Hi everyone, my name is Julie
and today we're traveling to the Zagros Mountains to discover a language with a rich history and a long fight for existence and independence
Slav and welcome to the Kurdish language
Is there a language learning tool that polyglots all over the world are using?
Yes there is - italki. And why is this so useful?
Because it allows you to practice virtually any language with a native speaker
and that's a super effective way to learn – talking from experience
They actually offer one-on-one video lessons in over 150 languages including minority or even highly endangered languages which I particularly appreciate
For example, on italki you can learn Kurdish
Booking a lesson is very easy
You can choose the type of lesson you want, you can pick when you want the lesson, you can even pick what other languages the teacher can speak
The best part about italki is the payment – you pay per lesson
No subscription, no commitment. And lessons start at only five dollars
Click the link in the description to start learning with italki and get an extra five dollars for your first lesson using a code JULIE
Kurdish is spoken in a large contiguous area that extends from Turkey, Syria, Iraq Western Iran and Armenia and also in Eastern Iran on a border with Turkmenistan
It is estimated that there are around 30 million native speakers of Kurdish
Kurds are probably the largest nation that doesn't have a country so the status of their language varies greatly
In Turkey, the usage of Kurdish was banned until 1992. Now it is allowed to use Kurdish in everyday life, but not in media or education
In Syria, the usage of Kurdish is banned
In Iraq however Kurdish is one of the two official languages along with Arabic
In Iran Kurdish language is not banned but it is not official either so it's not used in public education
Kurdish is divided into three main dialects
Northern Kurdish or Kurmanji spoken by 16 million people in Turkey, Syria, Northern Iraq and Northwest and Northeast Iran
Central Kurdish or Sorani spoken by around 8 million people in much of Iraqi and Irani Kurdistan, and this is the variety that is official in Iraq
and Southern Kurdish or Pehlewani spoken by around 3 million people mainly in Western Iran
The dialects are actually quite different from each other and not mutually intelligible so they could even be called distinct languages
However they are still usually treated as dialects as there is a strong feeling of Kurds themselves as a united nation speaking the same language
Kurdish forms a part of the Indo-European languages that include branches like Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Indo-Aryan and many others
and we can still see similarities in the basic vocabularies of these seemingly different languages
All these languages originated from Proto-Indo-European that was probably spoken around the steppes of Southern Russia and Ukraine
From there, around 2500 BC one branch migrated eastwards and became the so-called Indo-Iranians
During centuries these Indo-Iranians were living in Central Asia slowly migrating south
By the 8th century BC the Iranian tribes of Mada and Parsua were already well established in the Zagros Mountains according to the Assyrian records
These Mada went on and conquered pretty much all of the area establishing the Median Empire
After that the Parsa tribe conquered the Median Empire and much more, and that came to be known as the Persian Empire
Nowadays the Iranian languages can be divided into four groups: Southwest, Northwest, Central and Northeast
Kurdish belongs to the Northwest branch while Persian belongs to the Southwest branch
We also see some ancient languages inside the Northwest branch
The Median language of the Median Empire and the Parthian language – a language of the Parthian Empire
The name "Kurd" probably originated from the Middle-Persian "kwrt-" which means "nomad, tent dweller"
This term originally designated any Northwest Iranian nomadic tribe no matter the language they speak
and it seems that even in the 16th century this word still conserved the original meaning
Only later the word "Kurd" started referring to a Kurdish nation which speaks Kurdish language
The earliest written texts in Kurdish date from the 16th and 17th century when prominent Kurdish poets developed the literary Kurdish language
There were mentions of Kurdish language from before though
A historian Ibn Wahshiyya came across Kurdish texts on agriculture in the 9th century AD
He also presents the Kurdish script in his book
However, some say that this script along with some other scripts from his book could have been just invented by the author
Another mention of Kurdish language is in relation to the two holy books of the Yazidi religion practiced by around 1 million Kurds
The Yazidi Black Book and the Yazidi Book of Revelation
These books are written in the so-called Yazidi script and are dated of the 13th century AD
However the authenticity of these books is highly disputed
and it is believed that these were Western forgeries of the 19th century that were based on some local oral traditions
During its modern history Kurdish have had many other writing systems
A latin-based script has been and is still in use for Kurmanji and an Arabic-based script has been and is still in use for Sorani and Pehlewani dialects
A Latin based and then a Cyrillic based alphabets of Kurmanji were developed in Soviet Union mainly for Kurdish speakers in Armenia
There was even an Armenian-based script in use between 1921 and 1929
The currently used Latin alphabet has 31 letters and is based on the Turkish alphabet with some added letters
The modern Sorani alphabet is based on the Persian script
but unlike Persian which is an abjad as some vowels are not represented in writing
Sorani script is actually almost a real alphabet – it has 34 letters and it has a symbol for all of its vowels except one
Now about the sounds themselves
In Kurmanji there are 8 vowel letters, six of them are pairs of long and short vowels, even though the pronunciation of short and long vowels slightly differs
the short "i" for example is more like a closed [ɪ] versus the long clean [i:]
The Kurmanji consonants should be relatively easy to pronounce for an English speaker as almost all sounds are familiar
except maybe for the [q] that is mostly encountered in Arabic loanwords, [x] and this rolled [r]
but not too aggressively rolled, more like a flap
In Sorani there is no letter for the short "i", all the other vowel sounds have their own unique Kurdish letter
Comparing to Kurmanji, in Sorani there are a couple of extra consonant sounds
Now it's time to listen to Kurds and to how they speak their language
Kurdish is an SOV language – the verb always comes at the end of a sentence
There used to be three genders in the Proto-Iranian language. While the gender has been lost in Sorani, it has been conserved in Kurmanji
Sorani in turn developed a system for marking definitiveness which is not obligatory in Kurmanji
In Sorani, there are different endings for a definite and indefinite noun
Kurmanji also conserved a system of four cases while Sorani only has nominative and ezafe
a letter that connects a possessive noun or a adjective to the main noun
Kurdish has a complex system of verb conjugation: each verb has a present and past stem to which person and number endings are added
In Sorani, there is no future tense which is indicated by the present
In Kurmanji, future is formed by placing "ê" after the subject plus the subjective form
Kurdish is one of the rare Indo-European languages that has ergativity
and this fact completely blew my mind
Ergativity is something that you find in languages like Georgian or Basque, not Indo-European
but then I see on this map that all Indo-Aryan languages are ergative so it blows my mind a little bit less now
Kurdish shows ergativity in past tense with transitive verbs but not in the present tense
In the past the subject switches to the oblique case and the object becomes in the nominative
It is kinda difficult to translate this in English
but the phrase "I saw you" could be literally translated as something like "to me you were seen"
No matter the hardships, Kurdish language and culture has been able to survive and thrive
This is manifested by the ancient Kurdish tradition Dengbêj – storytelling that is performed by singing
Dengbêjs are being created to this day so this old tradition is still very much alive and practiced
Hope you enjoyed this little exploration of Kurdish
and if you like languages don't forget to subscribe for more
and if you want to influence the next language selection go to my Patreon, become my top tier Patron and you'll be able to vote for the next language
Thank you so much for watching and see you in our next exploration!