The Kurdish language (Kurdish: Kurdî or کوردی) is a term used for a range of different dialects of an Iranian language spoken by Kurds. It is mainly concentrated in the parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

The Kurdish language belongs to the western 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.

The word, Kurdish, to describe the language that Kurds speak is not frequently used by the majority of Kurds outside of foreign conversations or literatures. The majority use the names of the dialects they speak in order to describe their language while using the term, Kurdish, to describe their ethnic identity. This also may reflect the significant differences between dialects or languages classified as Kurdish and the controversy of such classifications.

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. Some evidence of Hurrian influence on Kurdish is detected in its ergative grammatical structure. 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, e.g., the names of the clans of Bukhti, Tirikan, Bazayni, Bakran, Mand; rivers Murad, Balik and Khabur, lake Van; the towns of Mardin, Ziwiya, Dinawar and 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. The sacred book of the Yazidis, Mishefa Reş (Black Book) was written in Kurmanji Kurdish by Shaikh Adi's son in early 13th century . 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. Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish, prohibiting the language in education and broadcast media. In Iran, though it is used in some local media and newspapers, it is forbidden in schools . As a result many Iranian Kurds have left for Iraqi Kurdistan where they can study in their native language.

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. 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 Kurdistan and Europe.

Dialects

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Kurdish has two main dialects: a northern and a central one. The northern dialect, Northern Kurmanji also frequently referred to simply as Kurmanji (and sometimes Bahdini), is spoken in northern half of Iraqi Kurdistan, Caucasus, Turkey, Syria and northwest of Iran. The central group, called Sorani, is spoken in west of Iran and central part of Iraqi Kurdistan. 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. 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. This term has no historical background or usage. Zaza and Gorani are two languages from north-western Iranian branch and are distinct from Kurmanji and Sorani.

Dialects or languages?

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.

Kurmanji and Sorani

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. 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..

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).

The reality is that the average Diyarbakir Kurmanji speaker will not find it easy to communicate with the inhabitants of Suleymania or Halabja. A further fact is that when the Kurds from Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq get together in America, they have no choice but to speak English in order to communicate.

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

A new term coined recently by Mehrdad Izady, a writer on Kurdish subjects is Pehlewani which tries to link the Iranian languages of Zaza-Gorani branch to Kurmanji and Sorani. This term has no hostorical background or usage. Zaza and Gorani are two languages from north-western Iranian branch and are distinct from Kurmanji and Sorani.

Indo-European linguistic comparison

Due to the fact that 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, Latin and Greek. (Source: Altiranisches Wörterbuch (1904) for the first two and last six.)

there are 7 dialects

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. Also see the VOA News site in Kurdish. 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.

Phonology

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

Consonants

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

Vowels

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 )

Abdullah, S. and Alam, K., English-Kurdish (Sorani) and Kurdish (Sorani)-English Dictionary, Star Publications / Languages of the World Publications, India, 2004

Awde, Nicholas, Kurdish-English/English-Kurdish (Kurmanci, Sorani and Zazaki) Dictionary and Phrasebook, Hippocrene Books Inc., U.S., 2004

Raman : English-Kurdish (Sorani) Dictionary, Pen Press Publishers Ltd, UK, 2003, (800 pages)

Saadallah, Salah, English-Kurdish Dictionary, Avesta/Paris Kurdish Institute, Istanbul, 2000, (1477 pages)

Amindarov, Aziz, Kurdish-English/English-Kurdish Dictionary, Hippocrene Books Inc., U.S., 1994

Rizgar, Baran (M. F. Onen), Kurdish-English/English-Kurdish (Kurmancî Dictionary) UK, 1993, 400 p. + 70 illustrations