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Kurmanji
Kurmanji (, ), also termed Northern Kurdish, is the northernmost 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. Kurmanji is also the common and ceremonial language of Yazidis. Their sacred book '' Mishefa Reş'' and all prayers are written and spoken in Kurmanji. ''Ethnologue'' reports that the use of Kurmanji is declining in Turkey even when the language is used as a language of wider communication (LWC) by immigrants to Turkey, and that the language is threatened because it is losing speakers. History Pre-modern Kurmanji Although Kurds are mentioned in the pre-Islamic period, there is no information of the Kurdish language before the Islamic period. The first mention of Kurmanji Kurdish is by the medieval Chaldean author Ibn Wahshiyya (d. 930/1) in his treatise about alphabets. Orientalist Joseph Hammer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurdish Languages
Kurdish (, , ) is a Northwestern Iranian language or group of languages spoken by Kurds in the region of Kurdistan, namely in southeast Turkey, northern Iraq, northwest Iran, and northern Syria. It is also spoken in northeast Iran, as well as in certain areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Kurdish varieties constitute a dialect continuum, with some mutually unintelligible varieties, and collectively have 26 million native speakers. The main varieties of Kurdish are Kurmanji, Sorani, and Southern Kurdish (). The majority of the Kurds speak Kurmanji, and most Kurdish texts are written in Kurmanji and Sorani. Kurmanji is written in the Hawar alphabet, a derivation of the Latin script, and Sorani is written in the Sorani alphabet, a derivation of the Arabic script. A separate group of non-Kurdish Northwestern Iranian languages, the Zaza–Gorani languages, are also spoken by several million ethnic Kurds.Kaya, Mehmet. The Zaza Kurds of Turkey: A Middle Eastern Minority i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sorani
Central Kurdish, also known as Sorani Kurdish, is a Kurdish dialect or a language spoken in Iraq, mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the provinces of Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan in western Iran. Central Kurdish is one of the two official languages of Iraq, along with Arabic, and is in administrative documents simply referred to as "Kurdish". The term Sorani, named after the Soran Emirate, refers to a variety of Central Kurdish based on the dialect spoken in Slemani. Central Kurdish is written in the Kurdo-Arabic alphabet, an adaptation of the Arabic script developed in the 1920s by Sa’ed Sidqi Kaban and Taufiq Wahby. History Tracing back the historical changes of Central Kurdish is difficult. No predecessors of Kurdish are yet known from Old and Middle Iranian times. The extant Kurdish texts may be traced back to no earlier than the 16th century CE. Cebtral Kurdish originates from the Silêmanî region. 1700s–1918 The oldest written literature in C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurds
Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syria. Consisting of 30–45 million people, the global Kurdish population is largely concentrated in Kurdistan, but significant communities of the Kurdish diaspora exist in parts of West Asia beyond Kurdistan and in parts of Europe, most notably including: Turkey's Central Anatolian Kurds, as well as Kurds in Istanbul, Istanbul Kurds; Iran's Khorasani Kurds; the Caucasian Kurds, primarily in Kurds in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan and Kurds in Armenia, Armenia; and the Kurdish populations in various European countries, namely Kurds in Germany, Germany, Kurds in France, France, Kurds in Sweden, Sweden, and the Kurds in the Netherlands, Netherlands. The Kurdish language, Kurdish languages and the Zaza–Gorani languages, both of which belong to the Wes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yazidis
Yazidis, also spelled Yezidis (; ), are a Kurdish languages, Kurdish-speaking Endogamy, endogamous religious group 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, Turks, as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurdish Alphabets
Kurdish language, Kurdish is written using either of two alphabets: the Latin-script alphabet, Latin-based Bedirxan or Hawar alphabet, introduced by Celadet Alî Bedirxan in 1932 and popularized through the Hawar (magazine), Hawar magazine, and the Kurdo-Arabic alphabet. The Kurdistan Region has agreed upon a standard for Central Kurdish, implemented in Unicode for computation purposes. The Hawar alphabet is primarily used in Syria and Turkey, while the Kurdo-Arabic alphabet is commonly used in Iraq and Iran. The Hawar alphabet is also used to some extent in Kurdistan Region, Iraqi Kurdistan. Two additional alphabets, based on the Armenian alphabet, Armenian and Cyrillic scripts, were once used by Kurds in the Soviet Union, most notably in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and Kurdistansky Uyezd. Southern Kurdish lacks a standard orthography, as of 2024. Hawar alphabet Usually it is the northern languages spoken by Kurds, Zaza language, Zazaki and Kurmanji, that are writte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zaza Language
