Central Kurdish

Central Kurdish ( ; kurdy nawend), by about 6 to 7 million people in Iraq and Iran.[9][10] It is
also called Sorani ( ;Soran) is a Kurdish lan- the most widespread speech of Kurds in Iran and Iraq. In
guage spoken in Iraq, mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as particular, it is spoken by:
the Kurdistan Province of western Iran. Central Kurdish
is one of the two ocial languages of Iraq, along with
Around 3 million Kurds in Iranian Kurdistan. LoArabic, and is in political documents simply referred to
cated south of Lake Urmia that stretches roughly to
[4][5]
as Kurdish.
the outside of Kermanshah.
The term Sorani, named after the former Soran Emirate,
is used especially to refer to a written, standardized form
Around 3 million Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan, inof Central Kurdish written in the Sorani alphabet develcluding the Sorani tribe. Most of the Kurds who
oped from the Persian alphabet in the 1920s by Sa'd
use it are found in the vicinity of Hewlr (Erbil),
Sidqi Kaban and Tauq Wahby.[6]
Sulaymaniyah (Silman), Kirkuk and Diyala Governorate.

History
4 Subdialects

In Sulaymaniyah (Silman), 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 Silman,
to progressively replace Hawrami dialects as the literary
vehicle for Kurdish.

Following includes the traditional internal variants of Sorani. However, nowadays, due to widespread media and
communications, most of them are regarded as subdialects of standard Sorani:

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.[7] As a result, Central Kurdish
has become the dominant written form of Kurdish.[8]

Mukriyani; The language spoken south of Lake Urmia with Mahabad as its center, including the cities
of Piranshahr and the Kurdish speaking part of
Naghadeh. This region is traditionally known as
Mukriyan.

Alphabet

Ardalani, spoken in the cities of Sanandaj, Marivan,

Kamyaran, Divandarreh and Dehgolan in Kordestan
province and the Kurdish speaking parts of Tekab
and Shahindej in West Azerbaijan province. This
region is known as Ardalan.

Main article: Kurdish alphabets Sorani alphabet

Central Kurdish is written with a modied 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.

Garmiani, in and around Kirkuk

Hawlari, spoken in and around the city of Hawler
(Erbil) in Iraqi Kurdistan and Oshnavieh. Its main
distinction is changing the consonant /l/ into /r/ in
many words.

However, during the past decade, ocial TV in Iraqi Kurdistan has mainly used the Latin script for Central Kurdish.

Babani, spoken in and around the city of Sulaymaniya in Iraq and the cities of Saghez, Baneh,
Bokan and Sardasht in Iran.

Demographics

Ja, spoken in the towns of Javanroud, Ravansar and

some villages around Sarpole Zahab and Paveh.

The exact number of Sorani speakers is dicult to determine, but it is generally thought that Sorani is spoken
1

11

As an ocial language

A recent proposal was made for Central Kurdish to be

the ocial language of the Kurdistan Regional Government. This idea has been favoured by some Central
Kurdish-speakers but has disappointed Northern Kurdish
speakers.[11]

Grammatical features

There are no pronouns to distinguish between masculine

and feminine and no verb inection to signal gender.[12]

Dictionaries and translations

EXTERNAL LINKS

[4] Allison, Christine (2012). The Yezidi Oral Tradition in

Iraqi Kurdistan. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-74655-0.
However, it was the southern dialect of Kurdish, Central
Kurdish, the majority language of the Iraqi Kurds, which
received sanction as an ocial language of Iraq.
[5] Kurdish language issue and a divisive approach | Kurdish
Academy of Language. 5 March 2016. Archived from
the original on March 5, 2016.
[6] Blau, Joyce (2000). Mthode de Kurde: Sorani. Editions
L'Harmattan. ISBN 978-2-296-41404-4., page 20
[7] Iraqi Kurds. Cal.org. Retrieved 2012-07-15.
[8] Language background of major refugee groups to the UK
- Refugee Council. Languages.refugeecouncil.org.uk.
Retrieved 2012-07-15.
[9] Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iraq. Knn.u-net.com.
Archived from the original on 2012-08-07. Retrieved
2012-07-15.

There are a substantial number of Sorani dictionaries

available, amongst which there are many that seek to be [10] SIL Ethnologue (2013) under "Central Kurdish" gives a
bilingual.
2009 estimate of 3.5 million speakers in Iraq and an undated estimate of 3.25 speakers in Iran.
English and Sorani
EnglishKurdish Dictionary by Dr. Selma Abdullah
and Dr. Khurhseed Alam

[11] Kurdish language issue and a divisive approach | Kurdish

Academy of Language. Kurdishacademy.org. Retrieved
2012-07-15.

Raman English-Kurdish Dictionary by Destey Ferheng

[12] Kurdish Sorani language developmental features

As a main program, Iranian Kurdish-speaker scholar,

Hamid Hassani, is supposed to compile a Sorani Kurdish
Corpus, consisting of one million words.
The standard word order in Sorani is SOV (subject
objectverb).[13]

See also
Kurdish alphabets
Northern Kurdish
Southern Kurdish
Soran Emirate
Sorani grammar

[13] Soran Kurdish, A Reference Grammar with Selected

Readings, by W. M. Thackston

10 References
Hassanpour, A. (1992). Nationalism and Language
in Kurdistan 19181985. USA: Mellen Research
University Press.
Nebez, Jemal (1976). Toward a Unied Kurdish
Language. NUKSE.
Izady, Mehrdad (1992). The Kurds: A Concise
Handbook. Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Francis.

11 External links
The New Testament in Soran

Notes

[1] Central Kurdish at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)

[2] Full Text of Iraqi Constitution. Washington Post. 12
October 2005. Retrieved 12 June 2013.
[3] Hammarstrm, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath,
Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). Central Kurdish.
Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science
of Human History.

The Kurdish Academy of Language (unocial)

Working with Sorani Speaking Patients NHS (UK)
Guide
Discussion in Central Kurdish archived with
Kaipuleohone

12

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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Central Kurdish Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Kurdish?oldid=752124345 Contributors: Big Nothing, ArnoLagrange,

Ghewgill, Mxn, WhisperToMe, Robbot, Naddy, Erdal Ronahi, Woggly, Discospinster, Shergo, Dbachmann, S.K., Kwamikagami, QuartierLatin1968, Leftmostcat, Jonsafari, Ogress, FrancisTyers, Angr, David Haslam, Meji100, FlaBot, GnniX, Malhonen, Bgwhite, YurikBot,
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