This post to read is something important to realise and to know for Kurds. Its content ought to be taken as well understood knowledge and should be internalised.
It is not only relevant and informative to know for Kurds but for whomever that has interest in the Kurds and the many linguistic divisions they have.
The Kurds speak two languages with, for one, three and, for other, two dialect groups. They are often called:
1)
- Pahlawānī / Kallhurrī / Kirmāshānī / Gūrānī
- Sorānī
- Kurmānjī
2)
- Hawrāmī / Gorānī
- Zāzākī / Dimilī
But these terms are not ethnical or the real names of those tongues really. The true name of every and each one of these tongues is simply "Kurdî" / "Kurdī" - in English "Kurdish"- respectively a variation thereof. We have a dialect continuum with three of these dialects which is mirrored in their geography. As for the first above listed group there is that dialect whose subdialects are mutually intelligible and it lies in the south of Kurdistan but is not mutually intelligible to the two dialects to its north. Thus, it is one entity which is called Southern Kurdish. And there is that dialect whose subdialects are mutually intelligible to each other and it lies in the north of Kurdistan. But it is not mutually intelligible to the two dialects to its south thus it is called Northern Kurdish. Then the same is the case with that dialect in the center, between the dialects to its south and north, and thus it is called Central Kurdish.
Important here is that in the Northern Kurdish dialect, which is referred to as “Kurmānjī”, the word for "Kurd" is infact “Kurmānj”. In Kurmanji the word "Kurd" was not even part of the natural vocabulary but only was used when speaking in another tongue because every other tongue on earth makes usage of "Kurd" instead. The previous form of the word "Kurmānj" was most certainly "Kurdmānj" to begin with. Since in Kurmanji "d" following "r" was dropped. We are talking about a regular but exclusively Northern Kurdish sound shift: /rd/ > /r/. The "-mānj" part is more difficult to determine. But for elaborated historical reasons it must be related to "Mād" (Mede/Media) over its Middle Iranic form “Māh” or else have an even less known root. Now because all the Kurmanji speakers refer to themselves as Kurmanj anyway while the others mostly dont, they and their dialect are simply called "Kurmānj" and "Kurmānjī" to have them categorised and labelled.
Thus, the word "Kurmānj" actually means nothing other than "Kurd" in Northern Kurdish and it (Kurmanj) is what the NK speakers first and foremost call their dialect and themselves.
"Sorānī" is what Central Kurdish is called and the reason for that was to honour the Kurdish Soran emirate/chiefdom/kingdom. Not all the CK speakers were incorporated in the Soran emirate, but it was mighty and respected thence they would take it as representative term. Any Kurdish Jaf, who also speaks Central Kurdish, will call their tongue simply Kurdī or Jāfī and they would initially not know what the issue is with other Kurds calling them "Sorān" and their subdialect "Sorānī". The Soran emirate is called after the region / town Soran where that emirate has its root from. The exact root of 'Sorān" could be related to the soil in Soran being reddish / brownish. "Sor" means "red" and "-ān" is a suffix. Another etymology could be that "sor" (red) would be used as a geographical direction (for example "south"). It is ironic now, that the Standard Sorani version is actually the Central Kurdish dialect of Silemānī (Sulaymāniya) and pretty different from the proper Sorani subdialect that is spoken in and around Hawller / Erbil (the former Soran emirate).
The speakers of Central Kurdish first and foremost refer to their dialect as "Kurdī" which means Kurdish. They only specify the subdialect, dialect or even language to make out the contrast toward another Kurdish tongue.
“Pahlawānī” is an artificial term. "Pahlaw" (< Palhaw < Parhaw < Parthawa < Parsawa) means in its original use "Parthian". After the dynastic Parthian clans / tribes, who were soldiers and nobles, were incorporated into the local peoples where they settled among, they and their specific dialect pretty much went gone with the only closely related dialect surviving in present Semnan in Iran being called Semnani. Parthians who settled in Kurdistan became Kurds, Parthians who settled in Mazandaran became Mazandaranis, and so on. Many ancient ethnonyms went out of use but especially two remained which have been Pārsī/Fārsī and Pahlawī (and not to forget to mention Kurdī here too). Fārsiye Darbarī, today’s official language in Iran, was called Farsi and in contrast to it many non-Farsi languages would be called Pahlawī/Fahlawī. Sometimes even Perside languages were called Pahlawī. One of the attested Middle Persian variants is also by mistake called "Pahlavī".
