Kurdish is an Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo- European languages with multiple dialects spoken by Kurdish peoples in the mountainous regions of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.
Many people may not know this, but these languages all belong to different language families. In fact, Persian and Kurdish are Indo-European languages and have more in common with English and Greek than they do with Arabic. Turkish, on the other hand, belongs to yet another language family.
But few young Kurds speak Arabic, and even fewer young Arabs learn Kurdish. Signs on roads and official buildings in each region tend to be either in Arabic or in Kurdish, rarely both. If a second language is used, it is usually English.
Kurds are an Iranian people, and the first known Indo-Iranians in the region were the Mitanni, who established a kingdom in northern Syria five centuries after the fall of Gutium. The Mitanni are believed to have spoken an Indo-Aryan language, or perhaps a pre-split Indo-Iranian language.
Kurds (Kurdish: کورد, Kurd) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria.
The Kurdish–Turkish conflict is an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and various Kurdish insurgent groups who have either demanded separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan, or attempted to secure autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds inside the Republic of Turkey.
Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life. Many people who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned.
From politicians and activists, to entrepreneurs and musicians, a range of well-known figures hail from the Kurdistan region. From creating the world's leading Greek yogurt brand to heroically protecting the rights of Kurdish people, prominent Kurdish figures have deeply impacted every society they've touched.
Before Islam, the majority of Kurds followed a western Iranic pre-Zoroastrian faith which derived directly from Indo-Iranian tradition, some elements of this faith survived in Yezidism, Yarsanism and Kurdish Alevism. Kurds were a nation divided between the Byzantine and Persian Empires when Islam first appeared.
According to the Quran, a man may have up to four wives provided he can support them all and spends equal time with each; however, few men can afford even two wives. A childless marriage is the most common grounds for divorce or the taking of a second wife.
Learning Kurdish can be hard in terms of grammar and learning resources, especially if you don't speak any middle-eastern language. The Kurmanji dialect can be easier for speakers of European languages because it uses the Latin alphabet, while the Sorani dialect uses the Arabic script.
Within the Indo-European language family, Kurdish is a language among the Iranian language group. So, Kurdish share a lot of similarities with Persian, Pashto, Balochi and other Iranian languages.
Language. The majority of people who identify as Kurds speak Kurmanji, meanwhile a minority of them speak Turkish or Zazaki as their mother language.
Iran and Turkey are not Arab countries and their primary languages are Farsi and Turkish respectively. Arab countries have a rich diversity of ethnic, linguistic, and religious communities. These include Kurds, Armenians, Berbers and others.
Most probably, Kurd people gene pool majority may be composed of an admixture of North Mesopotamian (Caucasus) and Near East peoples; Central Asia gene input is not discarded [5,9,10,11,12,13]. Kurds have mainly been defined by their ancestry, language and cultural uses.
Where do they come from? The Kurds are one of the indigenous peoples of the Mesopotamian plains and the highlands in what are now south-eastern Turkey, north-eastern Syria, northern Iraq, north-western Iran and south-western Armenia.
The difference between Muslim Arabs and Kurds is that Muslim Arabs are Shia Muslims while Muslim Kurds are belong to the Sunni faction. Kurds do not have a state nation but a settlement called Kurdistan, a region comprised of portions of countries like Turkey, Syria, Iran, Iraq and other countries.
The most successful Kurdish leader in this era is Saladin (r. 1174 to 1193), also known as Saladin Ayyubi, who was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty.
English Language in Iraq Kurdistan
Although Kurdish is the official language plenty of people in the bigger cities of Kurdistan such as Erbil and Sulaymaniyah will be able to understand basic English – especially the younger generation.
Islamic Conquest
Arab-Muslim conquest of Kurdistan in 7th Century forced the Kurds to convert to Islam. [2] Battle of Jalawla in 632 played major role for Islamization of the region. People started to leave their ancient religions for Islam in fear of persecution.
The Kurds of Iran are predominantly Sunni, although the religious factor is not a determining factor in the political identification of the Kurds of Iran as shown by the national awakening of the Shiite Kurds of the provinces of Ilam and Kermanshah in the last years.
Kurdish dance that is known as Helperkê or Govend is a form of holding hands dance and dramatic rituals of Kurds. Helper means movement and shaking which is a sample of war movements. Helperkê is a group dance that performs in an incomplete circle of dancers who tied their hands and move from left to right.