“There is no bitterer tongue and no sweeter tongue,” says a Kurdish proverb. What are they, Kurdish languages - one of the most popular languages of the East?
What is the language of the Kurds?
Kurdish languages belong to the Iranian group. They originated from Median, but in the Middle Ages they were influenced by Arabic, Persian, and later. Currently, about 20 million people speak Kurdish. But there are significant differences between them, since they speak different dialects and use different alphabets.
This is explained by the fact that the Kurds live in territories belonging to different countries. In Iran and used in Turkey, Syria and Azerbaijan - and in Armenia - Armenian (until 1946) and Cyrillic (since 1946). The Kurdish language is divided into 4 dialects - Sorani, Kurmanji, Zazai (Dumili) and Gurani.
Where are Kurdish languages spoken?
The Kurdish language is most widespread in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Azerbaijan, Jordan and Armenia. 60% of Kurds live in Turkey, Northwestern Iran, northern Iraq and Syria (Northwestern, Western, Southwestern and Central Kurdistan), speak and write in the Kurmanji dialect. About 30% of the Kurdish population living in Western and Southeastern Iran, Eastern and Southeastern Iraq (Southern and Southeastern Kurdistan) use the Sorani dialect. The rest use the Zazai (Dumili) and Gurani (South Kurdish) dialects.
Kurdish language: basics
For those who want to quickly learn the Kurdish language, Kurdish for beginners is suitable, which includes the most basic phrases in Kurmanji, Sorani and South Kurdish.
Dem bashi/Silav/Silam - Hello.
Choni?/Tu bashi?/Hasid? - How are you?
Chakim/Bashim/Hasim - Excellent.
Supas/Sipas/Sipas - Thank you.
Tkae/Tika wild/To hwa - Please.
Khva legeli/Mal ava/Binishte khvash - Goodbye.
Min tom hosh davet - I love you.
So minit hosh davet? - Do you love me?
Vere bo ere/Vere - Come here/come here.
Bo que erroy - Where are you going?
To chi dekey?/To heriki chit? - What are you doing?
Echim bo ser kar - I'm going to work.
Kei degerrieteve?/Kej deyteve? - When will you be back?
Herikim demeve; Eve Khatmeve/Ez Zivrim/Le Pisa Tiemesh - I'm coming back.
Kari to karek dikey? - What do you do for a living?
Min Errom / Min Deve Birrom - I'm going to...
Min bashim/ez bashim - I'm fine.
Min bash nim / ez neye bashim / me khves niyim - I’m not all right / - I’m not in the mood.
Min nekhoshim - I feel bad.
Chi ye/ewe chiye/eve ches? - What is this?
Hich/Chine/Huch - Nothing.
Birit ekem/min birya te kriye/hyurit kirdime - I miss you.
Deiteve; degereiteve/tu ye bi zirvi/tiyedev; gerredev? - Will you come back?
Nayemewe; nagerremeve/ez na zivrim/nyetiyemev; Nyegerremev - I will not return.
When communicating in an unfamiliar language, do not forget about sign language, which is practically the same throughout the world, with the exception of some. They can be clarified before traveling to a country where you will communicate with the Kurds.
Navi min... uh - My name is...
Yek/du/se/chuvar/pench/shesh/heft/hesht/no/de/yazde/dvazde/sezde/charde/panzde/shanzde/khevde/hezhde/nozde/bist - one/two/three/four/five/ six/seven/eight/nine/ten/eleven/twelve/thirteen/fourteen/fifteen/sixteen/seventeen/eighteen/nineteen/twenty.
Duchemme/duchembe/ducheme - Monday.
Sheshemme/sheshemb/shesheme - Tuesday.
Chuvarshemme/charshemb/chvarsheme - Wednesday.
Pencheshemme/penchshem/penchsheme - Thursday.
Jumkha/heini/jume - Friday.
Shemme/shemi/sheme - Saturday.
Yekshemme/ekshembi/yeksheme - Sunday.
Zistan/zivistan/zimsan - Winter.
Behar/bihar/vehar - Spring.
Havin/havin/tavsan - Summer.
Payez/payyz/payykh - Autumn.
Resources for learning Kurdish
The best way to learn Kurdish languages is through constant practice, and the best kind of practice is from both a teacher and ordinary people who speak Kurdish as their mother tongue.
