Do you know anything about Kurdish Language? Did you know that there are several Kurdish dialects, and that speakers of these dialects cannot easily understand one another.
Kurdish Languages & Dialects
The two most commonly spoken dialects are so different that they could almost be considered separate languages. The distinction between language and dialect within Kurdish is in fact problematic and is based on a variety of criteria. These Kurdish language or dialects share a history of resilience in the face of imposed change.
Kurdish actually consists of a continuum of languages/dialects spoken in “Kurdistan,” a geo-cultural region that transcends political borders. Kurds make up the majority of the population in these areas that are divided between Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and a few smaller countries. As such, terms like “Iraqi Kurdistan” and “Syrian Kurdistan” have arisen. Kurdistan can also refer to the autonomous republic in Iraq. Although Kurds share the same ethnic identity, the languages they speak, though closely related, are not mutually intelligible. Kurdish dialects are primarily divided into three types, Northern (Kurjami), Central (Sorani), and Southern (Pehlewaní). Sorani and Kurmanji Kurdish, the two largest “dialects,” are about as different as English and German.
Writing the Kurdish ABC’s | Kurdish Language
Kurmanji Kurdish is typically written using an adapted Latin-based script not dissimilar to the Turkish alphabet. Sorani Kurdish however, is written using an adapted Perso-Arabic script which was standardized in Iraq and Iran after World War I. With the many frontiers dividing “Kurdistan,” it is not surprising that a third system exists: Kurmanji-speakers in the former Soviet Union have used an adapted Cyrillic alphabet. In the 1920’s, the Armenian alphabet was used in Soviet Armenia. This was later changed to a Latin-like alphabet which contained Cyrillic glyphs during the Soviet Union’s latinization campaign. This campaign was later abandoned in the 1930’s and countries under Soviet rule returned to Cyrillic-based alphabets.
The Kurdish Academy of Language (KAL) believes that a unified Kurdistan can exist only in the context of a unified Kurdish language and that a unified writing system is its prerequisite. For this reason, Kurdish linguists have created a new alphabet called Yekgirtu (which means unified). It is a slight variation of the Latin-based script typically used for Kurmanji, though its adjustments are aimed to simplify and better accommodate the phonology of all Kurdish dialects. It employs diacritics (“accent marks”) used only in the “Latin 1” type system for western European languages to allow Kurds to more easily communicate using the internet and other electronic media.
Central & Northern Kurdish
Sorani, or Central Kurdish, is spoken in western Iran and much of Iraqi Kurdistan. Considerably more works have been published in Sorani since the fall of the Ba’athist regime in Iraq and the dialect, in its Perso-Arabic script, has thereby become more dominant. It was even proposed that Central Kurdish be the official language of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, something which was met with great resistance from Kurmanji speakers. Kurmanji, or Northern Kurdish, is more widely spoken but may be less standardized. It is also the ceremonial language of Yazidism, a religion practiced by Kurds, especially in Iraq. However, recent events have led to a mass exodus of Yazidis.
Kurdish grammar has many unusual features. Kurmanji, for instance, is an SOV language. This acronym refers to sentence order, meaning that in Kurmanji the subject of a sentence is immediately followed by an object and then the verb. So, Kurmanji speakers might say something along the lines of “I ice cream like to eat.” rather than the sentence order typically found in English sentences (SVO) where the object follows the verb: “I like to eat ice cream.” Moreover, many common features of other more familiar languages are completely missing. For example, both Sorani and Kurmanji use the same word for all three pronouns: he, she, and it. This means that there is no way to distinguish gender with pronouns in Kurdish!
So How Do You Say Hello? | Kurdish Language
Learning a foreign language is always challenging. But in the case of Kurdish, regional variations may mean learning more than one language. Depending on how enthusiastic you are, maybe learning one or more of these rich, complex languages interests you. Or, maybe you would rather just learn a few phrases to get by on your next trip to southern Turkey.
A comparison of greetings is a good indication of just how different regional dialects of Kurdish really are. Below are some fun phrases in the two main Kurdish dialects. Also see the sources below for some great educational resources!
|
English |
Sorani |
Kurmanji |
| Hello | Sillaw, Ew kata bash | Merheba |
| How are you? | Çonî | Çawa yî? |
| Where’s the bathroom? | Awdestxaneke li kwê ye? | Hemam li ku ye? |
| I love you | Xoştim dewê | Ez te hez dikem |
| Goodbye | Xuda li gel | Bi xatirê te |
About the Author: Ethan Hartzell is an undergraduate student at Tufts university. He speaks Arabic, Spanish, French, and Chinese. Ethan recently finished his summer internship with us here at Language Connections where he worked in our Marketing Department while teaching Arabic at the Arabic Summer Academy in Boston.
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