Central Kurdish

For the Romanian commune, see Surani, Prahova.

Central Kurdish
Sorani
سۆرانی، کوردیی ناوەندی
Native to	Iraq, Iran
Native speakers	3.5 million in Iraq (2009) unknown number in Iran
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Northwestern Kurdish Central Kurdish
Dialects	Mukriyani Hewleri Ardalani Gerrusi Babani Wermawi Germiyani Jafi
Writing system	Perso-Arabic (Sorani alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	Iraq
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ckb
Glottolog	cent1972
Linguasphere	58-AAA-cae
Geographic distribution of Kurdish and other Iranian languages spoken by Kurds   Northern   Central   Southern   Zaza   Gorani   mixed areas

Central Kurdish (کوردیی ناوەندی; kurdîy nawendî) also called Sorani (سۆرانی; Soranî) is a Kurdish dialect spoken in Iraq, mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the Kurdistan Province of western Iran. Sorani Kurdish is one of the two official languages of Iraq, along with Arabic, and is in political documents simply referred to as "Kurdish".

The term Sorani (سۆرانی; Soranî), after the name of the former principality of Soran, is used especially to refer to a written, standardized form of Central Kurdish written in an adapted form of the Kurdo-Arabic alphabet, developed in the 1920s by Sa'íd Sidqi Kaban and Taufiq Wahby.

History

In Sulaymaniyah, the Ottoman Empire had created a secondary school (Rushdiye), the graduates from which could go to Istanbul to continue to study there. This allowed Sorani, which was spoken in Silêmanî, to progressively replace Hewrami (Gorani) as the literary vehicle.

Since the fall of the Ba'athist regime in Iraq, there have been more opportunities to publish works in the Kurdish language in Iraq than in any other country in recent times. As a result, Sorani Kurdish has become the dominant written form of Kurdish.

Alphabet

Sorani Kurdish is written with a modified Perso-Arabic script; This is in contrast to the other main Kurdish dialect, 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 Sorani.

Demographics

The exact number of Sorani speakers is difficult to determine, but it is generally thought that Sorani 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:

• Around 3 million of the Kurds in Iran. Located south of the Urmia Lake that stretches roughly to the outside of Kermanshah.
• Around 3 million of the Kurds in Iraq, including the Soran clan. Most of the Kurds who use it are found in the vicinity of Hewlêr (Arbil), Sulaymaniyah (Silêmanî), Kerkuk and Diyala governorate.

Subdialects

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:

• Mukriyani; The language spoken south of Lake Urmia with Mahabad as its center, including the cities of Piranshahr, Bokan, Sardasht, Oshnavieh and the Kurdish speaking parts of Naghadeh and Miandoab. This region is traditionally known as Mukriyan.
• 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.
• Garmiani, in and around Kirkuk
• Hawleri, spoken in and around the city of Hawler (Arbil) in Iraqi Kurdistan. Its main distinction is changing the consonant /l/ into /r/ in many words.
• Babani, spoken in and around the city of Sulaymaniya in Iraq and the cities of Saghez and Baneh in Iran.
• Jafi, spoken in the towns of Javanroud, Ravansar and some villages around Sarpole Zahab and Paveh.

As an official language

A recent proposal was made for Sorani to be the official language of the Kurdistan Regional Government. This idea has been favoured by some Sorani-speaking Kurds but it has disappointed Kurmanjis.

Grammatical features

There 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 Sorani dictionaries available, amongst which there are many that seek to be bilingual.

English and Sorani

• English–Kurdish Dictionary by Dr. Selma Abdullah and Dr. Khurhseed Alam
• Raman English-Kurdish Dictionary by Destey Ferheng

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–object–verb).

See also

• Kurdish alphabet
• Northern Kurdish
• Southern Kurdish
• Soran Emirate
• Sorani grammar

External links

• The New Testament in Soranî
• The Kurdish Academy of Language (unofficial)
• Working with Sorani Speaking Patients NHS (UK) Guide