Language Issues

Kurdish as an Iranian Language

Kurdish is classified by linguists as belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family; it is most closely related to the various dialects of Persian, to Pashto spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to Baluchi spoken in Pakistan.

As a member of the Indo-European language family, Kurdish is not related at all to Turkish, a member of the Ural-Altaic language family, or to Arabic, a member of the Semitic language family. The similarity between Kurdish and the Iranian languages, and its dissimilarity from Arabic and Turkish, can readily be seen in the following chart showing words for the numbers from one to five:*

English		Kurdish		Persian		Pashto		Arabic		Turkish
one		[yek]		[yak]		[yaw]		[wahad]		bir
two		[du]		[du]		[dwa]		[ithneyn]		iki
three		[se]		[se]		[dre]		[thalatha]		üc
four		[chwar]		[char]		[tsalor]		[arba'a]		dört
five		[penj]		[panj]		[pindze]		[khamsa]		bes

*The Turkish numbers are listed in Turkish spelling. The Kurdish, Arabic, Persian, and Pashto numbers are given in phonetic notation, signified by enclosure in brackets.

The Kurdish Dialects

There are two main dialects of Kurdish and three or four minor dialects. The major dialects are the northern, or Kurmanji, and the southern, or Sorani. These dialects are mutually intelligible: A speaker of one of them can usually understand a speaker of the other, although a Sorani speaker from a remote area might have to listen a little harder at first to a Kurmanji speaker, and vice versa.

Kurmanji is spoken by the Kurds living in Turkey, Syria, and the countries of the former Soviet Union; it is also spoken by the Iraqi Kurds down to the Greater Zab River and by Kurds in the northern part of Iran. Traditional Kurdish literature is in Kurmanji, for example the Mam-o-zin, the 17th-century Kurdish national epic. The Kurdish written in a roman alphabet tends to be Kurmanji; it is the dialect spoken in Turkey, where the Kurds learn to read and write in the modern Turkish alphabet.

Sorani Kurdish is spoken by Iraqi Kurds living south of the Greater Zab, and by the Iranian Kurds living in Kordestan Province. Sorani Kurdish is typically written in a modified Arabic script; such modern literature as exists in Kurdish is usually in Sorani, because there has been more opportunity to publish in Iraq than in other countries in recent times.

As is the case with most other minority languages, the modern dialects of Kurdish are heavily influenced by the official languages spoken around them. The Kurdish in Turkey, for example, contains a large number of Turkish words; the Kurdish in Iraq contains an overlay of Arabic vocabulary, and so on.

There is no one standard alphabet or spelling system for Kurdish.

The Kurdish Alphabets

There is no one standard alphabet or spelling system for Kurdish. It is written in an Arabic alphabet by Kurds educated in Iraq or Iran, a roman alphabet by Kurds educated in Turkey, and a Cyrillic alphabet by Kurds educated in countries of the former Soviet Union. The use of different alphabets for Kurdish pretty much ensures that Kurds from Turkey cannot read Kurdish written in Iraq and Iran, although most educated Kurds read European languages and can pick up an ability to read Kurdish in the roman alphabet.

The roman alphabet in which Kurdish is written in Turkey and in exile communities in Europe and the United States is based on the Turkish alphabet, although its vowel symbols are different. Here is a Kurdish proverb, "In a fire, both green and dry wood burn (In a war, both combatants and innocents suffer alike)" in the roman alphabet:

The Arabic script in which Kurdish is written in Iraq and Iran is commonly used by all the peoples converted to Islam; the Kurdish version contains extra letters to represent Kurdish sounds that do not exist in Arabic. The Arabic-based Kurdish alphabet is written from right to left and does not make a distinction between capital and small letters. The long vowels are represented with symbols; the short vowels are not represented at all. Here is the proverb given above, but written in the Arabic script:

Kurdish Grammar

Kurdish grammatical structure is very different from English. The most basic difference is the word order in a sentence: In Kurdish the usual order is subject–object–verb, in contrast to the English word order of subject–verb–object. This difference and others can be seen by comparing the word-by-word translation of the following sentence with the idiomatic English translation.*

[Beg digali: chand a:gha:lara:n ku digali: Pa:sha: ru:nishtin zadi: dakhwan.]

Bey with several gentlemen that with Pasha they sit meal is eating

"The Bey is eating the meal with several gentlemen who are sitting with the Pasha."

*This example, from a 1913 grammar of Kurdish, illustrates the point, and also clearly reflects the Ottoman Empire that the grammar's author was dealing with. A "bey" is an important man.

