Kurdish (, ) is a language or a group of languages spoken by

Kurds ug:كۇردلار Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Ir ...

in the geo-cultural region of

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 la ...

and the

Kurdish diaspora The Kurdish population is estimated to be between 30 and 45 million.T ...

. Kurdish constitutes a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

, belonging to

Western Iranian languages The Western Iranic languages are a branch of the Iranic languages, attested from the time of Old Persian (6th century BC) and Median. Languages The traditional Northwestern branch is a convention for non-Southwestern languages, rather than a ge ...

in the

Indo-European language family The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...

. The main three dialects or languages of Kurdish are

Northern 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 Sy ...

(),

Central Kurdish Central Kurdish (), also called Sorani (), is a Kurdish dialect or a language that is spoken in Iraq, mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the provinces of Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan in western Iran. Sorani is one of the two of ...

(), and

Southern Kurdish Southern Kurdish ( ku, کوردی باشووری ,کوردی خوارگ, Kurdî Başûrî, Kurdî Xwarig) is one of the dialects of the Kurdish language, spoken predominantly in northeastern Iraq and western Iran. The Southern Kurdish-speaking r ...

(). A separate group of non-Kurdish Northwestern Iranian languages, the

Zaza–Gorani languages Zaza–Gorani is a linguistic subgroup of Northwestern Iranian languages. They are usually classified as a non-Kurdish branch of the Northwestern Iranian languages but most of their speakers consider themselves ethnic Kurds. The Zaza–Gorani la ...

, are also spoken by several million ethnic Kurds.Kaya, Mehmet. The Zaza Kurds of Turkey: A Middle Eastern Minority in a Globalised Society. The majority of the Kurds speak

Kurmanji 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 Sy ...

, and most Kurdish texts are written in

and

Sorani Central Kurdish (), also called Sorani (), is a Kurdish dialect or a language that is spoken in Iraq, mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the provinces of Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan in western Iran. Sorani is one of the two o ...

. Kurmanji is written in the

Hawar alphabet The Kurdish languages are written in either of two alphabets: a Latin alphabet introduced by Celadet Alî Bedirxan in 1932 called the Bedirxan alphabet or Hawar alphabet (after the '' Hawar'' magazine) and a Perso-Arabic script called the Sorani ...

, a derivation of the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...

, and Sorani is written in the

Sorani alphabet The Kurdish languages are written in either of two alphabets: a Latin alphabet introduced by Celadet Alî Bedirxan in 1932 called the Bedirxan alphabet or Hawar alphabet (after the '' Hawar'' magazine) and a Perso-Arabic script called the Sorani ...

, a derivation of

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...

. The classification of

Laki Laki () or Lakagígar (, ''Craters of Laki'') is a volcanic fissure in the western part of Vatnajökull National Park, Iceland, not far from the volcanic fissure of Eldgjá and the small village of Kirkjubæjarklaustur. The fissure is properly r ...

as a dialect of

or as a fourth language under Kurdish is a matter of debate, but the differences between Laki and other Southern Kurdish dialects are minimal. The literary output in Kurdish was mostly confined to poetry until the early 20th century, when more general literature became developed. Today, the two principal written Kurdish dialects are Kurmanji and Sorani. Sorani is, along with

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

, one of the two official languages of

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 ...

and is in political documents simply referred to as "Kurdish".

Classification and origin

The Kurdish languages belong to the Iranian branch of the

Indo-European family The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...

. They are generally classified as Northwestern Iranian languages, or by some scholars as intermediate between Northwestern and Southwestern Iranian.Gernot Windfuhr, ed., 2009. ''The Iranian Languages''. Routledge.

Martin van Bruinessen Martin van Bruinessen (born 10 July 1946, Schoonhoven, Kingdom of the Netherlands) is a Dutch anthropologist and author, who has published a number of publications on the Kurdish, Indonesia, Turkish, Iran, Persian cultures, and also on aspects of ...

notes that "Kurdish has a strong South-Western Iranian element", whereas "Zaza and Gurani ..do belong to the north-west Iranian group". Ludwig Paul concludes that Kurdish seems to be a Northwestern Iranian language in origin, but acknowledges that it shares many traits with Southwestern Iranian languages like

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, apparently due to longstanding and intense historical contacts. Windfuhr identified Kurdish dialects as

Parthian Parthian may be: Historical * A demonym "of Parthia", a region of north-eastern of Greater Iran * Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD) * Parthian language, a now-extinct Middle Iranian language * Parthian shot, an archery skill famously employed by ...