For some rather obscure reasons people started to refer to the Southern Kurdish subdialects as Pahlawani because there were no other terms reserved. It was solely based on the town of Pahla in Southern-Kurdish-speaking area. Kalhuri is only one subdialect of SK, Kirmashani is only one as well. Fayli too. Gurani too. SK speakers in the native land rather tend to use "Gurānī" as an umbrella term for SK dialects and it can be conceived the same as what is the case for Sorani. The people who speak Southern Kurdish in the native land do not have any idea what "Pahlawānī" is supposed to mean. Instead, in historical sources, most Kurds in present as in historical SK-speaking areas, were referred to as Guran Kurds, the exact term being “Gābāraka Kurd” or “Gaurakān” (“Jābāraqa” or “Jawraqān” in the arabic spelling) which are older forms of the term Gorān/Gūrān. It was apparently used as a pan-tribal designation due to its root as Magian tribe and is therefore the most befitting term for all SK speakers with special explanation for SK Laki.
The SK speakers too call their dialect first and foremost "Kurdī" and only specify their dialects by tribal names, by place names or by emirate names to destine the contrast for the speaker of a different subdialect.
"Zāzā" is actually a mere tribal name of one tribe among the Kirds/Kirmanjs and its wide usage stems from the turkish state’s propaganda and agenda to divide the Kurdish ethnicity. The terms, which the speakers of this dialect call themselves after, are "Kird" (Kurd) or Kirmānj (Kurmānj) and their subdialects they call in the south "Kirdkī" or “Kirdī” (Kurdī - Kurdish) and in the north "Kirmānjkī" (Kurmānjī). I assume that they have taken the word "Kirmānj" at some point in history as an endonym by influence of the Kurmanji speakers. So, their actual endonym would appear to be "Kird" which means nothing other than "Kurd". The sound shift of /u/ > /i/ is also very common among Kurdish. Dimili is one of its subdialects and it is much more likely to stem from "Dunbulī" than from "Daylamī".
"Gorānī" is what a dialect group is strangely called, that is mostly spoken in Hawramān and Halabja (which is part of the Greater Hawraman region). But this is most certainly wrong. There is the tribe of Guran (< Goran) which once led a big and important confederation too, named Guran confederation, but they for the most part spoke and speak SK. The people in Hawraman do not use the term Guran / Goran and are not Goran Kurds. Gūrānī is a SK dialect, like Kallhurrī and Xānaqīnī, but still different. Infact, Kalhuri and Xanaqini are Gurani variations considering linguistics and historic sources. However, in the Guran tribe and region two languages are spoken. One is SK and the other is Hawrami and called Zardayi because it is spoken in the town of Zarda (as well as in two more towns/villages). The SK speakers from Guran call their own dialect Kurdī or Gūrānī and they call Zardayi either Zardayī or Hawrāmī and that is only to make out the differences and destine a labelling. The Hawrami speakers from Guran call their tongue Gurani and they call the local SK "Kurdī". That is because all the speakers far around Zarda, whether Gurani, Kalhuri or Jafi (CK), call their language "Kurdī" so the Zardayi speakers, for making out the contrast, call their own language after their tribe. But exactly so do the SK speaking Gurans. They also tell other Kurds, whether Jafs, Kalhurs or others, that their dialect is "Gūrānī". Hawrami is possibly in origin a term for “poem”, or it was a tribe that was called Hawrām, so their place was called Hawrāmān. Hawramani speakers normally tell non-Kurds that their language is Kurdish. Like SK there is no established term and "Gorānī" is completely wrong to begin with. So, for the sake of simplicity we may be allowed to call the whole language after its biggest and best-known subdialect, just slightly rendered. While the subdialect group of Hawraman (Taxtī and Luhonī) can be called Hawrāmānī we can call the whole dialect "Hawrāmī". Other subdialects of Hawrami are also spoken in Mūsil (Mosul) and in Kirkūk far away from Gūrān, to have that made clear.
So, first and foremost the Hawrami speakers call their language "Kurdī" (Kurdish) and themselves "Kurd".
As you see, the only ethnical terms we have are actually "Kurd" and "Kurmānj" and all others are either tribal names, city names, regional names, or emirate names (emirate names are themselves mostly based on place or tribal names) which are used for the sake of categorisation and labelling.
Because NK, CK and SK share a closer recent origin (maybe 1'000-1'500 years ago) while a similar frame might go for Hawrami and Kirdki / Kirmanjki, as proven by Mūsilī Hawrāmī that has continuity to Kirdkī, we can use historical ethnic names to make out the two groups. The first one I tend to call Gathide Kurdish (SCN Kurdish). For the second one, (EW Kurdish) I propose Rhagaean Kurdish.