You can find such people in groups on social networks dedicated to the Kurdish language and culture. Usually there you can find video lessons for beginners, a dictionary and a phrasebook, look at pictures with inscriptions in Kurdish, read poems in the original and, if something is not clear, ask native speakers.
If you want to get to know the Kurdish culture better, you can also find groups dedicated to Kurdish music and cuisine.
If it is not possible to communicate with a native speaker, then you can find courses for self-learning the Kurdish language.
UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), since 1999, has celebrated February 21 as Mother Language Day. For Kurds, this date is of particular importance as many of them consider language an important part of their national identity.
Kurdish is the 59th most widely used language in the world and is spoken in four parts of historical Kurdistan, now divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Although the exact number of native speakers is unknown, according to various estimates, there are more than 30 million Kurds. Half of them live in Turkey, 6 million in Iran, 5 million in Iraq and less than 2 million lived in Syria before the start of the civil war. Millions of Kurdish speakers live in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Germany, other European countries, as well as in the USA.
For centuries, the Kurds, living surrounded by a large Arab, Persian and Turkish population, defended their right to their native language, defined by researchers as Indo-European.
In Iraq, Kurdish is recognized as the second official language of the country. The Kurdistan Regional Government uses it as the language of education and government activities.
Some Kurdish dialects, such as Hawrami, are today on the verge of extinction. To avoid this danger, a group of intellectuals approached the government with a proposal to introduce the teaching of endangered dialects in schools. Dr. Najih Golpay, who organized a conference in Halabja on the Hawrami dialect spoken by Kurds living along the Iran-Iraq border, told Rudaw: “Language is part of the identity of an individual, a community and a nation. We Hawrami are aware of how our language is slowly but surely disappearing. As representatives of the intelligentsia, aware of our responsibility for the fate of our native language, we demanded that the government prepare textbooks for primary grades in the Khawrami language. Every child must know his own language and use it to save it from extinction. And its disappearance is caused by a sharp decrease in its use in culture, art, music and other areas.
Since the Kurdistan Region has broad autonomy within Iraq, the region's educational system is also quite independent. Teaching is conducted in Sorani and Badani languages. Additionally, students take courses in Arabic and English.
In Kirkuk, the local municipality celebrated Mother Language Day with an official message in Kurdish. The mayor of the city, Kamil Salayi, announced that from now on all office work of the city and provincial administration will be duplicated in the Kurdish language.
“If you put signs in Kurdish everywhere, no one will be able to read them because most citizens only speak Arabic and all our schools are Arabic,” says Shamil Kamil, a Kurdish resident of the city.
In Tuz Khurmatu, about 8,000 Kurdish students in 53 schools study in Kurdish, but the city's only cultural center is in a Turkmen area that Kurds cannot visit because it is under the control of the Shiite militia Hashd al-Shaabi.
What about Turkish Kurdistan?
Here, the Kurdish language is also at risk of a sharp decline in its distribution, although this is the largest region in terms of Kurdish population. The language is taught only in schools and universities in the largest Kurdish city of Amed, and is not allowed to be used as the main language of instruction in public schools
In 2014, Handan Caglayan, an independent researcher and journalist (her father is Kurdish, her mother is Turkish) published her research on the actual death of the Kurdish language in the book: “Different languages of the same origin, intergenerational trends in language changes, limitations, opportunities (using the example of Diyarbakir )".
Based on the results of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that in each generation the Kurds lose 19% of their fellow tribesmen to the Turks, since children prefer the Turkish language to the Kurdish language. After all, knowing Turkish means work, money and, in general, success in life. If things continue like this, then by 2050 there will only be a few Kurdish-speaking Kurds left in the country.
Interestingly, many parents in Turkey give their children traditional Kurdish names in order to prevent the final extinction of the language. However, many young Kurds never fully master it. So Shana Arkan named her two sons Amed and Sharvan. She describes the difficulties for Kurds in Turkey: “Boys speak Kurdish until they are five years old. But as soon as they go to school, they find themselves cut off from their native language. All their teachers and friends are Turks. And if I ask them in Kurdish, they answer in Turkish. But if they studied in Kurdish, they would not forget their native language.”
The Kurdish language was completely banned in Turkey until 1991, but even now the Kurds, the country's largest minority, are persecuted.
But another Kurdish mother, Daria Chatiner, says that it is in the hands of parents not to let their children forget their native language.
