Kurdish (Kurdî)
Spoken in:	Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Armenia, Lebanon
Region:	-
Total speakers:	35 Million
Ranking:	29
Genetic classification:	Indo-European  Indo-Iranian   Iranian    Kurdish
Official status
Official language of:	part of Iraq

Contents

1 Geographic distribution 2 Classification and related languages 3 Dialects and regional variants 4 Writing system 5 Kurdish Phonology 6 Indo-European Linguistic Comparison 7 External links and references

Geographic distribution

The Kurdish languages (also called dialects of Kurdish) are spoken in the region loosely called Kurdistan including Kurdish populations in parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

Classification and related languages

The Kurdish languages belong to the northwestern group of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family; a close relative is Persian, which is in the southwestern group.

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
• Hewrami or Auramani

The Dimili (Zaza) language is also thought to be a Kurdic language by some, although many linguists dispute this.

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 Iranian Medes seem not to be supported by the linguistic data.

Dialects and regional variants

Kurdish dialects can be divided into three primary groups:

1. the Northern Kurdish dialects group also called Kurmanji and Badínaní,
2. Central Kurdish dialects group also called Sorani (see also basic linguistic differences between these two major branches) and
3. the Southern Kurdish dialects group also called Pahlavani or "Pahlawanik" group in some sources. The two other major branches of Kurdish language are, Dimílí group also called "Zaza" and 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. 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, 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 former Soviet Union.
  • In Iraq, most of the tribes who live in Akra, Emadiyeh, 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 Yaristan (Kakeyí, Ahl-e Haqq))
    • 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

In some Kurdish sources the Persid language of Luri, a south west Iranian language has been classed as a subgroup of Kurdic languages. However, most linguists agree that Luri is from the same branch as Persian and belongs to the Persid (Persian-based) languages.

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. 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 (http://www.KurdishAcademy.org)

Kurdish Phonology

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

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental or Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stops	p b		t d			k g	q	1
Fricatives		f v	s z	ʃ ʒ	x 2			h
Affricates				ʧ ʤ
Nasals	m		n			ɴ
Laterals			l
Velarized laterals			lˠ
Flaps			ɾ
Thrills			r
Approximants	w3				j

Note 1: : While it is not attested by the academy, some alphabet have a letter for the glottal stop

Note 2: : Similarly, some sources cites a [ɣ] phoneme (voiced velar fricative).

Note 3: : [w] is a labio-velar approximant

Indo-European Linguistic Comparison

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

External links and references

• KAL: The Kurdish Academy of Language (http://www.KurdishAcademy.org)
• Open Directory Project: Kurdish Language (http://www.dmoz.org/Science/Social_Sciences/Linguistics/Languages/Natural/Indo-European/Indo-Iranian/Iranian/Kurdish/)
• Kurd_lal: Kurdish Language and Linguistics (http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/%7esiamakr/kurd_lal.html)
• On-line Kurdish-English dictionary (http://stp.ling.uu.se/%7ekamalk/dic/foldoc/lexikon.html)
• Online Kurdish School for Sorani,Kurmanji and Dimili (http://www.dibistanakurdi.com)
• Academic research about Zazaki (http://www.zazaki.org)

als:Kurdisch de:Kurdische Sprache eo:Kurda lingvo fa:زبانهای کردی تبار fr:Kurde ku:Zimanê kurdî nl:Koerdisch ja:クルド語 tr:Kürtçe