Kurdish language
| Kurdish كوردی, Kurdî, К'ӧрди |
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|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: |  Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Armenia, Lebanon,(see article for full list) |
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| Region: | Middle East | |
| Total speakers: | 16,000,000[1][2][3] | |
| Ranking: | 52 | |
| Language family: | Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Northwestern Iranian Kurdish |
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| Writing system: | Kurdish alphabet (modified Arabic alphabet in Iraq and Iran, Latin alphabet in Turkey and Syria, modified Cyrillic in the former USSR) | |
| Official status | ||
| Official language in: | Iraq (Kurdish Autonomous Region) Iran - constitutional status as provincial language |
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| Regulated by: | No official regulation | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | ku | |
| ISO 639-2: | kur | |
| ISO 639-3: | variously: kur – Kurdish (generic) ckb – Central Kurdish kmr – Northern Kurdish sdh – Southern Kurdish |
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| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
The Kurdish language (Kurdish: Kurdî or کوردی) is a term used for the language spoken by Kurds. It is mainly concentrated in the parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.[4] Kurdish belongs to the northwestern 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, especially the Lori and Bakhtiari dialects.
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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.[5] Some evidence of Hurrian influence on Kurdish is detected in its ergative grammatical structure.[6] 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,[7] e.g., the names of the clans of Bukhti, Tirikan, Bazayni, Bakran and Mand; the rivers Murad, Balik and Khabur; Lake Van; the towns of Mardin, Ziwiya and Dinawarand 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. 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.[8]
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish, prohibiting the language in education and broadcast media.[9] [10]. The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q which do not exist in the Turkish alphabet has led to prosecution.
In Iran, though it is used in some local media and newspapers, it is not used in schools [11] [12]. As a result, some Iranian Kurds have left for Iraqi Kurdistan where they can study in their native language[13].
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.[14] 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 the Middle East and Europe.
Dialects
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Kurdish has two main dialects: a northern and a central one. The central group, called Sorani, is spoken in west Iran and the central part of Iraqi Kurdistan. The northern dialect, Northern Kurmanji also commonly referred to simply as Kurmanji (and sometimes Bahdini), is spoken in northern half of Iraqi Kurdistan, Caucasus, Turkey, and Syria. [15]. Linguists often classify both dialects as part of the same Kurmanji branch (as well as the larger branch) of the Kurdish language. There are two distinct senses of the expression ’Kurdish dialect’: the one being ’dialect of the Kurdish branch of Northwestern Indo-Iranian languages’, and the other ’dialect spoken by people who consider themselves Kurds’. Failure to distinguish these two senses may easily lead to needless confusion and polemics: ethnic developments should not be confused with linguistic reconstructions.[2]
A third group, the southern dialects (however spoken in both Northern and Southern Kurdistan regions) are largely referred to by linguists as the Zaza-Gorani branch.[16] 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 structures are the same as kurmanci and sorani.
Another classification of Southern Kurdish dialects suggests as following: Kalhori, Feyli, Gurani and classifies these dialects as one branch of Kurdish language dialects.
Sorani
Sorani is named after the Soran Emirate which ruled for more than six centuries until it was removed by Ottoman troops in 1835. Soranî is the central Dialect, it is spoken by the Majority of Kurds in Iraq and Iran. Sorani is written with the Arabic Alphabet. Sorani has official status in Iraq , and it is the official language of the Kurdistan province of Iran. It is spoken by 10-15 million Kurds with a majority of them residing in Iran and Iraq.
Kurmanji
The main theory about the etymology of Kurmanji is that the term Kurmanji comes from Kurd+man+cî which means, those Kurds who remained in their places. In earlier publications of this century, the term Kurmanji was sometimes spelled with a "d" like "Kurdmanji" but the standard spelling of the term is Kurmanji in English and Kurmancî in Kurdish. It is written with the Latin script. It is spoken by 18 million Kurds, a majority of them residing in Turkey.[17]
Kurmanji and Sorani
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 literature, 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.[18]
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.[19] 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.[20].
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 by most of the Kurds in Turkey, Syria, Armenia, and Bahdinan regions in Iraq and Kurdish communities in Khorasan (northeast of Iran). Central group (Sorani) is spoken by most Kurds of Iraq and Iran which includes but is not limited to Arbil Governorate, Sulaymaniya Governorate, and Kirkuk Governorate of Iraq, and in Iran, Kurdistan province,parts of West Azarbaijan Province and Kermanshah province. [20].
The reality is that the average Kurmanji speaker will not find it easy to communicate with the inhabitants of Suleymania or Halabja.[21] Another fact is that when a Sorani (Central Kurdish) and Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish) speaking Kurd get together, they have no choice but to speak a common language in order to communicate.[22]
A potentially unified form, emerging either via natural or organised merger of Kurmanji and Sorani is humorously dubbed Soranji by Kurds.