“We always speak Kurdish. When our daughter Rosarin meets with friends, we encourage them to use Kurdish. Otherwise, when we talk to them, they answer in Turkish,” says Daria. And he adds: “My daughter knows both Kurdish and Turkish.”
In 2009, the Turkish government launched the Kurdish-language television channel TRT-6. In 2013, as part of the “democratic package” of reforms proposed by then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it was allowed to teach in Kurdish in private schools, as well as to use in texts the letters q, w, x, which are not in the Turkish alphabet, but are present in Kurdish.
At the same time, last January, by order of the Turkish Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Kurdish Institute in Istanbul was closed, which, according to its founders, had been a source of support for the Kurdish language and culture for a quarter of a century.
“I studied here,” a young man tells a Rudaw TV correspondent, standing in front of the closed institute building. – Now I wanted to expand my knowledge of the language to the level that I could speak it with my relatives. But, alas, there is no longer a chance for this.”
In Turkish Kurdistan, Kurdish Language Day is celebrated annually on May 15th. On this day in 1932, Kurdish linguist Jeladet Ali Bedirhan began publishing the Kurdish cultural magazine Khawar.
Kurdish language in East (Iranian) Kurdistan
In Iranian Kurdistan, the Kurdish language is still not recognized and is studied only in a few schools and academic institutions.
“Iran's Kurdish political parties are often criticized for their indifference to the problems of the Kurdish language,” says writer and translator Abdul Hassan Zada, but he added that they are the ones who support the language and publish publications in it. According to him, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan served the development of the Kurdish language and literature by organizing the publication of printed publications in it. DPIC also contributed to the organization of translations from Turkish and Farsi into Kurdish. Abdul Zada also assured that the Kurdish language will not disappear in Iran, despite all the pressure.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran to some extent allows the publication of newspapers and magazines in the Kurdish language. There are several writers in the country who write in Kurdish, and several Kurdish-language radio and television studios. Even if civil liberties are limited, language cannot be banned,” points out Abdul Zada.
Back in September 2016, Rudaw wrote about plans to introduce Kurdish-language education in schools in Bana, Sakiz and Marivan, but by the beginning of the school year not a single Kurdish-language class had been opened there.
Article 15 of the Iranian Constitution provides for the use of Kurdish and other non-official languages as languages of instruction. However, this article has not been applied in practice since the adoption of the main law in November 1979.
Despite all the restrictions, the Kurds of Iran continue to study their native language. Thus, in the cultural center of the city of Marivan, training is based on the latest textbooks of the Kurmanji and Sorani dialects.
“These are modern and effective textbooks. They contain lessons in reading, writing and speaking. In this way, our children will learn to read and write. In addition, the books have modern graphic design. I think that there were no such textbooks in Iranian Kurdistan before,” says one of the language teachers.
list of countries where Spanish is spoken
- Europe: Spain
Americas: Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay
Asia: Philippines
Africa: Equatorial Guinea
- Spain, Argentina, Mexico and several other Latin American
- All Latin America (Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Honduras, Trinidad, Chile, etc.) + Cuba + Spain
- of Spain.svg Spain
Argentina
Flag of Bolivia (state).svg Bolivia
Flag of Venezuela (state).svg Venezuela
Flag of Guatemala.svg Guatemala
Flag of Honduras.svg Honduras
Flag of the Dominican Republic.svg Dominican Republic
Flag of Colombia.svg Colombia
Flag of Costa Rica (state).svg Costa Rica
Flag of Cuba.svg Cuba
Flag of Nicaragua.svg Nicaragua
Flag of Panama.svg Panama
Flag of Paraguay.svg Paraguay
Flag of Peru (state).svg Peru
Flag of El Salvador.svg El Salvador
Flag of Uruguay.svg Uruguay
Flag of Chile.svg Chile
Flag of Ecuador.svg Ecuador
Flag of Equatorial Guinea.svg Equatorial Guinea
Regional or local official language:
Flag of the Philippines.svg Philippines
Flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.svg Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
Flag of the United States.svg USA
Flag of New Mexico.svg New Mexico
Flag of Puerto Rico.svg Puerto Rico
Organizations:
Flag of Europe.svg European Union
Flag of the United Nations.svg UN
OAS
Regulatory organization:
Association of Spanish Language Academies under the leadership of the Royal Spanish Academy
Total number of speakers:
400 million (450500 million including people who speak Spanish as a second language)
Rating:
5
Classification
Indo-European family
Roman group
Ibero-Roman subgroup
Writing:
Latin
Language codes
GOST 7.7597:
isp 230
ISO 639-1:
es
ISO 639-2:
spa
ISO 639-3:
spa
See also: Project: LinguisticsCountries and regions where Spanish is the official language are marked in red.
