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North Kurdish
Kurmanji ( ku, کورمانجی, lit=Kurdish, translit=Kurmancî, also termed Northern Kurdish, is the northern dialect of the Kurdish languages, spoken predominantly in southeast Turkey, northwest and northeast Iran, northern Iraq, northern Syria and the Caucasus and Khorasan regions. It is the most widely spoken form of Kurdish. The earliest textual record of Kurmanji Kurdish dates back to approximately the 16th century and many prominent Kurdish poets like Ehmedê Xanî (1650–1707) wrote in this dialect. Kurmanji Kurdish is also the common and ceremonial dialect of Yazidis. Their sacred book '' Mishefa Reş'' and all prayers are written and spoken in Kurmanji. Phonology Phonological features in Kurmanji include the distinction between aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops and the presence of facultative phonemes. For example, Kurmanji Kurdish distinguishes between aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops, which can be aspirated in all positions. Thus co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurdistan
Kurdistan ( ku, کوردستان ,Kurdistan ; lit. "land of the Kurds") or Greater Kurdistan is a roughly defined geo-cultural territory in Western Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, Kurdish languages, languages, and national identity have historically been based. Geographically, Kurdistan roughly encompasses the northwestern Zagros Mountains, Zagros and the eastern Taurus Mountains, Taurus mountain ranges. Kurdistan generally comprises the following four regions: southeastern Turkey (Turkish Kurdistan, Northern Kurdistan), northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan, Southern Kurdistan), northwestern Iran (Iranian Kurdistan, Eastern Kurdistan), and northern Syria (Syrian Kurdistan, Western Kurdistan). Some definitions also include parts of southern South Caucasus, Transcaucasia. Certain Kurdish nationalism, Kurdish nationalist organizations seek to create an independent nation state consisting of some or all of these areas with a Kurdish ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and one of the most prestigious and highly ranked universities in the world. The university is composed of ten academic faculties plus Harvard Radcliffe Institute. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate academic disciplines, and other faculties offer only graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three main campuses: the Cambridge campus centered on Harvard Yard; an adjoining campus immediately across Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area. Harvard's endowment is valued at $50.9 billion, making it the wealthiest academic institution in the world. Endowment inco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stop Consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips (, ), or glottis (). Plosives contrast with nasals, where the vocal tract is blocked but airflow continues through the nose, as in and , and with fricatives, where partial occlusion impedes but does not block airflow in the vocal tract. Terminology The terms ''stop, occlusive,'' and ''plosive'' are often used interchangeably. Linguists who distinguish them may not agree on the distinction being made. The terms refer to different features of the consonant. "Stop" refers to the airflow that is stopped. "Occlusive" refers to the articulation, which occludes (blocks) the vocal tract. "Plosive" refers to the release burst (plosion) of the consonant. Some object to the use of "plosive" for inaudibly released stops, which may then instead be ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unaspirated Consonant
In linguistics, a tenuis consonant ( or ) is an obstruent that is voiceless, unaspirated and unglottalized. In other words, it has the "plain" phonation of with a voice onset time close to zero (a zero-VOT consonant), as Spanish ''p, t, ch, k'' or English ''p, t, k'' after ''s'' (''spy, sty, sky''). For most languages, the distinction is relevant only for stops and affricates. However, a few languages have analogous series for fricatives. Mazahua, for example, has ejective, aspirated, and voiced fricatives alongside tenuis , parallel to stops alongside tenuis . Many click languages have tenuis click consonants alongside voiced, aspirated, and glottalized series. Transcription In transcription, tenuis consonants are not normally marked explicitly, and consonants written with voiceless IPA letters, such as , are typically assumed to be unaspirated and unglottalized unless otherwise indicated. However, aspiration is often left untranscribed if no contrast needs to be made, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aspirated Consonant
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. In English, aspirated consonants are allophones in complementary distribution with their unaspirated counterparts, but in some other languages, notably most South Asian languages (including Indian) and East Asian languages, the difference is contrastive. In dialects with aspiration, to feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say ''spin'' and then ''pin'' . One should either feel a puff of air or see a flicker of the candle flame with ''pin'' that one does not get with ''spin''. Transcription In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), aspirated consonants are written using the symbols for voiceless consonants followed by the aspiration modifier letter , a superscript form of the symbol for the voiceless glottal fricative . Fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yazidi Black Book
