| Group |
Iranian (with Persian,
Pashto etc.), Northwest Iranian (with Baluchi,
Talysh etc.) |
| Geography |
About 20 million people whose native tongue is Kurdish now live in
Kurdistan, a histrocial region divided between Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Armenia
and Iran. A number of Kurdish speakers also live in Azerbaijan, Russia
and the countries of the Middle East. Two main dialects exist: Kurmanji
and Sorani, but they do not differ too much from each other. |
| History |
The oldest monuments in Kurdish date back from the 11th century. As
the language never had its state, Kurdish has always been discriminated
replaced by Arabic, Turkish or Persian in written speech. However, in the
last centuries rich literature in Kurdiush appeared. |
| Phonetics |
Both dialects use 9 vowels, Sorani has one consonant less than Kurmanji
- it lacks v. Practically all the consonants of Kurdish have
their aspirated or spiranted analogues. The stress is falling on the last
syllable. |
| Nominal Morphology |
The nouns have all the typical Indo-European categories, which are
sometimes lost in other Iranian languages. In Kurdish, nouns are declined
in two genders (male, female), cases (nominative, indirect, vocative),
numbers (singular and plural). There are two articles, definite and indefinite,
like in English. Several varieties of Sorani lack noun cases and their
morphology is simplified in general. |
| Verbal Morphology |
The verb can be conjugated in two types: subjective and objective,
while the last one is used only in plural of transitive verbs. Six tenses
are also quite Indo-European: present, future, past, past prolonged, perfect,
pluperfect. |
| Writing |
Arabic-based alphabet (in Iraq), Armenian
alphabet (in USSR in 1921-1929), Cyrillic
alphabet (in USSR since 1946), Latin alphabet. |
| Close Contacts |
Persian, Arabic, Turkish |
| Sample |
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| Picture |
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| More info |
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