Spanish or Castilian (Spanish: espaol, castellano) is a pluricentric Ibero-Romance language that originated in the medieval kingdom of Castile, which included the modern territory of the province of Burgos and the autonomous regions of La Rioja and Cantabria, and widely in other regions of the world (primarily in South and Central America) during the Age of Discovery. Belongs to the Indo-European family of languages (Romance group, Ibero-Romance subgroup). Writing based on the Latin alphabet. It is the second most widely spoken native language in the world (after Chinese) with 470 million speakers1 and the most widely spoken Romance language. According to various estimates, up to 548 million people around the world can speak Spanish 23 (including those people for whom Spanish is a second language and those who study it as a foreign language 20 million people). The largest Spanish-speaking country in the world by population is Mexico (over 120 million inhabitants), followed by Argentina. 9/10 native Spanish speakers currently live in the Western Hemisphere.Remove content
1Geographical distribution
1.1Standardization
1.2Dialects and linguistic variants of Spanish
1.3 Derived languages
1.4Spanish or Castilian?
2Anthroponymy
3History
4Spelling
4.1 Reading rules
4.1.1 Basic rules
4.2Stress in Spanish
4.3 Practical transcription into Russian
5Linguistic characteristics
5.1 Phonetics and phonology
5.1.1Vowels
5.1.2 Consonants
5.2Morphology
5.2.1 Article
5.2.2 Noun
5.2.3Adjective
5.2.4 Adverb
5.2.5 Numerals
5.2.6 Pronoun
5.2.6.1 Personal pronouns
5.2.6.2 Negative pronouns
5.2.6.3 Interrogative pronouns
5.2.7 Verb
5.2.8 Functional parts of speech
5.2.8.1 Preposition
5.2.8.2 Union
5.3Vocabulary
5.4Syntax
6Spanish in the world
7See Also
8Notes
9Literature
10Links - All South American countries (except Brazil - Portuguese)
- Paraguay forgot!!!:))))
- Spanish has official status in the following countries and territories: Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, Dominican Republic, European Union, Western Sahara, Spain, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, New Mexico (USA) ) (along with English), Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico (USA), El Salvador, Uruguay, Chile, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea.
In addition, Spanish is widely used in Andorra (10 to 25% of the population) and Belize (60%), Aruba (85%) and Curacao (65%). It is also spoken in Bonaire (35%), Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, Western Sahara, the Philippines, and Sephardic (Spanish-speaking Jewish) communities in Morocco, Serbia and Montenegro, Turkey, and Israel.
KURDISH LANGUAGE, the language of the Kurds. The official language of Iraqi Kurdistan. Distributed in Kurdistan, in the republics of the former USSR (mainly in Armenia, Georgia, as well as in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, etc.), in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The total number of speakers is over 35 million people (2008, estimate), including in Turkey about 20 million people, Iraq about 6 million people, Iran about 7 million people, Syria about 1 million people, in Russia 36.5 thousand people (2002 , census).
Kurdish is one of the Iranian languages (northwestern group). It is a collection of dialects. In Russian Iranian studies there are 2 main groups. To the northern (most common; range- mainly Turkish Kurdistan, partly Syria, Iraq, Iran, Transcaucasia, Russia) includes dialects of the Kurmanji and Zaza dialects (Zazaki, Dymli). Southern (Iran, Iraq) includes two subgroups of the largest dialects [Sorani, Suleimani, Mukri, Sonei (conventionally united by the linguonym “Sorani”); Gorani, Avramani, Kandulai, Badjalani (united by the term “Gorani”)], as well as insufficiently studied dialects of Kermanshahi, Luri, Fayli, Laki, etc. In Iranian studies, there is a point of view according to which 3 Kurdish languages are distinguished within the Iranian languages [northern (Kurmanji), central (Sorani) and southern (Kelkhuri; includes the listed under-researched dialects)], and Zaza and Gorani, whose speakers are also considered Kurdish, are classified as separate subgroups of northwestern Iranian languages.
