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Sorani
سۆرانی
Spoken in	Iran; Iraq
Region	Middle East
Total speakers	8 million
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Northwestern Iranian Kurdish Sorani; ; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-1	None
ISO 639-2	–
ISO 639-3	ckb
	Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

For the Romanian commune, see Surani, Prahova.

Soranî (Kurdish: سۆرانی‎; also called Central Kurdish) is the name of a Kurdish language that is spoken in Iran and Iraq and such is a member of the Iranian languages. Soranî belongs to one of the main Kurdish languages.

[edit] 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).

[edit] History

[edit] 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.

[edit] Modern

Since the fall of the Bathist regime in Iraq, there has been more opportunity to publish work in the Kurdish language in Iraq than in any other country in recent times.^[1] as a result Sorani Kurdish has become the dominant written form of Kurdish.^[2]

[edit] Alphabet

Sorani Kurdish is written in a modified 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 mostly use Latin script for Sorani.

[edit] 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 between seven and twelve million people in Iraq and Iran.^[3] It is the most widespread speech form of Kurds in Iran and Iraq.

Around 3.5 Million of the Kurds in Iran. Located south of the Urmia Lake that stretches roughly to the outside of Kermanshah.

Around 3.5 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 governates.

[edit] Colloquial subdivisions

Following includes a traditional internal subdivisions of Soranî however nowadays due to media and communications most of them are regarded as an accent of standard Soranî:

Mukrî; it is the language spoken in south of Lake Urmia with Mehabad as its center including cities: Bokan, Sardasht, Piranshahr, Oshnowiya, Naxede. A region traditionally called Mukrian.
Erdelanî, the region corresponding to modern Kurdistan province of Iran
Germíyanî, Kirkuk area
Xoşnaw
Píjhder
Wermawe
Hewlêrî, It is spoken around in the city of Hewlêr (Arbil) in Iraqi Kurdistan. Its main particularity is changing consonant /l/ into /r/ in many words.

[edit] 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 Soranî-speaking Kurds but it has disappointed Kurmanjis.^[4]

[edit] Grammatical features

There are no pronouns to distinguish between masculine and feminine and no verb inflection to signal gender.^[5]

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.

[edit] 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 prepare a Soranî Kurdish Language Corpus, consisting of one-million words.

The standard word-order in Sorani is SOV (subject-object-verb).^[6]

[edit] Sorani and Kurmanji(Northern Kurdish) comparison

Sorani	Kurmanji	English
min	ez	I
dest	dest	hand
to	tu	you
ew	ew	him/her

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

^ Iraqi Kurds
^ http://languages.refugeecouncil.org.uk/top_navigation/Language_profiles.htm
^ Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iraq
^ Kurdish language issue and a divisive approach | Kurdish Academy of Language
^ Kurdish Sorani language developmental features
^ Sorani Kurdish, A Reference Grammar with Selected Readings, by W. M. Thackston

[edit] References

Hassanpour, Dr. A. (1992). Nationalism and Language in Kurdistan 1918 - 1985. USA: Mellen Research University Press.
Nebez, Jemal (1976). Toward a Unified Kurdish Language. NUKSE.
Izady, Prof. M. (1992). The Kurds. A Concise Handbook. USA: Dep. of Near Easter Languages and Civilization Harvard University.

[edit] External links

Central Kurdish at Ethnologue
the New Testament in Soranî
the Kurdish Academy of Language (unofficial)
Working with Sorani Speaking Patients NHS (UK) Guide

[0] Iraqi Kurds

[1] ttp://languages.refugeecouncil.org.uk/top_navigation/Language_profiles.htm

[2] Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iraq

[3] Kurdish language issue and a divisive approach | Kurdish Academy of Language

[4] Kurdish Sorani language developmental features

[5] Sorani Kurdish, A Reference Grammar with Selected Readings, by W. M. Thackston

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