A Kurdish Grammar
Ernest N. McCarus
ACLS
This study is a description of the Kurdish of the city of Sulaimaniya, Iraq. Kurdish is a member of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo - European family of languages. Kurdish dialects cover an area embrac¬ing parts of eastern Turkey, Soviet Armenia, northern Syria, northern Iraq, and western Iran, as well as Khorasan in Iran. (See Figure 1.) It is difficult to obtain reliable figures on the total Kurdish population in the Near East, estimates ranging from 1.5 to 9 million.
Fh.rth.er study remains to be done on the classification of Kurdish dialects. The most systematic study is Karl Hadank’s Untersuchungen ...
Table of Contents
Chapter
1 Introduction / 1
- 0 The Kurdish language
- 1 The data
- 2 Previous works on Kurdish
- 3 Correlation of orthographic systems.
- 4 Style of Kurdish described
2 Phonology / 13
- 0 Introductory
- 1 Linear phonemes
- 11 Vowels
- 12 Consonants
- 121 The consonant phonemes
- 122 Consonants of limited distribution
- 13 The syllable
- 131 Syllable structure
- 14 Distribution of phonemes
- 141 Vowels
- 142 Consonants
- 143 Summary
- 2 Non-linear phonemes
- 21 Lexical stress
- 22 Sentence stress
- 23 Intonation
- 231 Pitch phonemes
- 232 Pitch morphemes
- 233 Summary
- 3 Morphophonemics
- 31 Vowels
- 311 Vocalic processes
- 312 The vowel /i/
- 313 Elision
- 314 Summary
- 32 Consonants
- 321 Assimilation
- 322 Excrescence
- 323 Loss of consonant
3 Morphology: form classes and their inflection / 45
- 0 Introductory
- 1 The noun
- 11 Noun inflection
- 111 Definition
- 112 Number
- 12 Noun subclasses
- 121 Locative
- 122 Vocative
- 13 Noun with pronominal suffixes
- 14 Noun diagram
- 2 The adjective
- 21 Adjective inflection
- 211 Definition
- 212 Number
- 213 Comparison
- 22 Adjective plus pronominal suffix
- 23 Adjective diagram
- 3 The pronoun
- 31 Pronoun inflection
- 311 Person
- 312 Number
- 32 Pronoun subclasses
- 321 Vocative
- 33 Pronouns with pronominal suffixes
- 34 Pronoun diagram
- 4 The verb
- 41 Verb inflection
- 411 Person and number
- 412 Aspect
- 413 Transitivity
- 414 Tense
- 415 Mood
- 416 Voice
- 42 Non-inflectional processes
- 421 Pronominal goal
- 422 Negation
- 43 Summary of verbal features
- 5 Particles
- 51 Interjections
- 52 Conjunctions
- 53 Interrogatives
- 54 Numerals
- 541 Compound numerals
- 542 Numerals plus pronominal suffixes
- 55 Prepositions
- 551 Simple prepositions
- 552 Compound prepositions
- 56 Adverbs
- 57 Demonstratives
- 58 Relatives
4 Word formation / 82
- 0 Introductory
- 1 Reduplication
- 2 Compounding
- 21 Descriptive compounds
- 211 Noun compounds
- 212 Adjective compounds
- 22 Emphatic compounds
- 23 Coordinate compounds
- 3 Suffixation
- 31 Nominal suffixes
- 32 Adjective suffixes
- 33 Verbal suffixes
- 34 Particle suffixes
5 Syntax / 92
- 0 The utterance
- 1 Phrases
- 11 Nominal phrases
- 111 Minimal nominal phrases
- 112 Expanded nominal phrases
- 12 Verbal phrases
- 121 Minimal types of verbal phrases
- 122 Expanded types of verbal phrases
- 123 Verbal phrases with nouns and adjectives
- 124 Verbal phrase diagram
- 2 The clause
- 21 Subject
- 22 Object
- 23 Clause word order
- 231 Basic clausal types
- 232 Limited clausal types
- 24 Order of modifiers
- 25 Introductory expressions
- 3 Combinations of clauses
- 31 Clause connectors
- 311 Independent connectors
- 312 Subordinate connectors
- 313 Connectors and the mood of the verb
- 32 The clause as a syntactic unit
- 321 Sequences of clauses
- 322 The clause as a modifier of nominal phrases
- 4 Displaced suffixes
- 41 Displaced subject suffixes
- 42 Displaced prepositional suffixes
Appendix / 107
Bibliography / 119
Glossary / 127
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to express his deep gratitude to those Kurds who acted as his informants and whose cooperation was indispensable to the preparation of this study. Their contribution is fully acknowledged in the Introduction, paragraph 1.1., where th^y are mentioned by name.
The author also wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to the following persons for their interest in this work and for their many helpful suggestions: Carleton T. Hodge, of the Foreign Service Institute, Department of State, Wash-ington; John Kepke, of the Program in Oriental Languages, American Council of Learned Societies; and Professors George G. Cameron, Lawrence B. Kiddle, Albert H. Marckwardt, Herbert H. Paper, and Herbert Penzl, of the University of Michigan. Professor Cameron stimulated the author’s initial interest in the area of Kurdish studies, and Professor Penzl has offered valuable help and continued support.
The present publication is under the auspices of the Program in Oriental Languages of the American Council of Learned Societies and was prepared under the editorial direction of Earle Brockman.
