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Kurdish language

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Kurdish
Kurdî, کوردی
Native toArmenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey
RegionKurdistan; Also Anatolia, Caucasus, Khorasan, Kurdish diaspora
EthnicityKurds
Native speakers
29 million (2017–2024)[1]
Dialects
Official status
Official language in
Recognised minority
language in
Language codes
ISO 639-1ku
ISO 639-2kur
ISO 639-3kur – inclusive code
Individual codes:
kmr – Northern Kurdish
ckb – Central Kurdish
sdh – Southern Kurdish
lki – Laki Kurdish
Glottologkurd1259
Linguasphere(North Kurdish incl. Kurmanji & Kurmanjiki) + 58-AAA-b (Central Kurdish incl. Dimli/Zaza & Gurani) + 58-AAA-c (South Kurdish incl. Kurdi) 58-AAA-a (North Kurdish incl. Kurmanji & Kurmanjiki) + 58-AAA-b (Central Kurdish incl. Dimli/Zaza & Gurani) + 58-AAA-c (South Kurdish incl. Kurdi)
Geographic distribution of Kurdish dialects and other Iranian languages spoken by Kurds
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Kurdish (Kurdî, کوردی, pronounced [kʊrdiː] ⓘ) is a Northwestern Iranian language or group of languages spoken by Kurds in the region of Kurdistan,[10][11] namely in southeast Turkey, northern Iraq, northwest Iran, and northern Syria. It is also spoken in northeast Iran, as well as in certain areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Kurdish varieties constitute a dialect continuum except for Zaza,[12] with some mutually unintelligible varieties,[10] and collectively have 29 million native speakers.[13] The main varieties of Kurdish are Kurmanji, Sorani, and Southern Kurdish (Xwarîn). The majority of the Kurds speak Kurmanji,[14] and most Kurdish texts are written in Kurmanji and Sorani. Kurmanji is written in the Hawar alphabet, a derivation of the Latin script, and Sorani is written in the Sorani alphabet, a derivation of the Arabic script.

A separate group of non-Kurdish Northwestern Iranian languages, the Zaza–Gorani languages, are also spoken by several million ethnic Kurds.[15][16][17]

The literary output in Kurdish was mostly confined to poetry until the early 20th century, when more general literature became developed. Today, the two principal written Kurdish dialects are Kurmanji and Sorani. Sorani is, along with Arabic, one of the two official languages of Iraq and is in political documents simply referred to as "Kurdish".[18][19]

Classification and origin

The Kurdish varieties belong to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. They are generally classified as Northwestern Iranian languages, or by some scholars as intermediate between Northwestern and Southwestern Iranian.[20]: 587  Martin van Bruinessen notes that "Kurdish has a strong South-Western Iranian element", whereas "Zaza and Gurani [...] do belong to the north-west Iranian group".[21]

Ludwig Paul concludes that Kurdish seems to be a Northwestern Iranian language in origin,[12] but acknowledges that it shares many traits with Southwestern Iranian languages like Persian, apparently due to longstanding and intense historical contacts.

Windfuhr identified Kurdish dialects as Parthian, albeit with a