Kurdish language

Kurdish
Kurdî
كوردی, Kurdî, Kurdí, Кöрди
Native toTurkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Ukraine, Serbia, Russia
Ethnicity55-60 million Kurds
Native speakers
60 million (2021)
Indo-European
Kurdish Script
Official status
Official language in
 Iraq: status as official language alongside Arabic.
 Iran: constitutional status as a regional language
 Armenia: minority language
 Azerbaijan: minority language in 5 districts
Language codes
ISO 639-1ku
ISO 639-2kur
ISO 639-3kur – inclusive code
Individual codes:
ckb – Sorani
kmr – Kurmanji
sdh – Southern Kurdish
lki – Laki
Linguasphere(North Kurdish incl. Kurmanji & Kurmanjiki) + 58-AAA-b (Central Kurdish incl. Dimli/Zaza & Gurani) + 58-AAA-c (South Kurdish incl. Kurdi) + Luri dialect 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

The Kurdish language (Kurdish: Kurdî) is a Northwestern Iranic language spoken by the Kurds in an area called Kurdistan, which spans today's southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq and northeastern Syria. Kurdish has two main dialects and many subs dialects. The two main ones are Kurmanji and Sorani. Kurdish belongs to the same language group as the Iranic languages. Another well-known Iranic language is Persian. They are considered Indo-European languages.

References

  1. ↑ "Kurdish Language – Kurdish Academy of Language". Kurdishacademy.org. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
  2. ↑ 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.
  3. ↑ European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
  4. ↑ "Kurdish, Northern". Ethnologue.
  5. ↑ "Geographic distribution of the Kurdish language". Archived from the original on 2007-10-18. Retrieved 2007-06-18.