Kurdish language
The Kurdish language (Kurdish: Kurdî) is an Indo-European language spoken by the Kurdish people in an area called Kurdistan, including by Kurdish people in parts of the countries Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.[5] Kurdish has two main dialects and many subs dialects, the two mains are : Kurmanji and Sorani. It belongs to the same language group as the Iranian languages. Another well-known Iranian language is Persian. It is considered an Indo-European language.
Kurdish | |
---|---|
كوردی, Kurdî, Kurdí, Кöрди[1] | |
Native to | Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Ukraine, Serbia, Russia |
Ethnicity | 55-60 million Kurds |
Native speakers | 60 million (2021)[2] |
Language family | Indo-European
|
Writing system | Perso-Arabic (Sorani alphabet) in Iraq and Iran, Latin (Hawar alphabet) in Turkey, Syria and Armenia |
Official status | |
Official language in | Iraq: status as official language alongside Arabic. Iran: constitutional status as a regional language Armenia: minority language[3] Azerbaijan: minority language in 5 districts[4] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | ku |
ISO 639-2 | kur |
ISO 639-3 | kur – inclusive code Individual codes: ckb – Sorani kmr – Kurmanji sdh – Southern Kurdish lki – Laki |
Linguasphere | 58-AAA-a (North Kurdish incl. Kurmanji & Kurmanjiki) + 58-AAA-b (Central Kurdish incl. Dimli/Zaza & Gurani) + 58-AAA-c (South Kurdish incl. Kurdi) + Luri dialect |
Kurdish Language Media
Road signs near Diyarbakır showing the place names in Turkish and Kurdish
References
- ↑ "Kurdish Language – Kurdish Academy of Language". Kurdishacademy.org. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
- ↑ Only very rough estimates are possible. SIL Ethnologue gives estimates, broken down by dialect group, totalling 60 million, but with the caveat of "Very provisional figures for Northern Kurdish speaker population". Ethnologue estimates for dialect groups: Northern: 37 M (undated; 30 M in Turkey for 2021), Central: 8.75M (2021), Southern: 6 M (2021), Laki: 2 M (2021). Luri:5 m (2021). Zazaki: 3 m (2021). The Swedish Nationalencyklopedin listed Kurdish in its "Världens 100 största språk 2007" (The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007), citing an estimate of 20.6 million native speakers.
- ↑ European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
- ↑ "Kurdish, Northern". Ethnologue.
- ↑ "Geographic distribution of the Kurdish language". Archived from the original on 2007-10-18. Retrieved 2007-06-18.
This language has its own Wikipedia project. See the Kurdish language edition. |
This language has its own Wikipedia project. See the Kurdish language edition. |