Kurdish language

Kurdish (Kurdî)
Spoken in:	Turkey, Iraq, Iran (Persia), Syria, Armenia, Lebanon
Region:	Middle East
Total speakers:	20-40 million (disputed)
Ranking:	29 (disputed)
Genetic classification:	Indo-European Kurdish
Official status
Official language of:	Iraq (official in Kurdish regions)
Regulated by:
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ku
ISO 639-2	kur
SIL	kur (macrolanguage)
See also: Language – List of languages

The Kurdish languages or Kurdish dialects, belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, are spoken in the region loosely called Kurdistan including Kurdish populations in parts of Iran (Persia), Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

1 Classification and related languages
2 Dialects and regional variants
3 Writing system
4 Kurdish phonology
5 Indo-European linguistic comparison (1)
6 Indo-European linguistic comparison (2)
7 External links and references

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Classification and related languages

The Kurdish languages form a dialect continuum, with comprehensibility diminishing as the distance from one's native dialect increases. The principal Kurdish languages are:

Northern Kurdish or Kurmanji
Central Kurdish or Sorani
The Southern Kurdish dialects
- Laki
Zaza-Gorani
- Dimílí/Zaza
- Hawrami (or Hewrami)/Auramani/Gorani

The Kurdish languages have their own historical development, continuity, grammatical system and rich living vocabularies. The claim that the Kurdish languages have as their direct ancestor the language of the ancient Persia's Medes seem not to be supported by the linguistic data.

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Dialects and regional variants

Kurmanji	Sorani	Dimili	Persian	German	English
Mezin/Gir	Gewre	Gird	Bozorg	Groß	Great
Bilind	Berz	Berz	Bolend	Hoch	High
Masî	Masî	Mase	Mahi	Fisch	Fish
Roj/Hetav	Roj/Hetaw/Xor	Roj	Xorshid	Sonne	Sun
Av	Aw	Awe	Ab	Wasser	Water
Bîhar	Bahar	Wisar	Bahar	Frühling	Spring
Tarî	Tarik	Tarî	Tarik	Dunkel	Dark
Dev	Dem	Fek	Dahan	Mund	Mouth
Şev	Shew	Şewe	Shab	Nacht	Night
Mez	Mez	Masa	Miz	Tisch	Table
Zer	Zer/Altun	Zerd	Zar	Gold	Gold
Ziman	Ziman	Ziwan	Zaban	Sprache	Language

Kurdish dialects can be divided into three primary groups:

the Northern Kurdish dialects group also called Kurmanji and Badínaní,
Central Kurdish dialects group also called Sorani (see also basic linguistic differences between these two major branches) and
the Southern Kurdish dialects group also called Pahlavani or "Pahlawanik" group in some sources.

The two other major branches of Kurdish language are:

the Dimílí group, also called Zaza, and
the Auramani group, also called Gorani (Gúraní) in some sources.

These are further divided into scores of dialects and sub-dialects.

The detailed classification of Kurdish dialects is problematic. There is no widely-accepted appellative system for the various Kurdish dialects;not only in Western scholarly opinion, but even among the Kurds themselves. This often prompts arguments if these four different dialects are a language on their own or not.
All of the native designators for local language and dialects are based on the way the spoken language of one group sounds to the unaccustomed ears of the other. For instance, Dimila and their vernacular, Dimili, are called Zaza by the Badínaní speakers, with reference to the preponderance of Z sounds in their language (Nikitin 1926). Meanwhile, the Dimila call the Badínaní dialect and its speakers Xerewere. The Gorans refer to the Soraní as Kurkure and Wawa. The Soraní speakers in turn call the Gorans and their vernacular, Goraní or Mecú Mecú, and refer to the tongue and the speakers of Badínaní as Ji Babu.

