The Kurdish Language
Kurdish is a continuum of Northwestern Iranian languages spoken by the Kurds in Western Asia. Kurdish forms three dialect groups known as Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji), Central Kurdish (Sorani), and Southern Kurdish (Palewani). A separate group of non-Kurdish Northwestern Iranian languages, the Zaza–Gorani languages, are also spoken by several million Kurds.
Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) is the largest dialect group, spoken by an estimated 15 to 20 million Kurds in Turkey, Syria, northern Iraq, and northwest and northeast Iran.
Central Kurdish (Sorani) is spoken by an estimated 6 to 7 million Kurds in much of Iraqi Kurdistan and the Iranian Kurdistan Province. Sorani is a written standard of Central Kurdish developed in the 1920s (named after the historical Soran Emirate) and was later adopted as the standard orthography of Kurdish as an official language of Iraq.
Southern Kurdish (Pehlewani) is spoken by about 3 million Kurds in Kermanshah and Ilam provinces of Iran and in the Khanaqin district of eastern Iraq.
The two most widely spoken dialects of Kurdish are Sorani and Kurmanji. The Sorani Kurdish dialect uses Arabic script while the Kurmanji Kurdish dialect is written in Latin script.