Chapter I
Introduction
1.0 The Kurdish Language
This study is a description of the Kurdish of the city of Sulaimaniya, Iraq. Kurdish is a member of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo - European family of languages. Kurdish dialects cover an area embrac¬ing parts of eastern Turkey, Soviet Armenia, northern Syria, northern Iraq, and western Iran, as well as Khorasan in Iran. (See Figure 1.) It is difficult to obtain reliable figures on the total Kurdish population in the Near East, estimates ranging from 1.5 to 9 million.
Fh.rth.er study remains to be done on the classification of Kurdish dialects. The most systematic study is Karl Hadank’s Untersuchungen zum Westkurdischen: Boti und Ezadl^, in which a limited number of phonological, morphological, and lexical isoglosses are used to set up two major areas, West Kurdish and East Kurdish, with the boundary co¬inciding roughly with a line drawn from Lake Urmia to the junction of the Greater Zab with the Tigris. According to this classification, the Sulaimaniya and Mukri dialects are East Kurdish, and the Zaza, Hakari, and Bahdinan dialects are West Kurdish. The Kurdish of Sulaimaniya is mu¬tually intelligible with Mukri Kurdish, as well as with dialects as far north as Ruwandiz in Iraq and Sujbulak in Iran and as far south as Sinna and Kermanshah in Iran.
Of all the Kurdish dialects in Iraq, that of Sulaimaniya seems to enjoy the greatest cultural prestige, as is acknowledged by speakers of other dialects. It is the Sulaimaniya dialect that the central government in Baghdad has chosen to be used in Kurdish textbooks for elementary schools throughout Iraqi Kurdistan, and for all Kurdish language broad¬casts from Radio Baghdad. It is in this dialect too that the United States Information Service in Baghdad published (as of 1951) its weekly Kurdish language news bulletin.
1.1 The Data
The corpus of data for this description was gathered on the occasion of a University of Michigan expedition to Iraq and Iran in the spring and summer of 1951. In Baghdad I obtained, through the offices of Professor George Cameron, the director of the expedition, the services of Mr. Abdul Qadir Qazaz. then an official in the Department of Post and Telegraph.
He was a native of Sulaimaniya and had completed secondary school there. His English and his Arabic, as well as his Kurdish, were excel¬lent, and he proved ideal as an interpreter and informant. He had trans¬lated works into Kurdish from English and Arabic, and was considered by other literate Kurds as having an excellent command of the language. He was then approximately forty years of age. The expedition eventually established its field headquarters in the village of Ruwandiz, where I worked with Mr. Qazaz and some members of the local population.
After about a month, Mr. Qazaz was obliged, because of personal reasons to return to Baghdad, just as I had arranged to go to Sulaimaniya itself to continue field work there. I worked two months more in Sulaimaniya, where I was the sole foreigner in town. This town, the capital of the Liwa of Sulaimaniya, has a predominantly sedentary Kurdish population, with a few Assyrian and Armenian families, totaling about twenty thou¬sand people. 4
In Sulaimaniya I received the wholehearted cooperation of the Director of Education and the excellent assistance of Mr. Fuad Rasheed and Mr. Maieed Saeed of the local school system. Both were natives of Sulai¬maniya, and their command of English and Arabic, as well as of Kurdish, was impeccable. Mr. Rashee.d was a senior teacher, a lecturer in arith¬metic and English, and a director in the primary school system. He had translated works into Kurdish from other languages and at that time was compiling a Kurdish-English dictionary Then about forty years of age, he had resided all his life in Sulaimaniya. Mr. Saeed was a teacher of English in the primary schools. He had been graduated from normal school in Baghdad; he was approximately thirty years of age and had lived all his life in his native town.
In addition to these excellent informants I was able to record the
speech of many other townspeople as well—tradesmen, students, etc.
In Ann Arbor I was able to fill in the data with the help of students who had come there from Sulaimaniya. Of these, Mr. Hassan R. Mahmoud, a native of Sulaimaniya and a graduate of the Engineering College in Baghdad, was particularly helpful. He was then approximately thirty years of age, and was studying advanced engineering at the University of Michigan. His English was good and his Arabic excellent, and he proved very cooperative and of valuable assistance. Finally, Mr. Mahdi M, Abdulla, also a native of Sulaimaniya but in recent years a resident of Baghdad, was most helpful to me in completing the analysis. A graduate of Commercial and Economic College in Baghdad and an accountant in the Ministry of Health, Mr. Abdulla, then about thirty- five years old, had come to Ann Arbor under the auspices of the Point Four Program to study vital statistics. He had made regular weekly radio broadcasts in Kurdish for Radio Baghdad.
1 Encyclopaedia Britannica (Chicago, 1942) 13.520.
2 Lucien Ram bout. Les Kurdes et le droit (Paris, 1947) 18.
3 Karl Hadank. Untersuchungen zum Westkurdischen: Bôtî und Êzâdî,
Arbeiten aus dem Institut für Lautforschung an der Universitttt Berlin 6.1-6 (1938).
4 Chambers's Encyclopaedia (New York, 1950) 13.271.
Ernest N. McCarus
A Kurdish Grammar
ACLS
American Council of Learned Societies
A Kurdish Grammar
Ernest N. McCarus
American Council of Learned Societies
Program in Oriental Languages
Publications Series B—Aids—Number 10
A Kurdish Grammar
Descriptive Analysis of the Kurdish of
Sulaimaniya, Iraq
By Ernest N. McCarus
American Council of Learned Societies
New York
1958
The publication of this work was made possible by a subvention
from The Ford Foundation
Library of Congress catalog card number 58-13564
Copyright, 1958, by
American Council of Learned Societies
Lithographed in The United States of America
By the Washington Planograph Company
