Sorani

For the Romanian commune, see Surani, Prahova.

Soranî
سۆرانی / Soranî
Native to	Iran Iraq
Region	Middle East
Native speakers	5 million
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Northwestern Iranian Kurdish Soranî
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ckb

Soranî (Kurdish: سۆرانی / Soranî‎; also called Central Kurdish) is the name of a Kurdish language that is spoken in Iran and Iraq. Soranî is one of the main Kurdish languages, which are a branch of the Iranian languages.

Name

To refer to southern Kurmanji dialects as Soranî is a recent naming by linguists after the name of the former principality of Soran. Mackenzie writes that the present Kurdish standard called Soranî is in fact an idealized version of the Silêmanî dialect, which uses the phonemic system of the Píjhdar and Mukrî dialects. Objections have been made to the name Soranî on the grounds that the name of one dialect, Soranî, spoken in the region Soran should not be extended to cover a group of dialect (E. M. Rasul, Núserí Kurd, No. 4, Nov. 1971).

History

Ottoman Times

In Silemani (Sulaymaniyah), the Ottoman Empire had created a secondary school (Rushdíye), the graduates from which could go to Istanbul to continue to study there. This allowed Soranî, which was spoken in Silémaní, to progressively replace Hewrami (Gorani) as the literary vehicle

Modern

Since the fall of the Ba'athist regime in Iraq, there have been more opportunities to publish works in the Kurdish language in Iraq than in any other country in recent times. as a result Sorani Kurdish has become the dominant written form of Kurdish.

Alphabet

Sorani Kurdish is written with a modified Perso-Arabic script; This is in contrast to the other Kurdish dialect, Kurmanji which is spoken mainly in Turkey and is usually written in the Latin alphabet.

However, since the recent decade, official TV in Iraqi Kurdistan uses mostly the Latin script for Sorani.

Demographics

Areas where Sorani is spoken.

The exact number of Sorani speakers is difficult to determine, but it is generally thought that Sorani is spoken by about 6 million people in Iraq and Iran. It is the most widespread speech of Kurds in Iran and Iraq. In particular, it is spoken by:

Around 3 Million of the Kurds in Iran. Located south of the Urmia Lake that stretches roughly to the outside of Kermanshah.

Around 3 million of the Kurds in Iraq, including the Soran clan. Most of the Kurds who use it are found in the vicinity of Hewlêr (Arbil) , Sulaymaniyah (Silêmanî) , Kerkuk and Diyala governorate.

Colloquial subdivisions

Following includes the traditional internal variants of Soranî.However, nowadays, due to widespread media and communications, most of them are regarded as dialects of standard Soranî:

• Mukriyani; The language spoken south of Lake Urmia with Mahabad as its center, including the cities of Piranshahr, Bokan, Sardasht, Oshnavieh, Lajan and the kurdish speaking parts of Naghadeh and Miandoab. This region is traditionally known as Mukriyan.
• Ardalani, spoken in the cities of Sanandaj, Marivan, Kamyaran, Divandarreh, Ghorveh and Dehgolan in Kordestan province and the kurdish speaking parts of Tekab and Shahindej in West Azarbaijan province.This region is known as Ardalan.
• Garmiani, in and around Kirkuk
• Arbili, spoken in and around the city of Hawler (Arbil) in Iraqi Kurdistan. Its main distinction is changing the consonant /l/ into /r/ in many words.
• Babani, spoken in and around the city of Sulaymaniya in Iraq and the cities of Saghez and Baneh in Iran.
• Jafi, spoken in the towns of Javanroud, Ravansar and some villages around Sarpole Zahab and Paveh.

As an official language

A recent proposal was made for Soranî to be the official language of the Kurdistan Regional Government. This idea has been favoured by some Soranî-speaking Kurds but it has disappointed Kurmanjis.

Grammatical features

There are no pronouns to distinguish between masculine and feminine and no verb inflection to signal gender.

After publishing The Persian Today Corpus (The Most Frequent Words of Today's Persian), as a main program, the writer, Iranian Kurdish-language scholar, Hamid Hassani, is supposed to prepare a Soranî Kurdish Language Corpus, consisting of one-million words.

Dictionaries and translations

There are a substantial number of Soranî dictionaries available, amongst which there are many that seek to be bi-lingual.

English and Sorani

• English-Kurdish Dictionary by Dr. Selma Abdullah and Dr. Khurhseed Alam
• Raman English-Kurdish Dictionary by Destey Ferheng

As a main program, Iranian Kurdish-speaker scholar, Hamid Hassani, is supposed to compile a Soranî Kurdish Language Corpus, consisting of one-million words.

The standard word-order in Sorani is SOV (subject-object-verb).

Sorani and Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish) comparison

Sorani	Kurmanji	English
min (for all verbs)	min (for transitive verbs)/ ez (for intransitive verbs)	I
dest	dest	hand
to	tu	you
ew	ew	him/her

See also

• Kurdish language
• Kurdish alphabet
• Sorani grammar
• Northern Kurdish
• Southern Kurdish
• Soran Emirate

References

• Hassanpour, Dr. A. (1992). Nationalism and Language in Kurdistan 1918 - 1985. USA: Mellen Research University Press. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Nebez, Jemal (1976). Toward a Unified Kurdish Language. NUKSE. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Izady, Mehrdad (1992). The Kurds: A Concise Handbook. Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Francis. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

External links

• Ethnologue: Languages of the World (unknown ed.). SIL International.
• the New Testament in Soranî
• the Kurdish Academy of Language (unofficial)
• Working with Sorani Speaking Patients NHS (UK) Guide