r/Kurdiman

Eastern Kurdish (Hawrami) and Western Kurdish (Kirdki) are so incredibly archaic among New Western Iranic languages that they actually are more archaic than Middle Persian and Parthian WHEN it comes to the grammatical cases, genders and numbers.

Of course as languages of the Middle Iranic stage, both, MP and Parthian had so many lexemes, sound structures and grammatical features that are generally lost in New Iranic. Including EK and WK.

But the archaic subdialects of EK and WK have even to this day these certain features that MP and Parthian didn't have from the earliest time of their attestation on from a point after 2'000 years ago.

Since I am more familiar with EK than with WK I will focus on EK.

EK has three cases (subject, object, vocative), two numbers (singular, plural) and two genders (masculine, feminine). MP and Parthian had two cases, which only showed in a limited way, and no grammatical gender. For example, NK also has two genders and three cases but it does not mark the gender or number of the subject case while EWK does and NK's masculine vocative marker (-o) is an innovation. In EK everything is marked even the adjectives!!! Which is an O.G. Indo-European feature that still existed in Old Iranic (Awistan and Old Persian with seven cases (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, locative, ablative/instrumental, vocative), three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and three numbers (singular, dual, plural)). Latin e.g. worked like that too and Russian e.g. still does. SCNK like New Persian does not do any of this.

English

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(A) girl sees (a) boy

(A) boy sees (a) girl

Girls see boys

Boys see girls

Kināca kurrī wīno

Kurr kināce wīno

Kināce kurrān wīnān

Kurre kinācān wīnān

Düat kurr(a) dünet

Kurr düat(a) dünet

Düat kurr dünin

Kurr düat dünin

Kanīshk kurr dabīnet

Kurr kanīshk dabīnet

Kanīshkān kurrān dabīnin

Kurrān kanīshkān dabīnin

Kac kurī dibīna

Kur kace dibīna

Kac kurān dibīnin

Kur kacān dibīnin

Kanīzag pisar wīnad

Pis kanīzag wīnad

Kanīzag pisarān wīnand

Pisar kanīzagān wīnand

She is healthy

He is healthy

They (only female) are healthy

They (only male) are healthy

Āda washa (a)na

Ād wash an

Āde washe (a)ne

Aw xwash a

Awān xwash in

Aw xosh a

Awān xosh in

Aw xwash a

Aw xwash in

Oy xwash ast

Oy xwash and

-----

He sees her

She sees him

They see them

They see her

Ād āde wīno

Āda ādī wīno

Āda ādīshān wīno

Āde āde wīnān

Aw aw dünet

Aw awān dünet

Awān aw dünin

Aw aw(ī) dabīnet

Aw aw(e) dabīnet

Aw awān dabīnet

Awān aw(e) dabīnin

Aw we dibīna

Aw wī dibīna

Aw wān dibīna

Aw wān dibīnin

Oy oy wīnad

Oy aweshān wīnand

Oy oy wīnand

----

Note: <oy> in Middle Persian is transcribed as such but might as well be <awe>

What Kurdish dialects do I speak?

I speak Southern Kurdish of the Guran tribe as my mother tongue and I understand other SK subdialects too like Kallhurri (which is basically the same as Gurani SK) and I am able to understand Malikshahi (Ilami) too and also somewhat Laki.

I also speak a rather standardised form of Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) and the Central Kurdish ("Sorani") standard subdialect from Silemani (Babani). I am able to communicate in these two dialects but not communicate perfectly and it gets more difficult the further the subdialect is from the standardised form.

I also speak a little bit of Eastern Kurdish (Hawrami) and that is Zardayi EK (from the Guran area) and a mixed version of Hawramani subdialects (since I haven't memorised which exact form or words belong to which EK subdialect of Hawraman).

Recently I also tapped into Western Kurdish (Kirdki, unfortunately known as "Zazaki") but I am nowhere yet.

I will also study some other Iranic tongues like Balochi and Farvi or Khuri or Garmsiri at least as far as there are resources available to me. I need to do this anyway because with them I will understand the origin and development of Kurdish and Iranic better but by studying them I will also be able to speak them as far as I go.

But this is besides the point. I am happy with myself speaking several Kurdish dialects but I am nowhere near done. I have to master the speech of NK and CK perfectly and then acquire the skills of EK just the same and then learn WK as well. And when I am able to fluently converse, speak, listen and understand and read and write I will consider myself in the position to say I am able to speak Kurdish with all Kurds. Even if there are still further subdialects of each dialect that I would need to learn for that to be truly true.

And the point is: We as Kurds have to learn the other Kurdish group's languages if we say we are proud Kurds and we adhere at a free Kurdish people and a free Kurdistan. We don't have the luxury not to. We are in this situation and in this situation we have to put more effort into our Kurdish identity and our skills as Kurds as our duty.

Eastern and Western Kurdish's archaism!

Kurds have several dialects with a lot of history - what does it mean for us?