This chapter tackles several interrelated issues around the Kurdish language. It provides a general internal classification of Kurdish varieties, proposing also a theoretically informed distinction between language history and collective identity perceptions of speakers to resolve the classification disputes around Zazaki and Gorani varieties. ‘Kurdish’ in this sense is considered more a sociolinguistic unit than a purely linguistic entity. The chapter then provides summary discussion of the position of Iranian philology on the history of Kurdish, whereby it is shown that Kurdish is not in a direct descendant relationship with any of the known languages of the Old and Middle Iranian periods. The chapter traces the history of written and literary Kurmanji Kurdish. The rise of literary or written code in Kurmanji is shown to have taken place in late sixteenth century within the wider sociopolitical context of, on one hand, the emergence of powerful Kurdish principalities and widespread madrasa education, and, on the other hand, a general trend in the vernacularization of local community languages in Kurdistan. Finally, the development of modern Kurmanji as a polycentric variety is discussed and the current approximation of written norms are projected to merge in a more comprehensive plurinormative Kurmanji standard.
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Gorani (Gawraju)
Introduction to Special Issue
The Kurdish language is an integral component of any conceptualisation of “Kurdishness”, but just what constitutes Kurdish remains highly disputed. In this introduction, we take up a number of key questions relating to Kurdish (e.g. whether it is one or more than one language, which varieties should be considered under Kurdish, what are its origins, etc.), discussing them in the light of contemporary linguistics. A critical assessment of the notions of “language” and “dialect” is followed by a review of different approaches to classifying Kurdish, and exemplified through the case-study of Zazaki. We suggest that a good deal of the confusion arises through a failure to distinguish different kinds of linguistic evidence (in a narrow sense), from the results of socially contracted and negotiated perceptions of identity, rooted in shared belief systems and perceptions of a common history. We then present an overview of recent trends in Kurdish linguistics and attempt to identify some of the most pressing research desiderata.