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THE KURDISH PEOPLES

The following chart summarizes an extensive survey and evaluation of the Kurdish peoples and the languages they speak.

I have followed the classification of languages and dialects used by the Summer Institute of Linguistics, as published in the Ethnologue, 13th Edition, 1996, online.  This represents a revision of names and dialect groupings among the Kurds, based on later research than other sources used.  This appears to be the most recent schema summarizing research on the Kurdish languages.  Previous sources were not consistent, so accounting for some variations from this presentation.

Observations and Findings with Conclusions follow the chart.

Dr. Orville Boyd Jenkins
research@ottawa.com
 
 

Summary of the Kurdish Peoples and their Speech Forms

The following comments summarize research on the Kurdish peoples, supplementing the conclusions presented in the chart.  The purpose of the research was to clarify the names of the various Kurdish groups, and approximate populations, correlated as possible with religious sects and place names.

After observations and findings, I will present some conclusions as very basic considerations for communication strategy.
 

Observations and Findings
=================

Names

1.  The various Kurdish people are commonly identified by the language they speak.  Kurmanji is the most widely spoken Kurdish language.

2.  Many names referring to various Kurdish people also are names of places.  Even the "names" of many of the speech forms are place names, applied to the people and the speech of people in that area.

3.  I have followed the classification of languages and dialects used by the Summer Institute of Linguistics, as published in the Ethnologue, 13th Edition, 1996, online.  This represents a revision of names and dialect groupings among the Kurds, based on later research than other sources used.  This appears to be the most recent schema summarizing research on the Kurdish languages.

4.  Many sources available on the Internet were posted in 1997 or later, but were dated from 1992 to 1996, thus using older classifications and terminology, similar to what appeared in the 1992 (12th Edition) of the Ethnologue.  I have correlated all available database figures to get a reasonable update, favoring most recent research.

5.  Further,  there was considerable discrepancy between various authors in older literature.  The SIL terminology and classification, therefore, represents an update that is useful as a standard reference point.

6.  The summary chart presents a correlation of selected place names, tribal or clan ethnic names, religious sects and alternative names for the peoples or speech forms.

7.  The various literature overlaps, often in the same author,  in use of sect name, location name, tribe or ethnic name.
Identities are strong around religious sects.  Sects may be associated with some ethnic names, but cut across strictly ethnic lines.

8.  Religious affiliation, however, does affect speech forms somewhat, as the terminology specific to a certain Sufi or Shia (or "heretical") sect may be specialized, thus affecting certain vocabulary and thought-forms.  Thus some writers have referred to the speech of some of the Yazdani (Cult of Angels) sects as dialects.

9.  Shabak and Bajelan are vaguely referred to as separate religious or ethnic groups.  No discrete figures or descriptions are available in sources.  The terms Goran, Shabak and Bajelan are used interchangeably by some authors.  Hawrami is more distinctly used, but is also associated with Shabak and Bajelan.  Leezburg says the Shabak, strictly speaking, have never been a tribe.

10.  It appears that each sect has a somewhat distinct subgroup identity within whichever broader language and ethnic group they belong to.
 

Languages

1.  The Kurdish peoples speak 12 languages among them, as indicated on the chart.  One source also showed Kurds in Iran speaking Eastern Farsi, but later data did not indicate that.  I could not confirm that this language is spoken by any Kurdish group.  There may be some Kurds with native language Arabic, but I found no information on this.

2.  Some peoples show no population, indicating some uncertainty in reported data.  Global totals for those peoples are likewise uncertain, but are taken from a 1996 database, but repeated in later materials.  Some of the figures were suspect, with identical country figures and global totals for several groups.

3.  Kurmanji (Kurmanci) is the most widely spoken language of the Kurds.  This language was commonly referred to in earlier literature as Northern Kurmanji.  Most speakers of Kurmanji are found in Turkey.  They are also the most dispersed into other countries outside "Kurdistan."

4.  The next largest language group is Kurdi, also called Sorani, and formerly called Southern Kurmanji by some and Central Kurdish by others.  Most speakers of speech forms considered to be dialects of Kurdi live in Iran, though the term Sorani and the Kurdi language seem more associated in popular thought with Iraq.  (Soran is a place in Iraq.)

5.  The term Kurmanji was also formerly used as a general term for the broader grouping including the former Northern Kurmanji (now Kurmanji) and Southern Kurmanji (now Kurdi).  The term "Kurmanji" is applied now only to the northern forms of speech, as this is what those speakers call that language, while the Sorani Kurds call their language Kurdi ("Kurdish"), as do also some of the smaller Kurdish language groups.