Mehrdad Izady recently coined the term Pahlawani, in an attempt to link the Iranian languages of Zaza-Gorani branch to Kurmanji and Sorani.[3] Zaza and Gorani are two languages from north-western Iranian branch and are distinct from Kurmanji and Sorani.[23]
Indo-European linguistic comparison
Because 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, Norwegian, Latin and Greek. (Source: Altiranisches Wörterbuch (1904) for the first two and last six.)
| Kurdish | Avestan | Persian | Sanskrit | Greek | English | German | Norwegian | Latin | Lithuanian | Russian | PIE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ez,min "I" | äzəm [ezìm] | mān | aham | egō | I (< OE ić) | ich | eg | ego | aš | ja (from old ES jazŭ, related to OCS azŭ) | *h₁eĝh₂om | |
| lepik,dest "Hand" | dāst | (OE lōf "fillet, band") | (OHG lappo "palm (of the hand)") | lóve "palm (of the hand)" | lṓpa"paw, claw" | lápa | *tlāp-[4] | |||||
| jin "woman" | ghenãnãmca [ghenâ] "woman" | zan | janay- | gynēka | queen | (OHG quena) | kvinne | femina | (OPruss. genna) | žená "wife" | *gʷenh₂- | |
| leystin(bileyzim) "to play(I play)" | ley ley Kardan(to jump with one foot ) | réjati | paizo | play | leich | leke | láigīti | *(e)lAig'- "to jump, to spring, to play"[5] | ||||
| mezin,gewre "great" | maz-, mazant | mah(ī)-/mahānt- | megas | much (< OE mićil, myćil) | (OHG mihhil) | mykje "much" | magnus | milžinas "giant" | mogúčij "powerful", "mighty" | *meĝh₂- "big, great" [6] | ||
| mêzer "headband/turban" | mitrā- "god name"(Old Persian) | mitrah | mitra "headband, turban", | Mitra - from Greek | mitra - from Greek) | mir "world, peace" | *mei- "to tie" ([7], p38) | |||||
| pez "sheep" | pasu- "sheep, goat" | boz | paśu "animal" | fee (< OE feoh "cattle") | Vieh "cattle" | fe "cattle" | pecus "cattle" | pekus "ox" | pastuh "shepherd" | *pek̂-u- "sheep"[8],[9] | ||
| çiya,kash "mountain" | kūh, chakād "peak/summit" | kakúd-, kakúbh- "peak/summit" | kinn "steep mountain side" | cacūmen | *kak-, *kakud- "top"[10] [11] | |||||||
| zîndu "alive" jiyan "to live" | gaêm [gaya] | zind[e] "alive", zî[stan] "to live", zaideh "child" | jīvati | zoi "life", zō "live" | quick | quick "bright" | vīvus "alive", vīvō "live", vīta "life" | gývas | žyznj "life", žyvój "living, alive" | *gʷih₃(u̯)- | ||
| [di][a]zan[im] "I know" zan[în] "to know" | zan- | [mi]dān[am] "I know", dān[estan] "to know" | jān[āti] | [gi]gnō[skō] | know | kennen | kjenne "to know (a person) | nō[scō], [co]gn[itus] | žin[au]"I know" žin[oti] "to know" | znatj "to know" | *ĝneh₃- |
Writing system
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. [12] Also see the VOA News site in Kurdish. [13] 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.[24]
Phonology
According to the Kurdish Academy of Language, Kurdish has the following phonemes:
Consonants
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Apical | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyn- geal |
Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||||||
| Plosive | p b | t d | k g | q | |||||
| Fricative | f v | s z | ʃ ʒ | ç | x ɣ | ħ ʕ | h | ||
| Affricate | ʧ ʤ | ||||||||
| Lateral | l ɫ1 | ||||||||
| Flap | ɾ | ||||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||
| Approximant | ʋ | j |
- Just as in many English dialects, the velarized lateral does not appear in the onset of a syllable.
Vowels
| front | central | back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| 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, 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 [25])
- Abdullah, S. and Alam, K., English-Kurdish (Sorani) and Kurdish (Sorani)-English Dictionary, Star Publications / Languages of the World Publications, India, 2004 [26]
- Awde, Nicholas, Kurdish-English/English-Kurdish Dictionary and Phrasebook, Hippocrene Books Inc., U.S., 2004 [27]
- Raman : English-Kurdish (Sorani) Dictionary, Pen Press Publishers Ltd, UK, 2003, (800 pages) [28]
- Saadallah, Salah, English-Kurdish Dictionary, Avesta/Paris Kurdish Institute, Istanbul, 2000, (1477 pages) [29]
- Amindarov, Aziz, Kurdish-English/English-Kurdish Dictionary, Hippocrene Books Inc., U.S., 1994 [30]
- Rizgar, Baran (M. F. Onen), Kurdish-English/English-Kurdish (Kurmancî Dictionary) UK, 1993, 400 p. + 70 illustrations [31]
As a main program, Iranian Kurdish-speaker scholar, Hamid Hassani, is supposed to prepare a Soranî Kurdish Language Corpus, consisting of one-million words.
