Kurdish alphabets

Kurdish alphabet
Type	Alphabet
Languages	Kurdish
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols.

The Kurdish language is written either using a variant of the Latin alphabet, according to a system introduced by Jeladet Ali Bedirkhan in 1932 (the so-called Bedirxan alphabet, or Hawar after the Hawar magazine), or using a variant of the Persian alphabet, the so-called Sorani alphabet, named for the city of Soran, Iraq.

The Hawar is used in Turkey, Syria and Armenia; the Sorani in Iraq and Iran. Two further systems are based on the Armenian alphabet and the Cyrillic script, historically used in Soviet Armenia.

A recent suggestion is the so-called Yekgirtú script, which proposes to unify the Hawar and Sorani systems.^{[citation needed]}

Hawar alphabet

The Kurmanji dialect is written in an extended Latin alphabet, with 31 letters:

Aa Bb Cc Çç Dd Ee Êê Ff Gg Hh Ii Îî Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq, Rr Ss Şş Tt Uu Ûû Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

In this alphabet, the short vowels are ⟨e i u⟩ and the long vowels are ⟨a ê î o û⟩. (See the IPA equivalents in the table below.)

When presenting this alphabet in his magazine Hawar, Jeladet Ali Bedirkhan proposed using ⟨ḧ ẍ '⟩ for غ ,ح, and ع, sounds which he judged to be "non-Kurdish" (see [1] page 12,13). These three glyphs do not have the status of letter and serve to represent these sounds when they are indispensable to comprehension.

The Turkish state does not recognise this alphabet. Use of the letters ⟨q w x⟩, which do not exist in the Turkish alphabet, has led to persecution in 2000 and 2003 (see [2], p. 8, and [3]). Since September 2003, many Kurds have applied to the courts seeking to change their names to Kurdish ones written with the letters ⟨q w x⟩ but eventually failed.

Soraní alphabet

The Soraní Kurdish dialect is mainly written using a modified Persian alphabet with 33 letters. Unlike the standard Arabic alphabet, which is an abjad, Soraní is a true alphabet in which vowels are mandatory, making the script easy to read. Yet it is not a complete representation of Kurdish sounds, as it lacks short /i/, and is also unable to differentiate between /w/ and short /u/ or between /y/ and /î/. However it does show the two pharyngeal consonants, as well as a voiced velar fricative used in Kurdish.

ى ,ێ ,ە ,ﮪ ,ﻭﻭ ,ۊ ,ۆ ,و ,ﻥ ,ﻡ ,ڵ ,ﻝ ,ﮒ ,ﮎ ,ﻕ ,ڤ ,ﻑ ,ﻍ ,ﻉ ,ﺵ ,ﺱ ,ﮊ ,ﺯ ,ڕ ,ﺭ ,ﺩ ,ﺥ ,ﺡ ,ﭺ ,ﺝ ,ﺕ ,ﭖ ,ﺏ ,ﺍ

Kurds in Iraq and Iran mainly use this alphabet, though the Kurdish Latin alphabet is also in use.

Cyrillic script

A third system, used for the few (Kurmanji-speaking) Kurds in the former Soviet Union, uses a Cyrillic alphabet, consisting of 32 letters:

А, Б, В, Г, Г', Д, Е, Ә, Ә', Ж, З, И, Й, К, К', Л, М, Н, О, Ö, П, П', Р, Р', С, Т, Т', У, Ф, Х, Һ, Һ', Ч, Ч', Ш, Щ, Ь, Э, Ԛ, Ԝ

Armenian alphabet

From 1921 to 1929 the Armenian alphabet was used for Kurdish languages in the Soviet Armenia.

Then it was replaced with a Janalif-like Latin alphabet during Latinisation campaign.

Uniform Turkic Alphabet adaptation for Kurdish

In 1928 Kurdish language in all USSR, including Armenian SSR, was switched to a Latin alphabet containing some Cyrillic characters: a, b, c, ç, d, e, ә, f, g, г, h, i, ь, j, k, ʀ, l, m, ɴ, o, ө, w, p, n, q, ч, s, ш, ц, t, u, y, v, x, z, ƶ. In 1929 it was reformed and was replaced by :

A a	B b	C c	Є є	Ç ç	D d	E e	Ə ə
Ə́ ə́	F f	G g	Ƣ ƣ	H h	Ħ ħ	I i	J j
K k	Ķ ķ	L l	M m	N n	O o	Ö ö	P p
Ṕ ṕ	Q q	R r	S s	Ş ş	T t	Ţ ţ	U u
Û û	V v	W w	X x	Y y	Z z	Ƶ ƶ	Ь ь

Yekgirtú (IS)

The Yekgirtú (Yekgirtí, yekgirig) alphabet is a recent devised writing system by Kurdish Academy of Language. It has many advantages compared to the Kurmanji and Sorani alphabets. It is adapted for all Kurdish dialects and not exclusive to just one, and is therefore called Yekgirtú, which means "unified." It is also better adapted to the vowel-rich Kurdish language than is the Arabic script.

The Kurdish Academy of Language [KAL] realises that there are too many shortcomings with current Kurdish writing systems. These include workability, cross dialectal usage, and a lack of International IT-based Standards and representation for Kurdish. To avoid the communication obstacles presented by the existence of various Kurdish writing systems, KAL has introduced a standard Kurdish Unified Alphabet (Yekgirtú) based on International ISO-8859-1 Standards. This modern Kurdish (IS) alphabet contained some minor changes in the existing Latin based alphabet and adopting new signs. The new signs were introduced to improve the flexibility of the writing system in Kurdish. This effort was undertaken as part of KAL's broad endeavour to revive and promote the use of the Kurdish language for the benefit of young Kurds. The system devised and presented here by KAL is simple and adequate for the purpose of communicating via the Internet and any electronic media.