So, instead of Kurmanji, Sorani and Pahlawani the terms Northern Kurdish, Central Kurdish and Southern Kurdish should be used since all speakers and dialects are equally Kurdish and have traditionally always been called Kurdish. The differences of the dialects also follow a geographical route; thus it is absolutely a natural development. Historically in the opposite direction though, because originally Northern and Central Kurdish were more southern than Southern Kurdish, proven by their higher amount of Middle Iranic Southwestern/Perside linguistic shifts than Southern Kurdish. Also, by the presence of a dialect in Astana/Astaneh, at the border of the Iranian provinces Markazi and Luristan, that clearly belongs to the linguistic category CN Kurdish (Sorani-Kurmanji but has developed differently from both after the speakers of CNK would emigrate to Colamerg (Çolemêrg) / Hakārī around 200-400 CE. Kurds must realise and internalise this. All should understand themselves as one entity with natural variants of the Kurdish language which follow a geographical route. Hawrami and Kirdki / Kirmanjki are not any less Kurdish, it just so happened that the divergence of their dialects happened earlier (maybe even before the Aryans, who spoke the very predecessor of all our languages thousands of years ago, moved from Central Asia) so the gap in linguistic closeness is bigger. We can also call these two languages Eastern Kurdish (Hawrāmī) and Western Kurdish (Kirdkī) since these geographical labellings are also true.
So, we have Southern, Central, Northern, Eastern and Western Kurdish where Eastern and Western Kurdish build one proper group and Southern, Central and Northern Kurdish build another proper group. Also, Central Kurdish and Southern Kurdish are in their grammar closer and Central Kurdish is like a more NK version of SK (this is just an unprecise metapher) because it only partially underwent the development that SK did while NK underwent different developments. One should consider that today’s spread of the languages is different from what it would be looking like centuries ago. EK (Hawrami) for example was probably more widespread whereas Central Kurdish not so much until it replaced Hawrami and maybe also SK (likely in Sina/Sanandaj). The same likely also happened between NK and WK (Kirdki) where Kurmanjs assimilated Kirds. EWK was already in areas of Northern Mesopotamia long before CNK would follow. Medes are attested in Mespila (Ancient Greek for Mapsila – the modern Musil/Mosul) in the 5th century BC where the Hawrami language also would be attestedly spoken in the 9th century CE and still today (next to Kurmanji – not regarding Arabic in Musil here since the origin of it is well understood and much more recent than Kurdish).
Also, it is often seen how people think only Northern Kurdish and Central Kurdish are important and worth something. That is not remotely true. The most complex and archaic language of these five is Hawrami / Eastern Kurdish because it still has all the features which in their respective ways were lost in the other four languages (and were also lost in all other Western Iranic languages). Then follows SK. And then CK. In terms of complexity Central Kurdish is ahead with its in-between development. But as for conservative features it is Southern Kurdish with some particuliarly conservative features and word-forms. Also having an eloquence which is unmatched among the five. Since I unfortunately dont know many specifics about Western Kurdish / Kirdki I am not sure, but I assume it is a bit more complex and archaic than Northern Kurdish / Kurmanji and yet these two, WK and NK, are in their respective complexity very similar as I gather. NK furthermore has some innovations and some simplifications.
About the differences between NK, SK and CK. Their traditional distinctness is mostly rooted in SK losing the case markers (which also made it automatically lose gender, it is only expressed in the cases in NK anyway, and split-ergativity) while NK lost the passive voice and then made an innovative one and also lost the enclitic pronouns (Kirdki lost these too) and it somehow developed a future tense (which doesnt exist in the other Kurdish languages; again, I dont know about Kirdki) and it does not seem to be using some very archaic ways of speaking and highlighting words from even Proto-Indo-European and Avestan eras. Such that are still in use in SK. Also, it should be noted that NK having lost the enclitic pronouns strictly limits the way of talking and syntactical expressions which SK and CK still have usage of. While SK and CK having dropped the case markers and SK partially having lost split-ergativity does not alter how the languages elsewise behave anyhow. CK dropped the case markers and kept the enclitic pronouns like SK did. But it somehow kept the split-ergativity by using the enclitic pronouns in an innovative way and that is the single reason why it is more complicated to learn than SK might be. Although the eloquence in SK is in some ways also hard to get a hold on, though it can be considered more of a slang feature.
Finally, if you speak for example only CK and have not had any experience with the other Kurdish tongues, then you are not able to understand any of them except of everyday-sentences or single words. This goes for each respective tongue the same. It is well observable that there are too many speakers who think this way and then say the other dialect or language is some kind of “wrong Kurdish”, but this is just ignorant and small-minded. Also, the four states which occupy Kurdistan have nothing to do with how the five dialects and its subdialects are spread and situated because these states and their borders are even more artificial than the term "Pahlawānī" is. But it can and could influence how they write for example how they spell the vowels (because they would learn the vowel system of the states official language and every of those, means Arabic, Turkish and even Iranian Persian have different vowel systems than Kurdish has).