, albeit with a

Median In statistics and probability theory, the median is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as "the middle" value. The basic fe ...

substratum. Windfuhr and

Frye Frye is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Channing Frye (born 1983), basketball player *Charlie Frye (born 1981), football player for the Oakland Raiders *Don Frye (born 1965), mixed martial arts fighter *Donna Frye (born 1952), ...

assume an eastern origin for Kurdish and consider it as related to eastern and central Iranian dialects. The present state of knowledge about Kurdish allows, at least roughly, drawing the approximate borders of the areas where the main ethnic core of the speakers of the contemporary Kurdish dialects was formed. The most argued hypothesis on the localisation of the ethnic territory of the Kurds remains D.N. Mackenzie's theory, proposed in the early 1960s (Mackenzie 1961). Developing the ideas of P. Tedesco (1921: 255) and regarding the common phonetic isoglosses shared by Kurdish, Persian, and Baluchi, Mackenzie concluded that the speakers of these three languages may once have been in closer contact.

Subdivisions

Kurdish is divided into three or four groups, where dialects from different groups are not

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

without acquired bilingualism.Postgate, J.N., Languages of Iraq, ancient and modern, raq British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2007, , p.139 *

(Kurmanji) is the largest dialect group, spoken by an estimated 15 to 20 million Kurds in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

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 loc ...

, northern Iraq, and northwest and northeast Iran. *

(Sorani) is spoken by an estimated 6 to 7 million Kurds in much of

Iraqi Kurdistan Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan ( ku, باشووری کوردستان, Başûrê Kurdistanê) refers to the Kurdish-populated part of northern Iraq. It is considered one of the four parts of "Kurdistan" in Western Asia, which also incl ...

and the Iranian Kurdistan Province.Philip G. Kreyenbroek, "On the Kurdish Language", a chapter in the book ''The Kurds: A Contemporary Overview''. The book is previewable a
Google Book Search
.

is a written standard of Central Kurdish developed in the 1920s (named after the historical

Soran Emirate Soran Emirate ( ku, میرنشینی سۆران) was a medieval Kurdish emirate established before the conquest of Kurdistan by Ottoman Empire in 1514 and later revived by Emir Kor centered in Rawandiz from 1816 to 1836. Kor was ousted in an off ...

) and was later adopted as the standard

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...

of Kurdish as an official language of Iraq. *

(Pehlewani) is spoken in the

Kermanshah Kermanshah ( fa, کرمانشاه, Kermânšâh ), also known as Kermashan (; romanized: Kirmaşan), is the capital of Kermanshah Province, located from Tehran in the western part of Iran. According to the 2016 census, its population is 946,68 ...

, Ilam and Lorestan provinces of Iran and in the

Khanaqin Khanaqin ( ar, خانقين; ku, خانەقین, translit=Xaneqîn) is the central city of Khanaqin District in Diyala Governorate, Iraq, near the Iranian border (8 km) on the Alwand tributary of the Diyala River. The town is populated b ...

district of eastern Iraq.

and Kurdali (Palai) are often included in Southern Kurdish, but they have some distinct features. In historical evolution terms, Kurmanji is less modified than Sorani and Pehlewani in both phonetic and morphological structure. The Sorani group has been influenced by among other things its closer cultural proximity to the other languages spoken by Kurds in the region including the

Gorani language Gorani ( ku, گۆرانی, Goranî, lit=song) also known by its main dialect; Hawrami (ھەورامی, ''Hewramî'') is a Northwestern Iranian language spoken by ethnic Kurds and which with Zazaki constitute the Zaza–Gorani languages. All ...

in parts of

Iranian Kurdistan Iranian Kurdistan or Eastern Kurdistan ( ku, ڕۆژھەڵاتی کوردستان, translit=Rojhilatê Kurdistanê) is an unofficial name for the parts of northwestern Iran with either a majority or sizable population of Kurds. Geographically, it ...

and

.D.N. MacKenzie, ''Language'' in ''Kurds & Kurdistan'', Encyclopaedia of Islam.

Philip G. Kreyenbroek Philip G. Kreyenbroek (born 1948) is a Dutch academic specialising in Iranian studies. Throughout his career, he has published several books and articles on the Zoroastrianism, Zoroastrian, Kurds, Kurdish, and Yazidis, Yazidi traditions. Educat ...