The described dialect division is based on a set of phonetic, grammatical and lexical features that characterize each of the groups. The most characteristic features of Kurmanji, which distinguish it from Sorani, relate to the field of phonetics: the presence of aspirated p’, t’, k’, pharyngealized affricate c’, labiodental fricative v (in Sorani it corresponds to the labiolabial round fricative w); the absence of velarized l, as well as the Sorani-specific diphthongoids ua, uê, uî. In morphology, this is: the presence of indicators of the indirect case of the name, differentiated by gender and number [in Sorani there are no cases, in it the plural of the name has a general form of -an, while in Kurmanji the suffix -a(n) serves as an indicator only of the indirect case of the plural] ; opposition by gender and number of izafet forms [in Sorani izafet has a general form of -l(у)]; absence of the suffixal indicator of definiteness -eke (widely used in Sorani); in the verb system - the presence of an objective conjugation of a transitive verb in past tense forms (in contrast to the subject in Sorani), as well as an analytical form of the passive (in contrast to the simple form in Sorani). One of the main features that distinguishes Sorani from Kurmanji is the use in Sorani of multifunctional personal enclitic pronouns (see Clitics), which permeate the grammatical structure of all southern dialects: they act as personal indicators of transitive verbs in the past tense, are part of complex prepositional complexes, widely are used in object-attributive functions, as well as in the construction of various syntactic constructions.
The main Kurdish dialects (Kurmanji, Zaza, Gorani, Avramani, Sorani, Sulaimani, etc.) have significant literature, including artistic, religious, historiographical works [the first written monument in the Kurdish language (in Kurmanji) dates back to the 11th century]. However, only Kurmanji (a literary form formed on the basis of the Hakkari dialect), Gorani (a literary form based on Avramani, used until the mid-19th century) and Sorani (a literary form based on Suleimani) had the status of a literary language. Modern literature is most actively developing in Kurmanji and Sorani.
In Turkish Kurdistan, writing is based on the Latin alphabet, in Iran and Iraq - the Arabic-Persian alphabet, in Syria - alphabets based on Arabic and Latin graphical basis (all from the mid-20th century). Writing in the former USSR (mainly in Armenia and Georgia) since 1921 is based on the Armenian alphabet, since 1929 - the Latin alphabet, and since 1945 - the Cyrillic alphabet.
Lit.: Sokolova V. S. Essays on the phonetics of Iranian languages. M.; L., 1953. T. 1; Kurdoev K.K. Grammar of the Kurdish language (Kurmanji). M.; L., 1957; MacKenzie D. N. Kurdish dialect studies. L., 1961-1962. Vol. 1-2; Tsukerman I. I. Essays on Kurdish grammar. M., 1962; Eyubi K. R., Smirnova I. A. Kurdish dialect Mukri. L., 1968; Bakaev Ch. Kh. Language of the Kurds of the USSR. M., 1973; Tsabolov R.L. Essay on the historical morphology of the Kurdish language. M., 1978; aka. Kurdish language // Fundamentals of Iranian linguistics. New Iranian languages. M., 1997. Part 2; Yusupova Z. A. Suleymani dialect of the Kurdish language. M., 1985; she is the same. Kurdish dialect of Gorani. St. Petersburg, 1998; she is the same. Kurdish dialect Avramani. St. Petersburg, 2000; Pireyko L. A. Gorani. Zaza // Fundamentals of Iranian linguistics. New Iranian languages: northwestern group. M., 1997. Part 2; Smirnova I. A., Eyubi K. R. Kurdish dialect of Zaza (Dersim). St. Petersburg, 1998; they are. Historical and dialectological grammar Kurdish language. St. Petersburg, 1999; they are. Kurdish dialect Sonei. St. Petersburg, 2001; Todd T. L. A Grammar of Dimili also known as zaza. 2nd ed. Stockh., 2002.
Dictionaries: Bakaev Ch. Kh. Kurdish-Russian dictionary. M., 1957; Farizov I. O. Russian-Kurdish dictionary. M., 1957; Kurdoev K.K. Kurdish-Russian dictionary. M., 1960; Khamoyan M. U. Kurdish-Russian phraseological dictionary. Er., 1979; Kurdoev K.K., Yusupova Z.A. Kurdish-Russian dictionary (sorani). M., 1983.