Zaza (endonym: , , , , , or , ) is a Northwestern Iranian language spoken primarily in eastern Turkey by the Zazas, who are mostly considered as Kurds, and in many cases identify as such. 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 pejorative. According to Ethnologue, Zaza is spoken by around 1.48 million people, and the language is considered threatened due to a declining number of speakers, with many shifting to Turkish. Nevins, however, puts the number of Zaza speakers between two and three million. Classification The Zaza language is considered a branch of the Kurdic subgroup within the Northwestern Iranian languages. The varieties of Kurdic do not directly descend from any known Middle Iranian languages, such as Middle Persian or Parthian, or from Old Iranian languages, such as Avestan or Old Persian. Zaza is considered a macrolanguage, consisting of Southern and N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iranian Languages
The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian languages are grouped in three stages: Old Iranian (until 400 BCE), Middle Iranian (400 BCE – 900 CE) and New Iranian (since 900 CE). The two directly attested Old Iranian languages are Old Persian (from the Achaemenid Empire) and Old Avestan (the language of the Avesta). Of the Middle Iranian languages, the better understood and recorded ones are Middle Persian (from the Sasanian Empire), Parthian (from the Parthian Empire), and Bactrian (from the Kushan and Hephthalite empires). Number of speakers , '' Ethnologue'' estimates that there are 86 languages in the group. Terminology and grouping Etymology The term ''Iran'' derives directly from Middle Persian , first attested in a third-century inscription at Naqsh-e Rostam, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gorani Language
Gorani (), also known by the name of its main dialect, Hawrami (, ''Hewramî''), is a Northwestern Iranian language spoken by ethnic Kurds in northeastern Iraq and northwestern Iran and which with Zaza language, Zaza constitute the Zaza–Gorani languages. Zaza and Gorani are linguistically distinct from the Kurdish language, although the great majority of their speakers consider their language to be Kurdish. Gorani is spoken in Iraq and Iran and has four dialects: Bajelani, Hawrami, and Sarli, some sources also include the Shabaki language, Shabaki as a dialect of Gorani as well. Of these, Hawrami was the traditional literary language and Koiné language, koiné of Kurds in the historical Ardalan region at the Zagros Mountains, but has since been supplanted by Central Kurdish and Southern Kurdish. Gorani is a literary language for many Kurds. Gorani had an estimated 180,000 speakers in Iran in 2007 and 120,000 speakers in Iraq as well in 2007 for a total of 300,000 speakers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Kurdish
Southern Kurdish () is one of the dialects of the Kurdish language, spoken predominantly in northeastern Iraq and western Iran. The Southern Kurdish-speaking region spans from Khanaqin in Iraq to Dehloran southward and Asadabad eastward in Iran. Name 'Southern Kurdish' is a linguistic term for a group of related dialects in Western Iran. Speakers are not familiar with the term and do not refer to the language as such. They generally identify the kind of Kurdish they speak as a local dialect (the Kurdish of a given village), or as a regional variety such as "Garūsi". Variants Southern Kurdish has many variants, linguist Fattah divides them into 35 varieties. These include: * Bîcarî ** The most septentrional variety of Southern Kurdish spoken in and around Bijar in Iran. Bîcarî is the only Southern Kurdish variety detached from the greater Southern Kurdish-speaking region. * Qurweyî (Chahar Dawli Xarbi) ** The Quwreyî variety is spoken around Ghorveh in Iran an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yazidi Black Book
The ''Yazidi Black Book'' () 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 first day of crea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Iranian Languages
The Western Iranian languages or Western Iranic languages are a branch of the Iranian 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 genetic group. The languages are as follows:Erik Anonby, Mortaza Taheri-Ardali & Amos Hayes (2019) ''The Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI)''. Iranian Studies 52A Working Classification/ref> Old Iranian period * Northwest: Median†, etc. * Southwest: Old Persian†, etc. Middle Iranian period * Northwest: Parthian†, etc. * Southwest: Middle Persian†, etc Modern period (Neo-Iranian) * Northwestern Iranian ** Caspian *** Gorgani† *** Daylami† *** Gilaki (incl. Rudbari) *** Mazandarani (incl. Tabari, Shahmirzadi, Ilikaei, katuli) ** Semnani *** Semnani *** Sangisari *** Lasgerdi- Sorkhei (incl. Aftari) ** Adharic (Azaric) *** Old Adhari† **** Tatic ***** Talysh (north-central) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northwestern Iranian Languages
The Western Iranian languages or Western Iranic languages are a branch of the Iranian 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 genetic group. The languages are as follows:Erik Anonby, Mortaza Taheri-Ardali & Amos Hayes (2019) ''The Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI)''. Iranian Studies 52A Working Classification/ref> Old Iranian period * Northwest: Median†, etc. * Southwest: Old Persian†, etc. Middle Iranian period * Northwest: Parthian†, etc. * Southwest: Middle Persian†, etc Modern period (Neo-Iranian) * Northwestern Iranian ** Caspian *** Gorgani† *** Daylami† *** Gilaki (incl. Rudbari) *** Mazandarani (incl. Tabari, Shahmirzadi, Ilikaei, katuli) ** Semnani *** Semnani *** Sangisari *** Lasgerdi- Sorkhei (incl. Aftari) ** Adharic (Azaric) *** Old Adhari† **** Tatic ***** Talysh (north-central) ***** ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