References
- ↑ SIL - Kurdish, Central
- ↑ SIL - Kurdish, Northern
- ↑ SIL - Kurdish, Southern
- ↑ Geographic distribution of Kurdish and other Iranic languages
- ↑ Arnaiz-Villena, Antonio; Martiñez-Lasoa, Jorge; Alonso-Garcia, Jorge, The correlation Between Languages and Genes: The usko-Mediterranean Peoples, , Human Immunology 62 (9): 1051-1061, 2001
- ↑ Arnaiz-Villena, Antonio; Gomez-Casado, E; Martiñez-Lasoa, Jorge, Population genetic relationships between Mediterranean populations determined by HLA distribution and a historic perspective, , Tissue Antigens 60: 117, 2002
- ↑ Izady, Mehrbad, Exploring Kurdish Origins, , Kurdish Life (7), 1993
- ↑ Repression of Kurds in Syria is widespread, Amnesty International Report, March 2005.
- ↑ Special Focus Cases: Leyla Zana, Prisoner of Conscience
- ↑ Kurdish performers banned, Appeal from International PEN
- ↑ The Kurdish Language and Literature, by Joyce Blau, Professor of Kurdish language and civilization at the National Institute of Oriental Language and Civilization of the University of Paris (INALCO).
- ↑ The language policy of Iran from State policy on the Kurdish language: the politics of status planning by Amir Hassanpour, University of Toronto
- ↑ Neighboring Kurds Travel to Study in Iraq
- ↑ Turkey to get Kurdish television
- ↑ Kurdish language - Britannica Online Encyclopedia
- ↑ Ethnologue report for Zaza-Gorani
- ↑ http://www.kurdishacademy.org/?q=node/42
- ↑ Keo - History
- ↑ J N Postgate, Languages of Iraq, ancient and modern, British School of Archaeology in Iraq., [Iraq] : British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2007, p.139.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 D.N. MacKenzie, Language in Kurds & Kurdistan, Encyclopaedia of Islam.
- ↑ Postgate, J.N., Languages of Iraq, ancient and modern, [Iraq] : British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2007., ISBN 9780903472210, p.139
- ↑ Irangeles : Iranians in Los Angeles by Ron Kelley; Jonathan Friedlander; Anita Y Colby; Gustave E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies.; University of California, Los Angeles. International Studies and Overseas Programs. p.156.
- ↑ J N Postgate, Languages of Iraq, ancient and modern, British School of Archaeology in Iraq, [Iraq] : British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2007, p.138.
- ↑ The Kurdish Unified Alphabet
- ↑ Kurdish-English Dictionary - Chyet, Michael L. - Yale University Press
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ ISBN 0-7818-1071-X
- ↑ ISBN 1-904018-83-1
- ↑ Saladin's English - Kurdish Dictionary by Salah Saadallah (Saladin's English - Kurdish Dictionary by Salah Saadallah): Tulumba.com
- ↑ ISBN 0-7818-0246-6
- ↑ ISBN 1-873722-05-2
See also
- List of countries by Kurdish-speaking population
- Kurdish grammar
- Kurdish literature
- Kurdish Institute of Paris
- Kurdish Institute of Istanbul
- Kurdistan
- List of Kurdish people
- Kurdish culture
- Sorani
- Kurmanji/Bahdīnī
External links
- The Kurdish Institute of Paris - Language and Literature
- Kurdish Language and Linguistics
- Kurdish Institute of Istanbul
- Kurdish Radio
- Apolitik Mizah
- KAL: The Kurdish Academy of Language
- Kurdish Language Academy in Iran
- Kurdish Kurdish links and language information, dictionary etc.
- Kurdish language at the Open Directory Project
- Online Kurdish-English Dictionary
- On-line Kurdish-English Dictionary
- Online English to Kurdish to English Dictionary (By Erdal Ronahî)
- Online Kurdish-German-Kurdish Dictionary
- Online Kurdish-English Ferheng Dictionary
- Online Turkish-Kurdish-Turkish Dictionary
- http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Linguistics-and-Philosophy/24-942Grammar-of-a-Less-Familiar-
- Comparison between alphabets used in Kurdish
- Jeunesse Kurde - Kurdish Youth Community (fr,kd,tr,en)
- Gorani Influence on Central Kurdish
Religious texts
Kurdish broadcast programs
- Voice of America, Kurdish Service
- Zayele, Radio Sweden
- SBS Radio's Kurdish Language Program, Australia
- "Evangeliums-Rundfunk of Germany" (ERF)- Christian Programs in Kurdish Kurmanji, Germany
- "Evangeliums-Rundfunk of Germany" (ERF)- Christian Programs in Kurdish Sorani, Germany
- KurdSat Broadcasting Ltd., Sulaimania, Iraqi Kurdistan
- Kurdistan TV, Iraqi Kurdistan
- Zagros TV , Satellite Channel, Iraqi Kurdistan
- Zimanê Kurdî - Kurdish language
- Tehran Kurdish Radio
- Kürtçe Müzik
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