Native to Iraq, Iran Official language in Iraq | Writing system Soriani alphabet | |
 | ||
Native speakers 6 million in Iraq (2012)
3 million in Iran Language family Indo-European
Indo-Iranian
Iranian
Western
Northwestern
Kurdish
Central Kurdish Dialects Mukriyani
Hewleri
Ardalani
Gerrusi
Babani
Wermawi
Germiyani
Jafi | ||
Central Kurdish (کوردیی ناوەندی; kurdîy nawendî), also called Sorani (سۆرانی; Soranî) is a Kurdish language spoken in Iraq, mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the Kurdistan Province of western Iran. Central Kurdish is one of the two official languages of Iraq, along with Arabic, and is in political documents simply referred to as "Kurdish".
Contents
- History
- Alphabet
- Demographics
- Subdialects
- As an official language
- Phonology
- Vowels
- Some Vowel Alternations and Notes
- Consonants
- Nouns
- Absolute State
- Indefinite State
- Definite State
- Other
- Dictionaries and translations
- References
The term Sorani, named after the former Soran Emirate, is used especially to refer to a written, standardized form of Central Kurdish written in the Sorani alphabet developed from the Persian alphabet in the 1920s by Sa'íd Sidqi Kaban and Taufiq Wahby.
History
In Sulaymaniyah (Silêmanî), the Ottoman Empire had created a secondary school, the Rushdiye, graduates from which could go to Istanbul to continue to study there. This allowed Central Kurdish, which was spoken in Silêmanî, to progressively replace Hawrami dialects as the literary vehicle for Kurdish.
Since the fall of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region, there have been more opportunities to publish works in the Kurdish languages in Iraq than in any other country in recent times. As a result, Central Kurdish has become the dominant written form of Kurdish.
Alphabet
Central Kurdish is written with a modified Persian alphabet. This is in contrast to the other main Kurdish language, Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji), which is spoken mainly in Turkey and is usually written in the Latin alphabet.
However, during the past decade, official TV in Iraqi Kurdistan has mainly used the Latin script for Central Kurdish.
Demographics
The exact number of Soriani speakers is difficult to determine, but it is generally thought that Soriani is spoken by about 6 to 7 million people in Iraq and Iran. It is the most widespread speech of Kurds in Iran and Iraq. In particular, it is spoken by:
Subdialects
Following includes the traditional internal variants of Soriani. However, nowadays, due to widespread media and communications, most of them are regarded as subdialects of standard Soriani:
As an official language
A recent proposal was made for Central Kurdish to be the official language of the Kurdistan Regional Government. This idea has been favoured by some Central Kurdish-speakers but has disappointed Northern Kurdish speakers.
Phonology
Sorani Kurdish has a rich consonant inventory and a fairly rich vowel inventory as well. This section makes use of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
Vowels
The following table contains the vowels of Sorani Kurdish. Vowels in parentheses are not phonemic, but have been included in the table below because of their ubiquity in the language. Letters in the Sorani alphabet take various forms depending on where they occur in the word. Forms given below are letters in isolation.
Some Vowel Alternations and Notes
The vowel [æ] is sometimes pronounced as [ə] (the sound found in the first syllable of the English word "above"). This sound change takes place when [æ] directly precedes [w] or when it is followed by the sound [j] (like English "y") in the same syllable. If it, instead, precedes [j] in a context where [j] is a part of another syllable it is pronounced [ɛ] (as in English "bet").
The vowels [o] and [e], both of which have slight off-glides in English, do not possess these off-glides in Sorani.
Consonants
Letters in the Sorani alphabet take various forms depending on where they occur in the word. Forms given below are letters in isolation.
Nouns
Nouns in Sorani Kurdish may appear in three general forms. The Absolute State, Indefinite State, and Definite State.
Absolute State
A noun in the absolute state occurs without any suffix, as it would occur in a vocabulary list or dictionary entry. Absolute state nouns receive a generic interpretation.
Indefinite State
Indefinite nouns receive an interpretation like English nouns preceded by a, an, some, or any.
Several modifiers may only modify nouns in the indefinite state. This list of modifiers includes:
Nouns in the indefinite state take the following endings:
Definite State
Definite nouns receive an interpretation like English nouns preceded by the.
Nouns in the definite state take the following endings:
When a noun stem ending with [i] is combined with the definite state suffix the result is pronounced [eka] ( i + aka → eka)
Other
here are no pronouns to distinguish between masculine and feminine and no verb inflection to signal gender.
Dictionaries and translations
There are a substantial number of Soriani dictionaries available, amongst which there are many that seek to be bilingual.
English and Soriani
As a main program, Iranian Kurdish-speaker scholar, Hamid Hassani, is supposed to compile a Soriani Kurdish Corpus, consisting of one million words.
The standard word order in Soriani is SOV (subject–object–verb).