, an expert writing in 1992, says: According to ''

Encyclopaedia of Islam The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies published by Brill. It is considered to be the standard reference work in the field of Islamic studies. The first edition was published in ...

'', although Kurdish is not a unified language, its many dialects are interrelated and at the same time distinguishable from other

. The same source classifies different Kurdish dialects as two main groups, northern and central. The reality is that the average Kurmanji speaker does not find it easy to communicate with the inhabitants of

Sulaymaniyah Sulaymaniyah, also spelled as Slemani ( ku, سلێمانی, Silêmanî, ar, السليمانية, as-Sulaymāniyyah), is a city in the east of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, not far from the Iran–Iraq border. It is surrounded by the Azmar, Go ...

Halabja Halabja ( ku, هەڵەبجە, Helebce, ) is a city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the capital of Halabja Governorate, located about northeast of Baghdad and from the Iranian border. The city lies at the base of what is often referred to ...

. Some linguistic scholars assert that the term "Kurdish" has been applied extrinsically in describing the language the Kurds speak, whereas some ethnic Kurds have used the word term to simply describe their ethnicity and refer to their language as ''Kurmanji'', ''Sorani'', ''Hewrami'', ''Kermanshahi'', ''Kalhori'' or whatever other dialect or language they speak. Some historians have noted that it is only recently that the Kurds who speak the Sorani dialect have begun referring to their language as ''Kurdî'', in addition to their identity, which is translated to simply mean Kurdish. Mokriani dialect of Central Kurdish is widely spoken in Mokrian. Piranshahr and Mahabad are two principal cities of the Mokrian dialect area.

Zazaki and Gorani

, which are spoken by communities in the wider area who identify as ethnic Kurds, are not linguistically classified as Kurdish. Zaza-Gorani is classified as adjunct to Kurdish, although authorities differ in the details. groups Kurdish with Zaza Gorani within a "Northwestern I" group, while

Glottolog ''Glottolog'' is a bibliographic database of the world's lesser-known languages, developed and maintained first at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany (between 2015 and 2020 at the Max Planck Institute for ...

based on ''

Encyclopædia Iranica ''Encyclopædia Iranica'' is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times. Scope The ''Encycl ...

'' prefers an areal grouping of "Central dialects" (or "Kermanic") within Northwest Iranic, with Kurdish but not Zaza-Gorani grouped with "Kermanic". Gorani is distinct from Northern and Central Kurdish, yet shares vocabulary with both of them and there are some grammatical similarities with Central Kurdish. The

Hawrami dialects Gorani ( ku, گۆرانی, Goranî, lit=song) also known by its main dialect; Hawrami (ھەورامی, ''Hewramî'') is a Northwestern Iranian language spoken by ethnic Kurds and which with Zazaki constitute the Zaza–Gorani languages. All ...

of Gorani includes a variety that was an important literary language since the 14th century, but it was replaced by Central Kurdish in the 20th century. European scholars have maintained that Gorani is separate from Kurdish and that Kurdish is synonymous with the Northern Kurdish group, whereas ethnic Kurds maintain that Kurdish encompasses any of the unique languages or dialects spoken by Kurds that are not spoken by neighbouring ethnic groups. Gorani is classified as part of the Zaza–Gorani branch of Indo-Iranian languages. The

Zaza language Zaza or Zazaki (), is an Iranian language spoken primarily in eastern Turkey by the Zazas. The language is a part of the Zaza–Gorani language group of the northwestern group of the Iranian branch. The glossonym Zaza originated as a pejorati ...

, spoken mainly in Turkey, differs both grammatically and in vocabulary and is generally not understandable by Gorani speakers but it is considered related to Gorani. Almost all Zaza-speaking communities, as well as speakers of the closely related

Shabaki dialect Shabaki is an Indo-Iranian language and belongs to the subgroup Zaza-Gorani of the Northwestern Iranian languages. The Shabaki language is spoken by the Shabak people in the Mosul region of northern Iraq. It has similarities with the Northwestern ...

spoken in parts of

, identify themselves as ethnic Kurds. Geoffrey Haig and Ergin Öpengin in their recent study suggest grouping the Kurdish languages into Northern Kurdish, Central Kurdish, Southern Kurdish,

Zaza Zaza may refer to: Ethnic group * Zazas, a group of people in eastern Anatolia (southeastern Turkey) * Zaza–Gorani languages, Indo-Iranian languages ** Zaza language, spoken by the Zazas People Given name * Zaza Sor. Aree (born 1993), Thai k ...