The development of the Unified Kurdish Alphabet has proceeded along three lines. First one letter has been designated for each sound (with the exception of digraph characters such as velar [ll], trill [rr], "jh" and "sh"). Second, no diacritical marks have been allowed that are difficult to convey via the Internet without the use of specialised programs. Specifically, all characters in the unified alphabet have been chosen carefully from the ISO-8859-1 "Latin 1" system for West European languages in order to ensure that the Kurdish characters follow one single global standard only. Loanwords need to naturalise and comply with common global Kurdish spelling rules whilst local exceptional pronunciations are also justified. The Kurdish Unified Alphabet contains 34 characters including 4 digraph cases (jh, ll, rr, sh) and 4 characters with diacritics (é, í, ú, ù). It represents 9 vowels (a, e, é, i, í, o, u, ú, ù) and 25 consonants.

A, B, C, Ch, D, E, É, F, G, H, I, Í, J, Jh, K, L, ll, M, N, O, P, Q, R, rr, S, Sh, T, U, Ou, V, W, X, Y, Z

Recently it has been used more than the Arabic script on Kurdish TV.

Comparison of Kurmancî, Yekgirtú and Sorani alphabets

Latin Kurmancî	Yekgirtú	Cyrillic Kurmancî	Sorani				IPA
			(stand-alone)	(initial)	(medial)	(final)
A,a	A,a	A,a	ا‎	ئا‎	—	ـا‎	[aː]
B,b	B,b	Б,б	ب‎	بـ‎	ـبـ‎	ـب‎	[b]
C,c	J,j	Щ,щ	ج‎	جـ‎	ـجـ‎	ـج‎	[d͡ʒ]
Ç,ç	C,c	Ч,ч	چ‎	چـ‎	ـچـ‎	ـچ‎	[t͡ʃ]
D,d	D,d	Д,д	ﺩ‎	—		ـد‎	[d]
E,e	E,e	Ә,ә	ه‎	ئه‎	—	ـه‎	[ɛː]
Ê,ê	É,é	E,e (Э э)	ێ‎	ئێـ‎	ـێـ‎	ـێ‎	[e]
F,f	F,f	Ф,ф	ف‎	فـ‎	ـفـ‎	ـف‎	[f]
G,g	G,g	Г,г	گ‎	گـ‎	ـگـ‎	ـگ‎	[ɡ]
H,h	H,h	h,h	ﻫ‎‎	هـ‎	ـهـ‎	ـهـ‎	[h]
—	H',h'	h’,h’	ح‎	حـ‎	ـحـ‎	ـح‎	[ħ]
—	'	—	ع‎	عـ‎	ـعـ‎	ـع‎	[ʕ]
I,i	I,i	Ь,ь	—				[ɯ]
Î,î	Í,í	И,и	ی‎	ئیـ‎	ـیـ‎	ـی‎	[iː]
J,j	Jh,jh	Ж,ж	ژ‎	—		ـژ‎	[ʒ]
K,k	K,k	K,k	ک‎	کـ‎	ـکـ‎	ـک‎	[k]
L,l	L,l	Л,л	ل‎	لـ‎	ـلـ‎	ـل‎	[l]
—	ll	Л’,л’	ڵ‎	ڵــ‎	ـڵـ‎	ـڵ‎	[lˤ]
M,m	M,m	M,m	م‎	مـ‎	ـمـ‎	ـم‎	[m]
N,n	N,n	Н,н	ﻥ‎	نـ‎	ـنـ‎	ـن‎	[n]
O,o	O,o	O,o	ۆ‎	ئۆ‎	–	ـۆ‎	[o]
P,p	P,p	П,п	پ‎	پــ‎	ـپـ‎	ـپ‎	[p]
Q,q	Q,q	Ԛ,ԛ	ق‎	قـ‎	ـقـ‎	ـق‎	[q]
R,r	R,r	P,p	ر‎	—		ـر‎	[r]
—	rr	Р’,р’	ڕ‎	—		ـڕ‎	[r]
S,s	S,s	C,c	س‎	سـ‎	ـسـ‎	ـس‎	[s]
Ş,ş	Sh,sh	Ш,ш	ش‎	شـ‎	ـشـ‎	ـش‎	[ʃ]
T,t	T,t	T,т	ت‎	تـ‎	ـتـ‎	ـت‎	[t]
U,u	U,u	Ö,ö	و‎	—		ـو‎	[œ]
Û,û	Ou,ou	У,у	وو‎	—		ـوﻭ‎	[uː]
—	Ù,ù	—	ۊ‎	—		ـۊ‎	[ʉː]
V,v	V,v	B,в	ڤ‎	ڤـ‎	ـڤـ‎	ـڤ‎	[v]
W,w	W,w	Ԝ,ԝ	و‎	—		ـو‎	[w]
X,x	X,x	X,x	خ‎	خـ‎	ـخـ‎	ـخ‎	[x]
—	X',x'	Ѓ,ѓ	غ‎	غـ‎	ـغـ‎	ـغ‎	[ʁ]
Y,y	Y,y	Й,й	ی‎	یـ‎	—		[j]
Z,z	Z,z	З,з	ز‎	—		ـز‎	[z]

See also

• Kurdish typography

External links

• KAL – A table of the various Kurdish alphabets
• Kurdish language, alphabet and pronunciation
• Kurdish Unicode Fonts