A Classic Reference Tool On The Kurdish Dialects First Published In 1909.

This book offers the first comparative discussion of variation in selected areas of structure in the dialects of Kurdish. The contributions draw on data collected as part of the project on Structural and Typological Variation in Kurdish and stored in the Manchester Database of Kurdish Dialects online resource, as well as on additional data sources. The chapters address issues in lexicon, phonology, and morpho-syntax including nominal case, tense and aspect categories, pronominal clitics, adpositions, word order (with special reference to post-predicate constituents) and connectivity and complex clauses. The materials that inform the analysis consist of a systematic questionnaire-based elicitation covering key features of variation in lexicon and morpho-syntax, and an accompanying corpus of free speech recordings, collected in over 120 locations across the Kurdish-speaking regions in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran and covering mainly the dialects of Northern and Central Kurdish (Kurmani-Bahdini and Sorani), with some consideration of Southern Kurdish. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in fields such as linguistics, linguistic typology, Iranian linguistics and linguistics of the Middle East, and dialectology.

Current Issues in Kurdish Linguistics contains ten contributions which span the field of Kurdish linguistics, both in terms of geography and in terms of the range of topics. Along with several works on Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish) and Sorani (Central Kurdish), two chapters shed light on the lesser-known Southern Kurdish language area. Other studies are comparative, and treat the Kurdish language area in its entirety. The linguistic approaches of the authors are a mix of formal and typological perspectives, and cover topics ranging from geographical distribution and variation to phonology, morphosyntax, discourse structure, historical morphology, and sociolinguistics. The present volume is the first of its kind in bringing together contributions from a relatively large number of linguists, working in a diverse range of frameworks and on different aspects and varieties of Kurdish. As such, it attests to the increasing breadth and sophistication now evident in Kurdish linguistics, and is a worthy launch for the new series Bamberg Studies in Kurdish Linguistics (BSKL).

Revised thesis (doctoral), - Tel Aviv University, 2000.

This book is a brief introduction to the Kurdish language spoken in Iraq and Iran. It contains dialogs, vocabularies, simple grammatical explanations, and exercises. The Kurdish text is written in Latini, the Romanized version of Sorani, but in most cases the Kurdo-Arabic version of the sentences is also given for the use of a Kurdish tutor or teacher. This book is only an introduction to the language. Its vocabulary of more than 400 words is a basis upon which to build. Kurdish grammar, especially the verb system, is complicated. What is given here is a foundation of simple, useful constructions.

A unified alphabet is the basis for a unified language so that the Kurdish people will understand one another. The language contribution in this book, although relatively small, is very meaningful because it comes from the roots of the languages used by more than 500 million people in the Middle East. It is meant to be the foundation of a unified language and for a future dictionary of the Unified Kurdish language. This unified alphabet is good for Kurds who have descended from the ancient Medes (Kurmanji, Sorani, Zazas Dimili, Goran, Lak, Lurs and Bakhtiaris, Hawrami, old Azeri, Talish and other groups), Persians (Pars, Dari, Tajick and other groups) and the entire Airyanem people. As authors of the historical novels Vashti Queen of the Ancient Medes (Kurds) and Esther Mystery Queen of the Medes (Kurds), Hamma Mirwaisi and Alison Buckley are working to revive knowledge and understanding of the ancient Airyanem Civilization described in these first two books of a series. We hope that our readers and many others will support the concept of the establishment of an Economic Union for the Middle East to solve some of the problems among the population of that part of the world. It will require the support of a Unified Kurdish Language based on the unified alphabet formulated in this book.

The Cambridge History of the Kurds is an authoritative and comprehensive volume exploring the social, political and economic features, forces and evolution amongst the Kurds, and in the region known as Kurdistan, from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century. Written in a clear and accessible style by leading scholars in the field, the chapters survey key issues and themes vital to any understanding of the Kurds and Kurdistan including Kurdish language; Kurdish art, culture and literature; Kurdistan in the age of empires; political, social and religious movements in Kurdistan; and domestic political developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Other chapters on gender, diaspora, political economy, tribes, cinema and folklore offer fresh perspectives on the Kurds and Kurdistan as well as neatly meeting an exigent need in Middle Eastern studies. Situating contemporary developments taking place in Kurdish-majority regions within broader histories of the region, it forms a definitive survey of the history of the Kurds and Kurdistan.