6.  Most of the Kurds in Syria are Kurmanji speakers (also called Bahdinani by some writers), but some in Syria are Dimli Kurds.

7.  Most Kurmanji speakers are in Turkey.  Most of the Kurdi speakers are in Iran.  Almost all the Kurds in Iraq speak Kurdi, while most in Syria speak Kurmanji.

8.  Kirmanjki speakers similarly call themselves Kirmandz or Kirmanj.

9.  Figures from SIL indicate most Kirmandz (Kirmanjki) are in Germany.  This seemed a bit suspicious, but I found no information to contradict this indication.

10.  Speakers of various speech forms are interspersed in much of the area.  The chart indicates some key locations of each language group, where available in verified sources.

11.  Each language tends to borrow terms from the dominant language in their geopolitical sphere, thus Kurmanji in Turkey has borrowed more from Turkish, while Sorani speakers in Iran and Hawrami speakers have borrowed from Persian, while Sorani speakers in Iraq tend to borrow Arabic terms.  Likewise the Kurmanji and Dimli speakers in Syria have borrowed some Arabic terms.

12.  The larger languages further have several dialects.  The respective speech forms classified by SIL as dialects of the various languages, however, remain mutually intelligible among themselves, while the broader languages are characterized as not mutually intelligible.

13.  Many Kurds are fluent in more than one of the languages spoken among the Kurdish peoples.

14.  A group of 70,000 Kurds in Russia speak Russian as a mother tongue.  It is not clear if they also still speak one of the original Kurdish languages.
 

Political or National Identity

1.  The Kurds are known for their resistance against ethnic, military and political oppression, desiring their own separate Kurdish political entity.  There has, however, been some ambiguity among the various peoples considered Kurd.

2.  The Kurdish people are of mixed origins, as are virtually every other ethnic group in the world.  Some of the clans have Turkish names, and there are various traditions of origin, as well as various historical testimonies concerning them for three thousand years of recorded history.  Some of the members of Yazdani sects are of Arabic origin.  In Syria, for instance many Turkish Alevi (Alawi) are of Arab origin.  Likewise, some who now consider themselves Arab were originally of the Kurdish nation and language.

3.  While there is a level of common ethnic identity among most of the Kurdish peoples, particularly in terms of nationalistic aspirations, there is still notable animosity or suspicion between the various religious sects that divide the Kurds.  Also sects tend to follow family and clan lines, except among some of the smaller ethnic/religious groupings speaking the "smaller" languages.

4.  History indicates not all Kurdish ethnic groups have been actively involved in protest against the non-Kurdish governments in the region.  Indeed, some clans, tribes or other groupings have remained neutral, or been involved in the government military, even in operations against other Kurds.

5.  There is a greater unity of identity now after the Anfal (Iraqi government campaigns against the Kurds 1987-89) and other recent persecutions, exercised against some uncommitted or marginal southern groups, who have now declared their identity as Kurds.

6.  The Shabaki/Kakai sect has some converts from Arab tribes.  Since the Anfal, these groups have more decisively identified with the Kurds.

7.  Southern peoples are mixed at an early stage in history with another early population called Gorani.  This is the source of the ethnic and place name, and language designation for some southern dialects of the Kurdish peoples.
 

Badinani~Kurmanji

A specific question investigated was the relationship between the terms Badinani and Kurmanji as a people/language name.

1.  The term Kurmanji is attested from ancient times as the name of a people and language.  It is reported that this is what the Kurmanji speakers call their language.

2.  The term Badinani (Bahdinani) is used in some older literature interchangeably with the name Kurmanji to refer to the Northern groups of Kurdish speech.  No source makes a distinction between two different peoples or languages with these two terms.  Some sources do not use this term at all, including Encyclopedia Britannica, which uses the same schema otherwise, with the term "Kurmanji."  Note that these are all used as language names.

3.  The word Bahdinani is given in the Ethnologue as an alternative name (one that has some time in the past been used for the speech of some portion of the speakers) in Turkey and Azerbaijan for the listing of Kurmanji language.

4.  Badinan is a place name in a heavy concentration of Kurds in Turkey who speak the Kurmanji language.  Soran and Badinan are two towns (the "i" ending makes it an adjective, thus "of Badinan," or "of Soran") whose names have been used by some as a shorthand for these two groups.  Sorani is more commonly used as the name of the group of Kurds speaking Kurdi.  Badinan(i) is not as common or consistent in the literature for northern speech forms.

