Northern Kurdish
| Northern Kurdish | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Kurmanji | |||
Kurmancî, کورمانجی, Кӧрманщи Kurdiya Jorîn, کوردیا ژۆرین, Кӧрдьйа Жорин | |||
| Native to | Turkey, Armenia, Syria, Iraq, Iran | ||
Native speakers | 15 million (2009)[1] | ||
Language family | Indo-European
| ||
| Dialects |
| ||
Writing system | Latin (Turkey, Syria), Perso-Arabic (Iran, Iraq); Cyrillic (formerly in the Soviet Union), Armenian (formerly in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic) | ||
| Official status | |||
Recognised minority language in |  Armenia[2] | ||
| Language codes | |||
| ISO 639-3 | kmr | ||
| Glottolog | nort2641[3] | ||
| Linguasphere | 58-AAA-a | ||
 Geographic distribution of Kurdish and other Northwestern Iranian languages spoken by Kurds
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Northern Kurdish (Kurdiya jorîn, کوردیا ژۆرین), also called Kurmanji (Kurmancî, کورمانجی), is a Kurdish language spoken in southeast Turkey, northwest and northeast Iran, northern Iraq and northern Syria. It is the most widespread language of the Kurdish languages. While Kurdish is generally categorized as one of the Northwestern Iranian languages along with Baluchi,[4][5] it also shares many traits with Southwestern Iranian languages like Persian, apparently due to longstanding and intense historical contacts, and some authorities have gone so far as to classify Kurmanji as a Southwestern or "southern" Iranian language.[6][7]
Contents
1 Scripts and books
2 Phonology
3 Dialects
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
Scripts and books
Northern Kurdish is written using the Latin script in Turkey, where most of its speakers live, as well as in Syria. Northern Kurdish is the most widely spoken Kurdish language, being spoken by 80% of all Kurds. The earliest textual record of a Kurdish language dates to the 16th century.[4]
Kurmanji is also the ceremonial language[8][9] of Yazidism. The sacred book Mishefa Reş (the "Yazidi Black Book") and all prayers are written and spoken in Kurmanji. In this context, the Kurmanji language may also be called Ezdiki.[10]
Phonology
Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Near-close | ʏ | ||
Mid | ə | ||
Close-mid | e | o | |
Open | a | ɑ |
The vowels /i, a, u/ have long forms, and Kumandji has contrastive vowel length.[11]
Bilabial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
plain | aspirated | plain | aspirated | plain | aspirated | plain | aspirated | ||||||||
Stop | voiceless | p | pʰ | t̪ | t̪ʰ | k | kʰ | q | ʔ | ||||||
voiced | b | bʱ | d̪ | d̪ʱ | g | gʱ | |||||||||
Affricate | voiceless | t͡ʃ | t͡ʃʰ | ||||||||||||
voiced | d͡ʒ | d͡ʒʱ | |||||||||||||
Fricative | voiceless | f | s | sʰ | ɬ | ʃ | x | ħ | h | ||||||
voiced | (v) | z | zʱ | ʒ | ɣ | (ʕ) | ɦ | ||||||||
Nasal | m | n̪ | ŋ | ||||||||||||
Approximant | l̪ | j | w | ||||||||||||
Trill | r | ||||||||||||||
Flap | ɾ | ||||||||||||||
Dialects
Northern Kurdish forms a dialect continuum of great variability. Loosely, five dialect areas can be distinguished:[12]
Northwestern Kurmanji, spoken in the Kahramanmaraş (in Kurmanji: Meraş), Malatya (Meletî) and Sivas (Sêwaz) provinces of Turkey.
Southwestern Kurmanji, spoken in the Adıyaman (Semsûr), Gaziantep (Entab) and Şanlıurfa provinces of Turkey and the Aleppo Governorate of Syria.
Northern Kurmanji or Serhed , spoken mainly in the Ağrı (Agirî), Erzurum (Erzerom) and Muş (Mûş) provinces of Turkey, as well as adjacent areas.
Southern Kurmanji, spoken in the Al-Hasakah Governorate in Syria, the Sinjar distinct in Iraq, and in several adjacent parts of Turkey centering on the Mardin and Batman provinces.
Southeastern Kurmanji or Badînî, spoken in the Hakkâri province of Turkey and Dohuk Governorate of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Anatolian Kurmanji is spoken in central Anatolia, especially in Konya, Ankara, Aksaray, by Anatolian Kurds
The most distinctive[clarification needed] of these is Badînî.[13]
See also
- Kurdish alphabets
- Central Kurdish dialects
- Southern Kurdish dialects
Kurmancî, a Kurdish linguistic magazine
References
^ Northern Kurdish at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
^ Pavlenko, Aneta (2008). Multilingualism in post-Soviet countries. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. pp. 18–22. ISBN 978-1-84769-087-6..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}
^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Northern Kurdish". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
^ ab Paul, Ludwig (2008). "Kurdish language I. History of the Kurdish language". In Yarshater, Ehsan. Encyclopædia Iranica. London and New York: Routledge. Retrieved 28 August 2013.
^ Windfuhr, Gernot (1975), “Isoglosses: A Sketch on Persians and Parthians, Kurds and Medes”, Monumentum H.S. Nyberg II (Acta Iranica-5), Leiden: 457–471
^ Paul J. White, ed. (2002). Turkey's Alevi Enigma: A Comprehensive Overview. Brill. p. 23. ISBN 978-9004125384.
^ Gunter, Michael M. (2009). The A to Z of the Kurds. The Scarecrow Press. p. 112. ISBN 978-0810868182.
^ Kurmanji is the language of almost all the orally transmitted religious traditions of the Yazidis.
^ YEZIDIS in Armenia. "People Armenia Travel, History, Archeology & Ecology TourArmenia Travel Guide to Armenia". www.tacentral.com.
^ Arakelova, Victoria (2001). "Healing Practices among the Yezidi Sheikhs of Armenia". Asian Folklore Studies. 60 (2): 319–328. doi:10.2307/1179060.As for their language, the Yezidis themselves, in an attempt to avoid being identified with Kurds, call it Ezdiki.
^ Asadpour, Hima; Mohammadi, Maryam. "A Comparative Study of Kurdish Phonological Varieties" (PDF).
^ Öpengin, Ergin; Haig, Geoffrey (2014), "Regional variation in Kurmanji: A preliminary classification of dialects", Kurdish Studies, 2, ISSN 2051-4883
^
for Bahdinan, a historical Kurdish principality, paralleling use of Sorani, also the name of a historical principality, for southern dialects. See BAHDĪNĀN in Encyclopedia Iranica by A. Hassanpour, 1988 (updated 2011): "The majority of the population are Kurds (see figures in Edmonds, [Kurds, Turks and Arabs, London, 1957,] p. 439) and speak Kurmanji, the major Kurdish dialect group, also called Bādīnānī (see, among others, Jardine [Bahdinan Kurmanji: A Grammar of the Kurmanji of the Kurds of Mosul Division and Surrounding Districts, Baghdad, 1922] and Blau [Le Kurde de ʿAmādiya et de Djabal Sindjar: Analyse linguistique, textes folkloriques, glossaires, Paris, 1975])."
External links
 | Kurdish edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
Kurdish Institute Kurdish language, history, books and latest news articles.- ELAR archive of Documenting a religious minority: the Dari dialect of Kerman, Iran
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