international recognised Kurdish alphabet based on ISO-8859-1.^[27]

Phonology

According to the Kurdish Academy of Language, Kurdish has the following phonemes:

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Apical	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyn- geal	Glottal
Nasal	m		n			ŋ
Plosive	p b		t d			k g	q
Fricative		f v	s z	ʃ ʒ	ç	x ɣ		ħ ʕ	h
Affricate				ʧ ʤ
Lateral			l ɫ1
Flap			ɾ
Trill			r
Approximant		ʋ			j

1. Just as in many English dialects, the velarized lateral does not appear in the onset of a syllable.

Vowels

	front		central		back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
close	i	iː	ʉ		u	uː
mid	e	eː	ə		o
open			a

The vowel pairs /i/ and /iː/, /e/ and /eː/, and /u/ and /uː/ contrast in length and not quality. This distinction shows up in the writing system, for instance in the Kurdish Latin alphabet, short vowels are represented by o, u, i and e and long vowels have a circumflex ( ^ ), such as û, î and ê. Unlike Arabic, all vowels in Kurdish are mandatory and should be written down.

Dictionaries

Kurdish-only dictionaries

• Wîkîferheng (Kurdish Wiktionary)
• Husein Muhammed: Soranî Kurdish - Kurmancî Kurdish dictionary (2005)
• Khal, Sheikh Muhammad, Ferhengî Xal (Khal Dictionary), Kamarani Press, Sulaymaniya, 3 Volumes,

Vol. I, 1960, 380 p.

Vol. II, 1964, 388 p.

Vol. III, 1976, 511 p.

Kurdish-English dictionaries

• Rashid Karadaghi, The Azadi English-Kurdish Dictionary
• Chyet, Michael L., Kurdish Dictionary: Kurmanji-English, Yale Language Series, U.S., 2003 (896 pages) (see ^[28])
• Abdullah, S. and Alam, K., English-Kurdish (Sorani) and Kurdish (Sorani)-English Dictionary, Star Publications / Languages of the World Publications, India, 2004 ^[29]
• Awde, Nicholas, Kurdish-English/English-Kurdish Dictionary and Phrasebook, Hippocrene Books Inc., U.S., 2004 ^[30]
• Raman : English-Kurdish (Sorani) Dictionary, Pen Press Publishers Ltd, UK, 2003, (800 pages) ^[31]
• Saadallah, Salah, English-Kurdish Dictionary, Avesta/Paris Kurdish Institute, Istanbul, 2000, (1477 pages) ^[32]
• Amindarov, Aziz, Kurdish-English/English-Kurdish Dictionary, Hippocrene Books Inc., U.S., 1994 ^[33]
• Rizgar, Baran (M. F. Onen), Kurdish-English/English-Kurdish (Kurmancî Dictionary) UK, 1993, 400 p. + 70 illustrations ^[34]

References

See also

• List of countries by Kurdish-speaking population
• Kurdish grammar
• Kurdish literature
• Kurdish Institute of Paris
• Kurdish Institute of Istanbul
• Kurdistan
• List of Kurdish people
• Kurdish culture
• Kurmanji or Kurmanjī
• Northern Kurmanji or Bahdīnī

External links

• The Kurdish Institute of Paris - Language and Literature
• Kurdish Language and Linguistics
• Kurdish Institute of Istanbul
• SILAV Kurdistan
• KAL: The Kurdish Academy of Language
• Kurdish Language Academy in Iran
• Kurdish Kurdish links and language information, dictionary etc.
• Kurdish language at the Open Directory Project
• Online Kurdish-English Dictionary
• On-line Kurdish-English Dictionary
• Online English to Kurdish to English Dictionary (By Erdal Ronahî)
• Online Kurdish-German-Kurdish Dictionary
• Online Kurdish-English Ferheng Dictionary
• Online Turkish-Kurdish-Turkish Dictionary
• http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Linguistics-and-Philosophy/24-942Grammar-of-a-Less-Familiar-
• Comparison between alphabets used in Kurdish
• Jeunesse Kurde - Kurdish Youth Community (fr,kd,tr,en)

Religious texts

• Holy Bible in Kurdish
• New Testament in Soranî Kurdish, International Bible Society

Kurdish broadcast programs

• Voice of America, Kurdish Service
• Zayele, Radio Sweden
• SBS Radio's Kurdish Language Program, Australia
• "Evangeliums-Rundfunk of Germany" (ERF)- Christian Programs in Kurdish Kurmanji, Germany
• "Evangeliums-Rundfunk of Germany" (ERF)- Christian Programs in Kurdish Sorani, Germany
• KurdSat Broadcasting Ltd., Sulaimania, Iraqi Kurdistan
• Kurdistan TV, Iraqi Kurdistan
• Zagros TV , Satellite Channel, Iraqi Kurdistan
• Zimanê Kurdî - Kurdish language
• Tehran Kurdish Radio
• Roj TV Streaming of Kurdish TV

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