Kurmanji

Kurmanji
Northern Kurdish
کورمانجی, kurmancî
Kurmanji Kurdish written in both scripts
Native toArmenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey
RegionAutochthonous to Kurdistan, Kurdish diaspora
EthnicityKurds
Native speakers
17 million (2017–2024)
Official status
Recognised minority
language in
Language codes
ISO 639-1ku
ISO 639-3kmr
Glottolognort2641
Linguasphere58-AAA-a
Geographic distribution of the Kurdish languages spoken by Kurds
A man speaking Kurmanji.

Kurmanji (Kurdish: کورمانجی, Latin script: Kurmancî, pronunciationⓘ), also termed Northern Kurdish, is the northernmost of the Kurdish languages, spoken predominantly in southeast Turkey, northwest and northeast Iran, northern Iraq, northern Syria and the Caucasus and Khorasan regions. It is the most widely spoken form of Kurdish.

Kurmanji is the main liturgical language of Yazidism. The qewls, the sacred hymns of the Yazidis and the most authoritative form of Yazidi religious literature, are composed almost entirely in Kurmanji. They are passed down chiefly by oral recitation among the Yazidi clergy, who sing them from memory at religious rites and festivals. The hymns are mostly in the dialect of the Yazidis of Sheikhan, which has lexical and grammatical features not found in other Kurmanji dialects, and elsewhere they may circulate in the local dialect. Their vocabulary contains rarely used old Kurdish words and religious terminology that may seem archaic to speakers of the modern dialect, and its grammar does not always follow the norms of the literary language.

Ethnologue reports that the use of Kurmanji is declining in Turkey even when the language is used as a language of wider communication (LWC) by immigrants to Turkey, and that the language is threatened because it is losing speakers.

History

Pre-modern Kurmanji

The qewls, the sacred hymns of the Yazidis, preserved orally, are composed in Kurmanji and are traditionally placed in the time of Sheikh Adi and his disciples (12th century), most of them attributed to Şêx Fexredîn. Their composers are regarded by linguists as having been highly educated for their time, with a knowledge of philosophy, theology and linguistics, and the hymns are marked by dense metaphor and a rich vocabulary. Preserved chiefly through oral recitation by the Yazidi clergy, some qewls were also copied in Arabic script by some clergy families.

A growing interest in the use of Kurdish in literature began from the 16th century on when Kurdistan had relative political stability and economic prosperity. It was not until the 16th century, that a Kurmanji literary tradition arose. During this era, Sharafkhan Bidlisi from the Principality of Bitlis, wrote that a certain leader of the Derzin Castle wrote most of his poetry and theological commentaries in a Kurdish suggested to have been Kurmanji. Furthermore, during his trips to Kurdistan, Evliya Çelebi praised the educational institutions of the Amedi and Akre regions and quoted a poem by a local poet in his work. Prominent scholars from this period, whose works are preserved today include Melayê Cizîrî, Feqiyê Teyran, Elî Teremaxî and Ehmedê Xanî. Unlike his peers, Xanî consciously worked to codify Kurdish as a written language. Pre-modern Kurmanji began to decline in the 19th century simultaneously with decline of the Kurdish principalities.

Phonology

Phonological features in Kurmanji include the distinction between aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops and the presence of facultative phonemes. For example, Kurmanji Kurdish distinguishes between aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops, which can be aspirated in all positions. Thus /p/ contrasts with /pʰ/, /t/ with /tʰ/, /k/ with /kʰ/, and the affricate /t͡ʃ/ with /t͡ʃʰ/.

Dialect continuum

Kurmanji forms a dialect continuum of great variability. Loosely, six dialect areas can be distinguished:

Ezdîkî and Yazidi politics

Among some Yazidis, the glossonym Ezdîkî is used for Kurmanji to differentiate themselves from Kurds. While Ezdîkî is no different from Kurmanji, some attempt to prove that Ezdîkî is an independent language, including claims that it is a Semitic language. This has been criticized as not being based on scientific evidence and lacking scientific consensus.

On January 25, 2002, Armenia ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and placed Kurdish under state protection. However, because of the divided Yazidi community in Armenia and after strong criticism from parts of the community, the authorities chose to ratify the charter by mentioning both "Kurdish" and "Yezidi" as two separate languages. This resulted in the term Êzdîkî being used by some researchers when delving into the question of minority languages in Armenia, since most Kurdish-speakers in Armenia are Yazidis. As a consequence of this move, Armenian universities offer language courses in both Kurmanji and Êzdîkî as two different dialects.

Kurmanji among other groups

During the end of the Ottoman era, Assyrians in Tur Abdin shifted from speaking their traditional Turoyo language to either Kurmanji or Arabic. Kurdophone Armenians also exist and there were prior to the Armenian genocide around 110 Kurmanji-speaking Armenian villages in Beşiri and Silvan.