The ''Yazidi Black Book'' ( ku, Mishefa Reş) is one of two books written in the style of a holy book of the Yazidis in their native Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish) tongue, the other being the ''Yazidi Book of Revelation'' (). The authenticity of these two books has been questioned. Dr. Frederick Forbes visited Sinjar in 1838 and ascribed the authorship of the ''Yazidi Black Book'' to Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir. It is believed that the content of the ''Yazidi Black Book'' is a fusion of authentic Yazidi traditions and beliefs with Western forgeries. Content The book discusses cosmogony, the creation of humanity, history of the Yazidis and prohibitions in regard to food, deeds and pronunciation of words. The book begins with cosmogony and continues with how God created the white Pearl out of his most precious essence. He also created the bird Angar. God placed the white Pearl on the back of this bird, and he dwelt on it for forty thousand years.'''. The book moreover states that the fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yazidis
Yazidis or Yezidis (; ku, ئێزیدی, translit=Êzidî) are a Kurmanji-speaking Endogamy, endogamous minority group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The majority of Yazidis remaining in the Middle East today live in Iraq, primarily in the Governorates of Iraq, governorates of Nineveh Governorate, Nineveh and Duhok Governorate, Duhok. There is a disagreement among scholars and in Yazidi circles on whether the Yazidi people are a distinct ethnoreligious group or a religious sub-group of the Kurds, an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group. Yazidism is the ethnic religion of the Yazidi people and is Monotheism, monotheistic in nature, having roots in a Ancient Iranian religion, pre-Zoroastrian Iranic faith. Since the spread of Islam began with the early Muslim conquests of the 7th–8th centuries, Persecution of Yazidis, Yazidis have faced persecution by Arabs and later by Turkish people, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ehmedê Xanî
Ehmedê Xanî ( ku, ئەهمەدێ خانی , Ehmedê Xanî; 1650, Hakkari – 1707, Bayazid), was a Kurdish intellectual, scholar, mystic and poet who is considered the founder of Kurdish nationalism. He was born in the Hakkâri region in 1650 and died in Bayazid in 1707. The most important work of Xanî is ''Mem and Zin'' which is considered the national epic of Kurds. Other important works include ''Nûbiharan Biçûkan'' and ''Eqîdeya Îmanê.'' These works were studied in Kurdish schools from the time of Kani towards the 1930s. Xanî admired Melayê Cizîrî and Feqiyê Teyran. Joyce Blau called him the spiritual son of Cizîrî, Teyran and Ali Hariri. Biography Xanî was born in the village of Khan near Hakkari in 1650. Nationalism Xanî is considered the founder of Kurdish nationalism and supported an independent Kurdistan. In a mathnawi from 1694, he chose not to devote parts of the introduction to praise the rulers of his time, which was typical in class ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greater Khorasan
Greater Khorāsān,Dabeersiaghi, Commentary on Safarnâma-e Nâsir Khusraw, 6th Ed. Tehran, Zavvâr: 1375 (Solar Hijri Calendar) 235–236 or Khorāsān ( pal, Xwarāsān; fa, خراسان ), is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau between Western and Central Asia. The name ''Khorāsān'' is Persian and means "where the sun arrives from" or "the Eastern Province".Sykes, M. (1914). "Khorasan: The Eastern Province of Persia". ''Journal of the Royal Society of Arts'', 62(3196), 279-286.A compound of ''khwar'' (meaning "sun") and ''āsān'' (from ''āyān'', literally meaning "to come" or "coming" or "about to come"). Thus the name ''Khorasan'' (or ''Khorāyān'' ) means "sunrise", viz. " Orient, East"Humbach, Helmut, and Djelani Davari, "Nāmé Xorāsān", Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz; Persian translation by Djelani Davari, published in Iranian Languages Studies Website. MacKenzie, D. (1971). ''A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary'' (p. 95). London: Oxford University ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically been considered as a natural barrier between Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Mount Elbrus in Russia, Europe's highest mountain, is situated in the Western Caucasus. On the southern side, the Lesser Caucasus includes the Javakheti Plateau and the Armenian highlands, part of which is in Turkey. The Caucasus is divided into the North Caucasus and South Caucasus, although the Western Caucasus also exists as a distinct geographic space within the North Caucasus. The Greater Caucasus mountain range in the north is mostly shared by Russia and Georgia as well as the northernmost parts of Azerbaijan. The Lesser Caucasus mountain range in the south is occupied by several independent states, mostly by Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, but also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It is a unitary republic that consists of 14 governorates (subdivisions), and is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east and southeast, Jordan to the south, and Israel and Lebanon to the southwest. Cyprus lies to the west across the Mediterranean Sea. A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including the majority Syrian Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Assyrians, Armenians, Circassians, Albanians, and Greeks. Religious groups include Muslims, Christians, Alawites, Druze, and Yazidis. The capital and largest city of Syria is Damascus. Arabs are the largest ethnic group, and Mu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to Iraq–Jordan border, the southwest and Syria to Iraq–Syria border, the west. The Capital city, capital and largest city is Baghdad. Iraq is home to diverse ethnic groups including Iraqi Arabs, Kurds, Iraqi Turkmen, Turkmens, Assyrian people, Assyrians, Armenians in Iraq, Armenians, Yazidis, Mandaeans, Iranians in Iraq, Persians and Shabaks, Shabakis with similarly diverse Geography of Iraq, geography and Wildlife of Iraq, wildlife. The vast majority of the country's 44 million residents are Muslims – the notable other faiths are Christianity in Iraq, Christianity, Yazidism, Mandaeism, Yarsanism and Zoroastrianism. The official langu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
