1. Welcome to Kurmanji
🟢 Destpêk · Dersa 1 ji 23
Ev rûpel niha bi îngilîzî ye.
What is Kurmanji?
Kurdish is an Indo-European language in its own right: a macrolanguage made up of closely related varieties, with its own history, literature and standard written forms. As an Indo-European language it is a distant relative of most languages of Europe and South Asia, English included, and it shares some vocabulary with its neighbours, but it is a distinct language. Northern Kurdish, called Kurmanji (Kurmancî), is the largest: roughly 15 to 20 million speakers in
- Bakur, Northern Kurdistan, in Turkey (Amed / Diyarbakır, Wan, Mêrdîn, Colemêrg …),
- Rojava, Western Kurdistan, in Syria (Qamişlo, Kobanî, Efrîn),
- Behdînan, the Duhok region of Başûr (where the local form is called Badînî),
- the north of Rojhilat, Eastern Kurdistan (in Iran), and Armenia and Georgia,
- and a large diaspora in Europe.
Its closest relative is Central Kurdish (Sorani), which has its own course in this series.
The writing system in one minute
Kurmanji is written in the Hawar alphabet, a Latin alphabet of 31 letters designed in 1932 by Celadet Bedirxan. It is almost perfectly phonetic: each letter is one sound and each sound is one letter. Once you know the letters you can pronounce any word you read.
In Başûr and Rojhilat Kurmanji is also written in the Arabic-based Kurdish alphabet; every word in this course is shown in that script too.
Your first words
| # | Kurdish | Arabic script | IPA | English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Silav! | سلاڤ! | /sɪlaːv/ | Hello! |
| 2 | Tu çawa yî? | تو چاوا یی؟ | /tʊ tʃaːwaː jiː/ | How are you? |
| 3 | Ez baş im, spas. | ئەز باش ئم، سپاس. | /ɛz baːʃ ɪm spaːs/ | I'm fine, thanks. |
| 4 | Navê te çi ye? | ناڤێ تە چ یە؟ | /naːveː tɛ tʃɪ jɛ/ | What is your name? |
| 5 | Navê min Rojda ye. | ناڤێ من ڕۆژدا یە. | /naːveː mɪn roːʒdaː jɛ/ | My name is Rojda. |
| 6 | Bi xêr hatî! | ب خێر هاتی! | /bɪ xeːɾ haːtiː/ | Welcome! |
ː in the IPA marks a long vowel. You will see why ê, î and û are long in lesson 3.
What makes Kurmanji grammar interesting
| idea | example | lesson |
|---|---|---|
| every noun is masculine or feminine | bav m father, jin f woman | 7 |
| nouns have two cases, direct and oblique | jin → jinê | 9 |
| a linking ending (ezafe) joins nouns to adjectives and owners | mala min my house | 8 |
| the verb comes last | Ez nan dixwim · I bread eat | 10 |
| in the past, transitive verbs are ergative: the doer is oblique and the verb agrees with the object | Min tu dîtî I saw you | 14 |
How this course works
- Lessons 1 to 10 (🟢) teach reading, pronunciation and the core grammar of simple sentences.
- Lessons 11 to 17 (🟡) add demonstratives, the subjunctive and future, the past tenses and ergativity.
- Lessons 18 to 23 (🔴) complete the verb system, the passive and the written standard.
- The reference pages give every verb of the course fully conjugated and every noun in every case.
Summary
- Kurmanji = Northern Kurdish, written in the phonetic Latin Hawar alphabet.
- Six first phrases: Silav! Tu çawa yî? Ez baş im, spas. Navê te çi ye? Navê min … ye. Bi xêr hatî!
- Next: the 31 letters.