Kurdish Pronunciation

Kurdish has the following consonants roughly like their English counterparts:

[b] as in boy		[h] as in how		[t] as in toy
[ch] as in choose		[j] as in juice		[v] as in voice
[d] as in day		[l] as in loose		[y] as in yes
[f] as in fine		[m] as in mice		[z] as in zoo
[g] as in go		[n] as in nice		[zh] as in pleasure
[p] as in put		[w] as in want

Kurdish also has the following consonants that English does not have:

[x]: like German ach
[gh]: like [x] only pronounced with the vocal cords vibrating
[r]: like the Spanish or Italian [r]
[q]: a k pronounced very far back in the mouth

The Kurdish vowel system is almost the same as English:

[i] close to the vowel in bit
[i:] close to the vowel in beet
[e] close to the vowel in bet, in some dialects closer to bat
[e:] close to the vowel in bait
[a] close to the vowel in box
[u] close to the vowel in put
[u:] close to the vowel in boot
[o] close to the vowel in boat

The vowels [i] and [i:], [e] and [e:], and [u] and [u:] are considered to be short and long pairs, and this is indicated in the spelling systems: in the roman systems, the long vowels are usually spelled with a ^ over them. In the Arabic script, the long vowels are represented by symbols, and the short vowels not represented at all.

Kurdish literature is mostly poetry and stories akin to our fairy tales.

Kurdish Literature

The earliest written Kurdish text dates from the 7th century CE There is a distinguished Kurdish literature dating from the Ottoman Empire; it is mostly poetry and stories akin to our fairy tales, and much of it contains nationalist themes. The great national Kurdish epic, the Mam-o-zin, was composed in 1695 by the Kurdish poet Ahmed Khani. The Mam-o-zin is basically a love story about the boy Mam and the Kurdish princess Zin, but it also includes much about Kurdish life.

Traditional Kurdish poetry is from the same tradition as The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Here is a sample in English,* a poem in praise of the girl Laila:

Dalaila Aishana, Dalaila Aishana,
The hills are high and I see thee not;
Oh! That my hand might reach to thy breast,
There is none other on earth like thee.

Dalaila Aishana, Dalaila Aishana,
A lute will I make of fourteen strings,
And the strings shall be made of my ills and griefs;
A comely wife and an ugly man, a handsome man and an ugly
    wife, come neither to killing nor forsaking.

Dalaila Aishana, Dalaila Aishana,
A lute will I make of serpents' bones,
With strings made from the loved one's locks,
And my mouth shall be for its rings and pendants.

Dalaila Aishana, Dalaila Aishana,
A lute will I make of sparrows' bones,
With strings of a young bride's curls.
Not for me the wife, my love's yet young.

Dalaila Aishana, mine, and of this heart!
They form a new budding flower.
Thy father and mother complain of us.

Laila, thou art mine, Laila, thou art mine!
Nor will I leave thee go till the moment of death,
    My plaint has wearied me.

*This translation is also from the 1913 grammar.

There has always been a strong Kurdish tradition of oral literature as well, including folk poetry, proverbs, and stories, many of the latter reminiscent of the revenge plays of Shakespeare.

The biggest language problem among the Kurds will be in reading the roman alphabet.

Teaching the Kurds English

The Kurds will have relatively few problems in learning English: The sounds of Kurdish are not that different from those of English (especially the vowels), so a Kurd's attempts to say the English he or she hears will be quite successful.

The fact that many of the Kurds also speak Arabic also helps them with their learning of English.

The children will learn English the fastest, and the older people will have the most trouble, especially if they have not had much formal education.

The adults will probably do well in ESL (English as a Second Language) classes offered to non-English speakers at local community colleges or adult education centers, although they will probably need extra help with the alphabet and writing. Kurds will enjoy reading about their own history, and, if you can find them, translations of Kurdish literature; these would make excellent texts in reading classes for more advanced ESL students.

The biggest language problem among the Kurds will be in reading the roman alphabet, a special problem in modern America where so much depends on an individual's ability to read. (To be convinced of this, look in the dairy case at the supermarket, and note the number of kinds of cottage cheese available, indistinguishable from one another except for the labels.) Even if someone knows English well, it takes years and years to be able to read quickly and automatically.

Older people might learn more English by being in settings where English is spoken, rather than in formal language instruction. You might try subject-matter classes like cooking or gardening, where most of the instruction is handson.

Everyone will need a lot of work in recognizing numbers: Numbers used in Iraq are written in the same direction as ours are (for example, twenty-one is written 21 instead of 12), but most of the symbols are different. The most crucial use for a knowledge of our numbers is in reading American paper money, which is of a uniform size and color and illustrated with presidents and buildings which tend to look alike; for newcomers, the most reliable way to distinguish a ten from a twenty or a fifty is to recognize the numbers.

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