Kurdish language

Kurdish (Kurdî, کوردی) is a Northwestern Iranian language or group of languages spoken by Kurds across the region of Kurdistan, which spans southeast Turkey, northern Iraq, northwest Iran, and northern Syria, with additional speakers in northeast Iran, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The varieties of Kurdish form a dialect continuum, though some are mutually unintelligible, and together they have around 29 million native speakers. The three main varieties are Kurmanji, Sorani, and Southern Kurdish (Xwarîn). Kurmanji is the most widely spoken, and most Kurdish texts are written in either Kurmanji or Sorani. Kurmanji uses the Hawar alphabet, based on Latin script, while Sorani uses the Sorani alphabet, based on Arabic script. A separate group of Northwestern Iranian languages, Zaza–Gorani, is also spoken by several million ethnic Kurds, though these are not classified linguistically as Kurdish.

The Kurdish varieties belong to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family, generally classified as Northwestern Iranian, though some scholars see them as intermediate between Northwestern and Southwestern Iranian. Martin van Bruinessen notes that Kurdish has a strong Southwestern Iranian element, while Zaza and Gorani are firmly Northwestern. Ludwig Paul concludes that Kurdish likely originated as a Northwestern Iranian language but shares many traits with Southwestern Iranian languages like Persian due to long historical contact. Windfuhr identified Kurdish dialects as Parthian with a Median substratum, and along with Frye, proposed an eastern origin, linking Kurdish to eastern and central Iranian dialects. Vladimir Minorsky argued that Kurdish descends from the Median language, explaining why its fundamental structural and lexical features persist across all dialects despite wide geographic spread. D.N. Mackenzie’s theory, based on shared phonetic isoglosses among Kurdish, Persian, and Baluchi, suggests these three languages were once in closer contact.

Kurdish varieties are divided into three or four groups with varying mutual intelligibility. Kurmanji is the largest, spoken by an estimated 15 to 20 million Kurds in Turkey, Syria, northern Iraq, and northwest and northeast Iran. Sorani is spoken by about 6 to 7 million Kurds in much of Iraqi Kurdistan and Iran’s Kurdistan province. Southern Kurdish (Pehlewani) is spoken in Iran’s Kermanshah, Ilam, and Lorestan provinces, and in Iraq’s Khanaqin District; Laki and Kordali (Palai) are often included but have distinct features. Historically, Kurmanji is less modified than Sorani and Pehlewani in both phonetics and morphology. Sorani has been influenced by closer cultural proximity to other regional languages, including Gorani. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Kurdish dialects are interrelated but distinguishable from other Western Iranian languages, and are grouped into northern and central divisions; an average Kurmanji speaker struggles to communicate with someone from Sulaymaniyah or Halabja. The Mokriani variety of Sorani is widely spoken in the Mokrian area, with Piranshahr and Mahabad as its main cities.

Zaza–Gorani languages are spoken by communities identifying as ethnic Kurds, but linguistically they are not classified as Kurdish. Some authorities group Kurdish with Zaza-Gorani within a “Northwestern I” group, while Glottolog, based on Encyclopædia Iranica, prefers an areal grouping of “Central dialects” (or “Kermanic”) within Northwest Iranic, placing Kurdish but not Zaza-Gorani with “Kermanic.” Gorani is distinct from Northern and Central Kurdish, though it shares vocabulary with both and some grammatical similarities with Central Kurdish. The Hawrami dialects of Gorani were an important literary language from the 14th century, but were replaced by Central Kurdish in the 20th. European scholars maintain that Gorani is separate from Kurdish and that “Kurdish” refers only to the Northern group, while ethnic Kurds consider any unique language or dialect spoken by Kurds and not by neighboring groups to be Kurdish. Gorani belongs to the Zaza–Gorani branch of Indo-Iranian languages. Zaza, spoken mainly in Turkey, differs grammatically and in vocabulary from Kurdish. Literary output in Kurdish was mostly poetry until the early 20th century, when broader literature emerged. Today, the two main written dialects are Kurmanji and Sorani, with Sorani serving as one of Iraq’s two official languages alongside Arabic, where it is simply called “Kurdish” in political documents.