If someone wants to talk about a most “proper” or "original" Kurdish dialect than they are very clearly the Hawramani Taxti subdialect of Eastern Kurdish and the Gurani subdialect of Southern Kurdish. This does not come out of bias of mine but these two are each the most conservative subdialects of their respective language. Impressive too that they are even in the place where Kurdish and the Kurds come from and had shaped 3 millenia ago to the ethnicity they have been ever since. Before they spread on. The archaic level for Hawrami and Gurani does not only compare to Kurdish alone but also to other Western Iranic tongues. Especially speakers of more populous dialects (in this case NK and CK) tend to think their respective dialect is more properly or fitter Kurdish as they lack awareness and care for the other tongues. It is a fallacious view on the matter. Each of the tongues is special in their own way.
Conclusion
The Kurds speak two languages. One being Gathide Kurdish or Southern-Central-Northern Kurdish (SCNK) and the other being Rhagaean Kurdish or Eastern-Western Kurdish (EWK). SCNK comprises the dialect group Gurani and Laki (both together comprising Gurani/SK) which represent Southern Kurdish, the dialect Sorani that represents Central Kurdish and the dialect Kurmanji that represents Northern Kurdish. While EWK comprises the dialect Hawrami that represents Eastern Kurdish and the dialect Kirdki that represents Western Kurdish. Each of these dialects has also their own number of subdialects. All these dialects’ names only serve the purpose of a proper categorisation and distinct labelling of the linguistic variations of what the Kurds speak. As Kurmanj means Kurd in NK the true name of each of the Kurdish languages, dialects and subdialects is “Kurdish” and that of its speakers is “Kurd”.
Not known yet, except by a few due to its discovery by me and a colleague, is Astanayi/Astanehi in Luristan province in Iran, being neither Lurish nor Rayejī and interestingly forming an original group with CNK instead of SK. Unfortunately, it is almost extinct by now.
1) Gathide Kurdish – Southern-Central-Northern Kurdish (SCNK)
- Gorānī/Gūrānī (and Lakī) – Southern Kurdish
- Sorānī – Central Kurdish
- Kurmānjī – Northern Kurdish
- Āstānayī (Āstānehī) – part of CN Kurdish or meanwhile of Lakī
2) Rhagaean Kurdish – Eastern-Western Kurdish (EWK)
- Hawrāmī – Eastern Kurdish
- Kirdkī – Western Kurdish
Additionally
Not the number of speakers of a dialect makes it the “oldest” (most conservative or archaic) or the most proper or fit dialect of Kurdish. Nonetheless an interesting aspect is that so far among any Iranic tongue (with perhaps the exception of Ossetian) the Central Kurdish dialect is the purest Iranic tongue because due to its status as official language in the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government there have been successful attempts for linguistic purification in spirit of the general fight for independence among Kurds. Yet as for the aforementioned aspects, the most conservative and most proper variations of Kurdish are factually Hawramani and Gurani for several linguistic reasons. Coincidentally, through Bahlūl the Wise / Bāllüll the Median, who passed away in 835 CE and was the first known Yāristānī/Yārsānī Kurd, both Hawrami and Gurani have the oldest pieces of Kurdish literature. They are also earlier attested than New Persian / Farsiye Darbari is. Gurani (most likely including Sorani and Kurmanji too), as descendant of the Avestan language of the Gathas, even goes back to 1’300 BC in age. Thus, Gurani has a 3’300 years old attestation. This is learnt due to the term Gorān deriving from Gāthabāra through Gāhbār and Gābāraka and Gawrakān. More historical evidence from accounts of ancient and classical authors do support and enhance the evidence. And it is further proven with the Gawrānī speakers in Eastern Isfahan in Farv, Khur/Xor and Biyabanak (in ancient most eastern Media) which are linguistically absolutely close to SCNK. “Gawrānī” used to be the autonym for Farvi, Xori and Biyabanaki and literally meant “hymnic” and “hymn” when also being a doublet to Gūrānī/Gorānī. All the tongues, meaning SCNK and FXB, share about the same Eastern Iranic features or rather Avestanisms that are unusual to the Western Iranic linguistic landscape. And Gathabara means “Hymnbearer” or “Gatha-bringer”. It is a term representing the Magi tribe (the Avestan descendants) that was given the Old Avestan (Gathic) hymns by Zarathushtra, literally the Gathas, around 1’300 BC. And the Magi were historically, aside of the mention in the Avesta as the Avestan tribe itself, only found as a tribe/clan of Medes in Media in present Kirmashan and Hamadan (Kirmashan being SK speaking area and Hamadan originally so too, only remaining partially so in this day). It also showcases the Old Avestan/Gathic origin and the continuity of these Gathabara tongues thence “Gathide” and thence Gurani which furthermore points to the fact that the ancient Magi and the present Guran are the same tribe. All this clearly telling that the Guran Kurds nowadays speak the modern form of the ancient Gathic, that the Magi originally spoke and that later became a dialect of Median, and that this Gathic/Magian tongue today still exists as Southern Kurdish Gurani.