A proposed system for the classification of the dialects is as follows:

North Kurdish (Kurmanji)
- In Iran (Persia), tribes of Herki, Milan, Shekak, Jelali, Heydari in Northern regions and western Azarbaijan province
- In Iran, Kurds in Khorasan.
- In Turkey, almost all the Kurds who live in Erzurum, Dogubayazid, Hakkari, Shamdinan, Behdinan, Abdin, Mardin and Diyarbakir.
- all Kurds who live in the former Soviet Union.
- In Iraq, most of the tribes who live in Duhok, Akra, Amedi, Zakho and Sanjar, Mosul.
- In Syria, all Kurds.
Central Kurdish (Sorani)
- In Iraq: Most of the Kurds who live in Sulemanya, Kirkuk, Erbil, Ruwanduz.
- In Iran: From south of Urmia lake to west of Kirmashan and is divided into Mukri dialect of Mahabad and dialect of Sanandaj.
South Kurdish (Pehlewanî)
- Kirmashai Kurdi dialect
- Gorani Kurdi dialect
  - Old Gorani - Kurdish dialect of Ahl-e Haqq(Yaristan, Kakeyí)
  - Macho Macho religious dialect
  - Old Gahvarei dialect
  - Old Korejoei dialect
  - Old Bivenji dialect
  - Old Kinduleh dialect
  - Bajalan dialect spoken in Iraq opposite Sar-pul-e zohab
- Sanjabi dialect
- Kalhur dialect
- Laki dialect
- Kolyaei dialect
- Sahne and Harsin dialect
Zaza/Dimili/Kurdish dialect in Dersim of Turkey.
Hawrami dialects
- Hawraman-e Takht dialect
- Hawraman-e Lehon dialect
- Javrud dialect
- Paveh and Javanrud dialect

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Writing system

Today, Kurds use three different non-standard writing systems. Kurdish in Iran and Iraq is written using the Arabic alphabet. In Turkey and Syria, it is written using the Latin alphabet (Kurdish alphabet). Kurds in the former USSR use a modified Cyrillic alphabet. There are also attempts for a unified international recognised Kurdish alphabet based on ISO-8859-1. Please see *KAL: The Kurdish Academy of Language

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Kurdish phonology

Note: This page contains
IPA phonetic symbols
in Unicode.

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

Consonants
	Bilabial	Labiodental	Apical	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stops	p b		t d			k g	q
Fricatives		f v	s z	ʃ ʒ	x			h
Affricates				ʧ ʤ
Nasals	m		n			ŋ
Laterals			l ɫ²
Flaps			ɾ
Trills			r
Approximants	ʋ				j

Note 1: : Non-latin scripts also have letters for /ħ/, /ʕ/, and /ɣ/. These may indicate variation among dialects in phoneme inventory, language change, or influence from nearby languages.

Note 2: : Just as in many English dialects, the velarized lateral does not appear in the onset of a syllable.

Vowels
	short	long	short	short	long
	front		central	back
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; long vowels have a circumflex ( ^ ) and short vowels do not. As it is with most languages, Kurdish short vowels are not represented at all in the Arabic script..

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Indo-European linguistic comparison (1)

Central Kurdish (Sorani)	Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji)	Dimili (Zazaki)	Avesta	Persian	German	English
Gewre	Mezin/Gir	Gird	Maza	Bozorg	Groß	Great
Berz/bilind	Berz /Bilind	Berz	Bereza	Bolend	Hoch	High
Masî	Masî	Mase	Masıya	Mahi	Fisch	Fish
Xor/Roj	Roj/xor	Roj	Hor	Xorshid	Sonne	Sun
Mêş	Mêş	Mêse	Mexşi	Meges	Fliege	Fly

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Indo-European linguistic comparison (2)

English	German	Persian	Kurdish
very	sehr	(xêylî) خیلی	Zor / fre
woman	frau	(zen) زن	Afret/jin
drop	tropfen	(çekîden) چکیدن	drope / dlope
short	kurz	(kutah) کوتاه	kurt
great	groß	(bozorg) بزرگ	gewre
hope	hoffen	(omîd) امید	hêvî / hîwa
moon	mond	(mah) ماه	mang
earth	erde	(zemîn) زمین	erd/herd
evening	abend	(esr) عصر	evarê
honey	honig	(esel/engebîn) عسل / انگبین	henguyn
beautiful	schön	(zîba) زیبا	cwan
here	hier	(înca) اینجا	êre
iron	eisen	(ahen) آهن	asin