Everything You Need To Learn Kurdish
Kurdish, also called “Kurdî / خوردی” is an Indo-European language spoken by roughly 35 million people, mostly in Kurdistan. Kurdish is also a recognized minority language in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq and Turkey.
Kurdish is in the family of Iranian languages. It contains some mutually intelligible dialects like Kurmanji (most common in Turkey), Sorani (most common in Iraq), Zazaki (most common in Iran) and Kermanshahi (most common in Iran).
Kurdish is written using three different alphabets, depending on which dialect is used and where it’s spoken: Latin, Perso-Arabic and Cyrillic.
There’s a depressing lack of Kurdish learning resources available to English-speaking learners. Thus, our list is a small one, but we hope you’ll get something out of it.
Kurdish Language Learning Books
As there are few options for learning material, you might have to start with a Kurdish dictionary and phrasebook. This will introduce you to essential vocabulary and help you familiarize yourself with the basics of the language.
If you’re interested in learning the ins and outs of how the language works from a grammatical standpoint, a Kurdish grammar textbook should do the trick.
Kurdish Children’s Books
Once you’ve gotten familiar with the basics, reading Kurdish-language kids’ books can help you expand your vocabulary and practice your reading skills.
Kurdish-language books written for children use simple language, are accompanied by illustrations and thus can be great for beginners at the start of their journey.
The Kurdish kids’ books on this list are bilingual English-Kurdish stories, meaning you can use the English text as a useful guide when reading the Kurdish parallel story.
Kurdish Fiction
Give your vocabulary and working knowledge of Kurdish a boost with some Kurdish-language books written for older readers. You’ll find the stories more advanced, more challenging, and usually more memorable.