, and Gorani, and avoid the subgrouping Zaza–Gorani. The notable professor

Zare Yusupova Zare Alievna Yusupova (Russian: Заре Алиевна Юсупова; born 1934) is a Russian philologist specializing in the Kurdish language. Yusupova holds a Doctor of Philological Sciences degree and works as a professor at the Saint Peter ...

has carried out a lot of work and research into the Gorani dialect (as well as many other minority/ancient Kurdish dialects).

History

During his stay in

Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

, historian

Ibn Wahshiyya ( ar, ابن وحشية), died , was a Nabataean (Aramaic-speaking, rural Iraqi) agriculturalist, toxicologist, and alchemist born in Qussīn, near Kufa in Iraq. He is the author of the ''Nabataean Agriculture'' (), an influential Arabic work on ...

came across two books on agriculture written in Kurdish, one on the culture of the vine and the palm tree, and the other on water and the means of finding it out in unknown ground. He translated both from Kurdish into Arabic in the early 9th century AD. Among the earliest Kurdish religious texts is the ''

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 th ...

'', the sacred book of

Yazidi Yazidis or Yezidis (; ku, ئێزیدی, translit=Êzidî) are a Kurmanji-speaking endogamous minority group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The majo ...

faith. It is considered to have been authored sometime in the 13th century AD by ''Hassan bin Adi'' (b. 1195 AD), the great-grandnephew of Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir (d. 1162), the founder of the faith. It contains the Yazidi account of the creation of the world, the origin of man, the story of

Adam Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...

and

Eve Eve (; ; ar, حَوَّاء, Ḥawwāʾ; el, Εὕα, Heúa; la, Eva, Heva; Syriac: romanized: ) is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the origin story, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the ...

and the major prohibitions of the faith. From the 15th to 17th centuries, classical Kurdish poets and writers developed a literary language. The most notable classical Kurdish poets from this period were

Ali Hariri Ali Hariri or Sheikh Ahmed Bohtani (; 1009 in Harir – 1079/1080) was a Kurdish poet who wrote in Kurmanji and considered a pioneer in classical Kurdish Sufi literature and a founder of the Kurdish literary tradition. Biography Hariri was b ...

Ahmad Khani Ahmad ( ar, أحمد, ʾAḥmad) is an Arabic male given name common in most parts of the Muslim world. Other spellings of the name include Ahmed and Ahmet. Etymology The word derives from the root (ḥ-m-d), from the Arabic (), from the ve ...

, Malaye Jaziri and Faqi Tayran. The

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

priest Maurizio Garzoni published the first Kurdish grammar titled ''Grammatica e Vocabolario della Lingua Kurda'' in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

in 1787 after eighteen years of missionary work among the Kurds of

Amadiya Amedi or Amadiya ( ku, ئامێدی, Amêdî, ; Syriac: , Amədya), is a town in the Duhok Governorate of Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It is built on a mesa in the broader Great Zab river valley. Etymology According to Ali ibn al-Athir, the name ...

. This work is very important in Kurdish history as it is the first acknowledgment of the widespread use of a distinctive Kurdish language. Garzoni was given the title ''Father of Kurdology'' by later scholars. The Kurdish language was banned in a large portion of Kurdistan for some time. After the

1980 Turkish coup d'état The 1980 Turkish coup d'état ( tr, 12 Eylül Darbesi), headed by Chief of the General Staff General Kenan Evren, was the third coup d'état in the history of the Republic of Turkey, the previous having been the 1960 coup and the 1971 coup by ...

until 1991 the use of the Kurdish language was illegal in Turkey.

Current status

Today,

is an official language in

. In

, on the other hand, publishing materials in Kurdish is forbidden, though this prohibition is not enforced any more due to the Syrian civil war. Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish, prohibiting the language in education and broadcast media. In March 2006, Turkey allowed private television channels to begin airing programming in Kurdish. However, the Turkish government said that they must avoid showing children's

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...

s, or educational programs that teach Kurdish, and could broadcast only for 45 minutes a day or four hours a week. The state-run Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) started its 24-hour Kurdish television station on 1 January 2009 with the motto "we live under the same sky". The Turkish Prime Minister sent a video message in Kurdish to the opening ceremony, which was attended by Minister of Culture and other state officials. The channel uses the ''X'', ''W'', and ''Q'' letters during broadcasting. However, most of these restrictions on private Kurdish television channels were relaxed in September 2009. In 2010, Kurdish municipalities in the southeast began printing

marriage certificate A marriage certificate (sometimes: marriage lines) is an official statement that two people are married. In most jurisdictions, a marriage certificate is issued by a government official only after the civil registration of the marriage. In som ...