5.  Badinan (Bahdinan) is a town in Southern Turkey, also found as Gürmese or Gürmeêe on some maps.  This is the source of the use of this word to refer to some speakers of Kurmanji.  Like Soran (Iraq), Gorani (Iran), it is a place name.  The town is a good bit north of a line from Mosul and Aleppo, and about half way between.  Some maps do not show Badinan or Gürmese, but show Batman, a nearby oilfield town.

6.  The people group name is Kurd.  They also have smaller groupings referred to as tribes, which also have a specific name.  But the most common way of relating among the Kurds is by what language they speak.  Then the religious sect seems to be a further differentiating or descriptive factor.  Many of the tribal names, and also many names of speech forms (languages/dialects) are place names, applied to the people who live in that area and to their form of speech.
 

Conclusions
========

1.  The vast majority of all Kurdish peoples live in Turkey (Kurmanji, Kirmanjki and Dimli) and Iran (Kurdi).

2.  Language will be a primary identifying factor among the Kurdish people, and thus a primary factor in considering communication strategy.

3.  Religious affiliation is the next consideration for relationships and communication strategies.  That is, language groupings must be further segmented by religion.

4.  Because of the variety of sub-ethnic identities, religious sect divisions and uncertain political alignments, strategies must be varied for different groups, even among the same language group.  Likewise the same sect cuts across various languages.  this is most notable in the smaller languages and ethnic groups.

5.  For any communication dealing with worldview and identity-affecting decisions, separate strategies will likely be needed at the local level, based on sect and local unique characteristics, as would be expected in any multi-cultural people.  Thus a study of the larger religious sects will be of use and likely indispensable for clear communication of universal realities.

6.  The largest language group of all Kurds is Kurmanji.  That language is also the one most spoken by Kurds in Europe.  Kurmanji is also the most common inter-language used among Kurds with different mother tongues.  These expatriate (diaspora) communities would be a likely point of access.  Thus Kurmanji should likely be the Kurdish people/language for accessing Kurds outside their "homeland."

7.  If SIL's figures are correct, Kirmanjki is the next most likely language for European access.  Few Kurdi speakers live outside Iran or Iraq.

8.  By those figures, the Kirmanj (Kirmanjki speakers) are the largest single expatriate group of Kurds.  They are mostly Alevi in faith.
 

References

Map of Kurdish Languages (pre-1996 names)
http://www.kurdish.com/kurdistan/maps/images/map-05.jpg

Language-Dialect Tree
(using pre-1996 names -- easy to correlate with post-1996)
http://www.kurdish.com/kurdistan/maps/images/map-01.jpg

Ethnic Differentiation Among the Kurds:  Kurmanci, Kazalbash and Zaza
http://www.deakin.edu.au/~kstudyg/jaimes.html

Alevism
http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/kurdish/htdocs/cult/alev.html

The Shabak and the Kakais:  Dynamics of Ethnicity in Iraqi Kurdistan
http://www.humanrights.de/~kurdweb/gic/articles/gic-article-04.html

Kurdish Language
http://www.humanrights.de/~kurdweb/kval/english/language/language.html

The Kurdish Question -- Its History and Present Situation
http://members.aol.com/KHilfsvere/Kurds.html

"Kurdistan,"  Encyclopedia Britannica
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/2/0,5716,47552+1+46469,00.html

Standardizing the Modern Journalistic Language in Kurdish
http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~siamakr/Kurdish/Papers/chyet96.html

Gorani elements in Central Kurdish (Sorani)
http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~siamakr/Kurdish/Papers/Leezenberg93.html

Kurdish Worldwide Resources
Maps, Articles, Culture, Language and Religion
http://kurdish.com/

Exploring Kurdish Origins
http://www.kurdish.com/kurdistan/people/people.htm

The Journal of Kurdish Studies
http://www.history.uiuc.edu/fac_dir/Hitchins/intro.html

The Ethnologue, 13th Edition
http://www.sil.org/
 

Print Resources consulted

"Kurdish Languages," Encyclopedia Britannica, 22:608.

Held, Colbert C.  Middle East Patterns.  Oxford:  Westview Press, 1994

Izady, Mehrdad R.  The Kurds:  A Concise Handbook.  Washington, DC:  Taylor and Francis, 1992.

Buckley, Richard, Ed.  The Kurds:  Caught Between Nations (Understanding Global Issues Series, 94/3).  Cheltenham, England, UK:  European Schoolbooks Publishing Ltd., 1994.

"Kurds of Iraq:  A People Profile."  File Paper, 1994.  No author given.
 

14 September 2000

Last Updated 26 October 2000
Dr. Orville Boyd Jenkins
research@ottawa.com

file:   http://endor.hsutx.edu/~obiwan/articles/kurds.html