Bulgarian, Chechen and Circassian immigrants in Turkish Kurdistan also speak Kurmanji.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kurmanji at Ethnologue (28th ed., 2025) Closed access icon
  2. ↑ "President al-Sharaa issues decree that confirms Kurds as basic part of Syrian people". 2026-01-16. Retrieved 2026-01-16.
  3. ↑ Captain R. E. Jardine (1922). Bahdinan Kurmanji - A grammar of the Kurmanji of the Kurds of Mosul division and surrounding districts of Kurdistan. Baghdad: Government Press. p. ii.
  4. ↑ Ayfer Gokalp (August 2015). "Language and Literacy Practices of Kurdish Children Across Their Home and School Spaces in Turkey" (PDF). Arizona State University. p. 146. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 March 2019. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  5. ↑ Paul, Ludwig (2008). "Kurdish language I. History of the Kurdish language". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. London and New York: Routledge. Retrieved 28 August 2013.
  6. ↑ Georg Krotkoff (1997). Humanism, Culture, and Language in the Near East. p. 299.
  7. ↑ "Ethnologue - Kurdish". Retrieved 19 March 2019.
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  9. ↑ Philip G. Kreyenbroek, Stefan Sperl (2005). The Kurds : a Contemporary Overview. Routledge. ISBN 1134907656.
  10. 1 2 3 Pirbari, D. V.; Mossaki, N. Z. (2020). "Сказание о Пире Дауде" [The Hymn of Pir Dawid]. Письменные памятники Востока (in Russian). 17 (3): 115–126. doi:10.17816/WMO46774.
  11. 1 2 3 Omarkhali, Khanna (2017). The Yezidi Religious Textual Tradition, from Oral to Written: Categories, Transmission, Scripturalisation and Canonisation of the Yezidi Oral Religious Texts. Studies in Oriental Religions. Vol. 72. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-447-10856-0.
  12. ↑ Pirbari, Dimitri; Shchedrovitsky, Dmitry (2016). Тайна жемчужины. Езидская теософия и космогония [The Mystery of the Pearl: Yazidi Theosophy and Cosmogony] (in Russian). Moscow; Tbilisi: Tbilisi Center for Yazidi Studies; Spiritual Council of Yazidis in Georgia. p. 25. ISBN 978-5-906045-15-7.
  13. ↑ Sheyholislami (2021), p. 614-617.
  14. ↑ Sheyholislami (2021), pp. 620–621.
  15. ↑ Khan, Celadet Bedir; Lescot, Roger (1970). Grammaire Kurde (Dialecte kurmandji) (PDF). Paris: La librairie d'Amérique et d'Orient Adrien Maisonneuve. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 March 2023. Retrieved 28 October 2017.
  16. 1 2 Haig, Geoffrey; Matras, Yaron (2002). "Kurdish linguistics: a brief overview" (PDF). Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung. 55 (1). Berlin: 5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 October 2017. Retrieved 27 April 2013.
  17. ↑ Öpengin, Ergin; Haig, Geoffrey (2014), "Regional variation in Kurmanji: A preliminary classification of dialects", Kurdish Studies, 2, ISSN 2051-4883
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  19. ↑ "Yazidis i. General". Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  20. ↑ "The Human Rights Situation of the Yezidi Minority in the Transcaucasus" (PDF). Refworld. May 2008. p. 5. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  21. ↑ Sebastian Maisel (2017). Yezidis in Syria: Identity Building among a Double Minority. Lanham: Lexington Books. p. 123.
  22. ↑ Coene, Frederik (2009-10-16). The Caucasus - An Introduction. Routledge. ISBN 9781135203023.
  23. ↑ Tork Dalalyan (2011). "Construction of Kurdish and Yezidi Identities among the Kurmanji-speaking Population of the Republic of Armenia, in: Changing Identities: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia – 2011". Changing Identities: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (Collection of Selected Works, Edited by V. Voronkov, S. Khutsishvili, J. Horan), Heinrich Böll Stiftung South Caucasus: 6. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  24. ↑ Majid Hassan Ali (15 February 2019). "The identity controversy of religious minorities in Iraq: the crystallization of the Yazidi identity after 2003". British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 47 (5). Routledge: 8. doi:10.1080/13530194.2019.1577129. ISSN 1353-0194. S2CID 150358224.
  25. ↑ Witzlack-Makarevich, Kai; Wulff, Nadja (2017-08-08). Handbuch des Russischen in Deutschland: Migration – Mehrsprachigkeit – Spracherwerb (in German). Frank & Timme GmbH. ISBN 9783732902279.
  26. ↑ "Kurds (Kurdmanzh)". Minority Rights Group International. 19 June 2015. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
  27. ↑ Schulze, Ilona. "Methodologische Überlegungen zur soziokulturellen Dokumentation von Minderheiten in Armenien. Iran and the Caucasus Vol. 18, 2, pp. 169-193" (in German).
  28. ↑ Serinci, Deniz (28 May 2014). "The Yezidis of Armenia Face Identity Crisis over Kurdish Ethnicity". Rudaw.
  29. ↑ Gaunt, David (2006). Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I. Gorgias Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-59333-301-0.
  30. ↑ Galip, Özlem Belçim (2020). New Social Movements and the Armenian Question in Turkey: Civil Society vs. Springer. p. 161. ISBN 9783030594008.
  31. ↑ Kévorkian, Raymond (2011). The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 355. ISBN 9780857730206.
  32. ↑ "Türkçe için getirilen Bulgarlar Kürtçe konuşuyor". Rûdaw. 17 May 2017. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
  33. ↑ Aşiretler raporu (1st ed.). İstanbul: Kaynak Yayınları. 2000. ISBN 9753432208.

Bibliography

Further reading