Kurdish (Sorani, Kurmanji, Southern Kurdish): linguistics

01Pronunciation

Each letter with its usual sound.

Kurdish Arabic-based alphabet

Kurdish Latin alphabet (Hawar)

Sound values are a teaching guide for the standard language, labelled to verify. Dialects differ. To verify

Sources Wikimedia Commons: pronunciation recordings, each under its own open licence. (2026) To verify

02Core words compared

Ten everyday words across the languages of the region.

Persian, Kurdish, Zazaki and Balochi are Iranian languages, and many of their core words are related. Azerbaijani is Turkic and Armenian is its own branch of Indo-European, so their words differ. To verify

Sources Steingass. A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary. Routledge and K. Paul. Digital edition: Digital Dictionaries of South Asia, University of Chicago. (1892) Verified; Chyet. Kurdish-English Dictionary. Yale University Press. (2003) To verify; Wahby and Edmonds. A Kurdish-English Dictionary. Clarendon Press. (1966) To verify; Paul. Zazaki: Grammatik und Versuch einer Dialektologie. Reichert. (1998) To verify; Jahani and Korn. Balochi. In Windfuhr (ed.), The Iranian Languages. (2009) To verify; Johanson and Csató (eds.). The Turkic Languages. Routledge. (1998) To verify; Dum-Tragut. Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian. John Benjamins. (2009) To verify

03Sources

1. Steingass. A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary. Routledge and K. Paul. Digital edition: Digital Dictionaries of South Asia, University of Chicago. 1892

   Verified Public domain. The digital edition was reachable on 2026-10-23.

2. Chyet. Kurdish-English Dictionary. Yale University Press. 2003

   To verify

3. Wahby and Edmonds. A Kurdish-English Dictionary. Clarendon Press. 1966

   To verify

4. Paul. Zazaki: Grammatik und Versuch einer Dialektologie. Reichert. 1998

   To verify

5. Jahani and Korn. Balochi. In Windfuhr (ed.), The Iranian Languages. 2009

   To verify

6. Johanson and Csató (eds.). The Turkic Languages. Routledge. 1998

   To verify

7. Dum-Tragut. Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian. John Benjamins. 2009

   To verify

04Research and sources

Recent and relevant work on this page’s subject, from approved open scholarly sources. Metadata and links only. Titles stay as published. Not yet reviewed.

1. Next word prediction based on the N-gram model for Kurdish Sorani and Kurmanji

   Hozan K. Hamarashid, Soran A. Saeed, Tarik Ahmed Rashid · 2020 · Neural Computing and Applications

   ArticleOpenAlexCrossrefDataCitearXivOpen accessCC-BY-4.0

2. Can Linguistic Distance help Language Classification? Assessing Hawrami-Zaza and Kurmanji-Sorani

   Hossein Hassani · 2021 · arXiv

   PreprintDataCitearXivOpen accessCC-BY-4.0

3. KASET – Kurmanji and Sorani Kurdish Speech and Transcripts

   Dana Delgado, Kevin Walker, Stephanie Strassel et al. · 2024 · Linguistic Data Consortium

   DatasetDataCite

4. Mabast dataset for Sorani Kurdish dialect semantic text classification.

   Hasan IE, Al-Atroshi SJA · 2026 · Data Brief

   ArticleEurope PMCOpen access

5. Calibrating Kurmanji and Sorani

   Michael L. Chyet · 2018 · Routledge Handbook on the Kurds

   ChapterCrossref

6. A descriptive and comparative study of adverb construction in Kurdish (Sorani and Kurmanji) and English.

   Ahmad Ahmadyan · 2025 · Biannual Journal of the Kurdish Language & Literature Studies

   ArticleDataCiteOpen accessCC-BY-4.0

7. Adyan: automated annotating named entity recognition dataset for sorani kurdish language.

   Wahid CH, Nabi RM · 2025 · Data Brief

   ArticleEurope PMCOpen access

8. Dasinya: A dataset and preprocessing pipeline for the Badini Kurdish dialect.

   Saeed VA, Jacksi K · 2026 · Data Brief

   ArticleEurope PMCOpen access

9. Making Kurdish Visible: Digital Language Practices, Identity, and Belonging among Kurdish Youth in Türkiye

   mehmet sirin filiz, ziyattin YILDIRIMÇAKAR, Naif Ergün · 2026 · Zenodo

   DatasetZenodoCC-BY-4.0

10. Polysemy of Particle in Kurdish Language

    Bayan Mala Hamadameen, Talib Husen Ali · 2023 · Zanco Journal of Humanity Sciences

    ArticleDOAJOpen access

11. Sorani Kurdish versus Kurmanji Kurdish: An Empirical Comparison

    Kyumars Sheykh Esmaili, Shahin Salavati · 2013

    ArticleOpenAlex

12. Supplementary Data for "Language Attitudes and Perceptual Recognition in a Context of Non-State Standardization: Evidence from Kurmanji Kurdish"

    ziyattin YILDIRIMÇAKAR · 2026 · Zenodo

    DatasetZenodoOpen accessCC-BY-4.0

Sources, licences and fetch dates: arXiv (Metadata CC0 1.0; papers under their own licences), 2026-10-23; Crossref (Metadata facts, any use; abstracts may be publisher-owned and are never shown), 2026-10-23; DataCite (CC0 1.0 (DataCite metadata)), 2026-10-23; DOAJ (Metadata CC0 1.0 (DOAJ); articles under their own open licences), 2026-10-23; Europe PMC (Metadata reusable; full text under each article’s licence), 2026-10-23; OpenAlex (CC0-1.0 data; metered API (free key)), 2026-10-23; Zenodo (Metadata CC0 1.0; each record under its own licence), 2026-10-23.