s, water bills, construction and

road sign Traffic signs or road signs are signs erected at the side of or above roads to give instructions or provide information to road users. The earliest signs were simple wooden or stone milestones. Later, signs with directional arms were introduce ...

s, as well as emergency, social and cultural notices in Kurdish alongside Turkish. Also Imams began to deliver Friday

sermons A sermon is a religious discourse or oration by a preacher, usually a member of clergy. Sermons address a scriptural, theological, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law, or behavior within both past and present contexts. El ...

in Kurdish and

Esnaf Esnaf is a Turkish word which means “corporation”. During the Early Modern Period belonging to a guild gave people a voice and was an important part of one's identity. Handicraft producers were linked to one another by a range of social, pol ...

price tags in Kurdish. Many mayors were tried for issuing public documents in Kurdish language. The Kurdish alphabet is not recognized in Turkey, and prior to 2013 the use of Kurdish names containing the letters ''X'', ''W'', and ''Q'', which do not exist in the

Turkish alphabet The Turkish alphabet ( tr, ) is a Latin-script alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, seven of which (Ç, Ğ, Dotless I, I, İ, Ö, Ş and Ü) have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic requ ...

, was not allowed. In 2012, Kurdish-language lessons became an elective subject in public schools. Previously, Kurdish education had only been possible in private institutions. In

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, though it is used in some local media and newspapers, it is not used in public schools. In 2005, 80 Iranian Kurds took part in an experiment and gained scholarships to study in Kurdish in

. In

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the east. ...

, of the Kurdish population speak Kurdish as their native language. In Kazakhstan, the corresponding percentage is 88.7%.

Phonology

Grammar

Writing system

The Kurdish language has been written using four different writing systems. In

and

it is written using an

, composed by Sa'id Kaban Sedqi. More recently, it is sometimes written with a

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...

in Iraq. In Turkey, Syria, and

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...

, it is now written using a

. Kurdish was also written in the Arabic script in Turkey and Syria until 1932. There is a proposal for a unified international recognized Kurdish alphabet based on

ISO-8859-1 ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998, ''Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1'', is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in 1 ...

called ''Yekgirtú''. Kurdish in the former

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

is written with a

Cyrillic alphabet , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...

. Kurdish has even been written in the

Armenian alphabet The Armenian alphabet ( hy, Հայոց գրեր, ' or , ') is an alphabetic writing system used to write Armenian language, Armenian. It was developed around 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and wikt:ecclesiastical, ecclesiast ...

Soviet Armenia The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic,; russian: Армянская Советская Социалистическая Республика, translit=Armyanskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika) also commonly referred to as Soviet A ...

and in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

(a translation of the Gospels in 1857 and of all New Testament in 1872).

Notes

References

External links

Wîkîferheng
(Kurdish

Wiktionary Wiktionary ( , , rhyming with "dictionary") is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary of terms (including words, phrases, proverbs, linguistic reconstructions, etc.) in all natural languages and in a number ...

)
VejinBooks, collection of Kurdish literary and historical texts

Vejin Dictionaries, collection of Kurdish dictionaries
(written in Arabic script)
The Kurdish Academy of Language
(unofficial)

* ttp://egerin.com/ Egerîn, Kurdish (Kurmanji) search engine
inKurdish: English–Kurdish Translation

Dictio: English–Kurdish (Sorani) Dictionary

The Kurdish Institute of Paris: Language and Literature

Kurdish Language and Linguistics, at Encyclopedia Iranica
(article written by Ludwig Paul)
Reference Grammar with Selected Readings both for Sorani and Kurmanji, written by W. M. Thackston (Harvard University)

(article written by Philip G. Kryeenbroek)
Kurdish Language Initiative
o
Seywan Institute

Kurdish Institute of Istanbul

KAL: The Kurdish Academy of Language
*
Grammar of a Less Familiar Language
(MIT OpenCourseWare)
Southern Kurdish phonetic

Gorani Influence on Central Kurdish
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kurdish Language * Languages of Armenia Languages of Azerbaijan Languages of Turkey Languages of Iran Languages of Iraq Languages of Israel Languages of Lebanon Languages of Syria Subject–object–verb languages Iranian languages Articles citing Nationalencyklopedin Languages of Kurdistan