Sorany Kurdish for English Speakers
by Fereydun Rafiq Hilmi
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge with thanks all the help and assistence which I received from my young, friend Harem Jaff in providing me with Dictionaries and other material which were useful for the completion of this book I would, also, like to thank Mr Jonathan Price of Curzon Press who helped me improve the text, its, contents and its accuracy. Finally, my thanks to Dr Parween Arif, Anweri Sultany and last but not least Ms. Sheri Laizer for their valuable help and assistance.
Contents
Introduction / 1
The Kurds and Kurdistan / 1
The Kurdish Language / 4
The Kurdish Alphabet / 6
The Kurdish Vowels / 8
How to gain the most out of this book / 9
The Purpose of the Book / 9
Pronunciation Drill / 11
The Kurdish Vowels / 11
Pronouncing the Aa /11
Pronouncing the Ee /13
Pronouncing the Êê /14
Pronouncing the Ii / 15
Pronouncing the Îî / 16
Pronouncing the Oo / 16
Pronouncing the Uu / 17
Pronouncing the Ûû /18
Pronouncing the semi-vowel Yy / 18
The Kurdish Consonants / 19
Pronouncing the Bb / 19
Pronouncing the Cc / 19
Pronouncing the Dd / 19
Pronouncing the Ff / 19
Pronouncing the Gg / 19
Pronouncing the dg / 19
Pronouncing the Hh / 20
Pronouncing the HHhh / 20
Pronouncing the Jj / 20
Pronouncing the Kk / 20
Pronouncing the Ll / 20
Pronouncing the LLll / 21
Pronouncing the Mm / 21
Pronouncing the Nn / 21
Pronouncing the Pp / 21
Pronouncing the Qq / 21
Pronouncing the Rr 21
Pronouncing the RRrr / 21
Pronouncing the Ss / 21
Pronouncing the Tt / 21
Pronouncing the Vv / 21
Pronouncing the Wv / 21
Pronouncing the Xx / 21
Pronouncing the Zz / 22
Pronouncing the Arabic (Aa), (E) = (Ain) and the Hh (Hhaa) / 23
Word Stress, punctuation, rythm and intonation / 25
Introduction to Kurdish Grammer, Word Order and Syntax / 28
The position of the Verb / 28
Verbs Change Form / 30
Auxiliary and Helping Verbs / 33
Pronouns / 36
The Position of the Article / 36
Prepositions, Before, After and More / 37
Adverbs are Made For Changing / 38
The Position of Adverbs / 38
Adjectives Describe All / 39
The Singular and the Plural / 39
Part I / 41
Teach Yourself Kurdish / 41
John & Linda in Kurdistan / 41
A short Pasage from Peter Pan / 115
The National School, by the Late Satirical Poet: Şêx Selam / 116
Kurdish Proverbs / 120
Examples of Boolean Logical Expressions and Operations / 121
Kurdish Vocabulary / 122
Food Names / 144
Partsof the Human Body / 146
Dual-word (rhyming words) combinations used for emphasis / 147
Indicating a Class of Things or Objects / 148
Some Common Nouns and Pronouns / 148
Daysof the Week / 150
Timesof the Day / 151
Interjections (Expressing Emotion) / 151
Part II / 152
The Reference / 152
1. conventions / 153
Abbreviations /153
Basic rules regarding Negation and spelling conventions / 154
Yesand No, A/Ey/Ai & Na/Nai / 154
Of, made of, state of, -ism, -ness, -hood, -ity, ~ly, ~Y / 159
The Use of the apostrophe or hyphen / 160
Then or What about?, or O' as in O' Romeo, Romeo / 160
Theuse of Lai and La-i / 161
Some Very Kurdish Types of Adverbs / 161
Using (êt), (a) & (ra) to make the passive tenses / 162
Linking Verbs / 163
2. The Parts of a Sentence / 164
2.1 Nouns / 164
2.1.1 The Nominative or Subjective Noun / 164
2.1.2 Direct Address / 165
2.1.3 Appositive nouns / 165
2.1.4 Possessive Nouns / 165
Ownership / 165
Sourceor Origin 165
Manufacture or authorship / 166
Association, connection, attribute or duration / 166
2.1.5 Direct and Indirect Objects / 167
Direct Objects / 167
Indirectobjects / 167
2.1.6 Examples of Kurdish Nouns / 168
2.1.6.1 Singular and Plural / 168
2.1.6.2 Indefinite and Definite Nouns / 171
2.1.6.3 Composite Words / 172
2.1.6.4 Kurdish Names / 172
2.1.6.5 Kurdish Numerals / 173
2.1.7 The Inflection of Kurdish Nouns and Verbs / 174
2.2 Pronouns / 174
2.3.1 Kinds of Pronouns / 174
2.2.2 Personal Pronouns / 175
2.2.3 The Demonstrative (General) Pronouns / 175
2.2.4 The Relative Pronouns / 175
2.2.5 The Possessive Relative Pronouns / 177
The Nominative Case / 177
The Possessive Case / 177
The Objective Case /178
2.2.6 Some Interrogative Pronouns / 178
Kam: Which / 178
Çî: What / 178
2.2.7 The Reflexive Pronouns / 179
2.2.7.1 The Reciprocal Pronouns / 179
2.2.7.2 To Cut & We are Cutters / 179
2.2.7.3 Common and Proper Nouns / 180
2.2.7.4 Collective Nouns / 180
2.3 Prepositions / 180
2.4 Linking words / 184
2.4.1 Normal Links and Connectives / 184
Ke Is the commonest linking connective / 184
Ke-Çî Instead, but / 184
Be û Bê The use of (Be=By) & (Bê=without or less) / 185
Rra Run, Process, Maintain / 185
Da Down or There / 185
Da-n Giving. Hitting, Striking, Crossing / 186
2.4.2 The Logical Connectives and Related Words / 186
2.5 The Verb / 188
2.5.1 Infinitives / 188
2.5.2 The Common Verbs (Kirdin and Bun) / 191
Kird-in to Make (Do) / 191
TheVerbs To Be & To Have / 194
2.5.3 Forming the Participle / 203
2.5.4 Some Special types of Verbs / 204
La-Dan (To Veer off, Stop by, Remove, Put Aside) / 205
2.6 Adverbs and Adjectives / 216
2.6.1 Adverbs / 216
a Manner / 217
b Place / 218
c Time / 218
d Frequency / 219
e Sentence / 219
f Degree / 219
g Interrogative / 220
h Relative / 220
2.6.2 Adjectives and Descriptive nouns / 220
a Demonstrative / 220
b Distributive / 220
c Quantitative / 221
d Numerals /221
e Interrogative / 222
f Possessive / 222
g Qualitative / 223
h Adjectives AND Adverbs not containing verbs / 226
3 The Syntax of the Kurdish Sentence / 229
3.1 The Subject of a Sentence / 229
3.2 The Verb in the Sentence / 231
Tenses, Definite & Indefinite Articles and Verb relatedissues / 231
3.2.1 The Past Tense / 231
3.2.2 The Present Participle and the Gerund / 236
3.2.3 The Special Use of Hatin (To Come) / 238
3.2.4 Examples of Converting Verbs into the arious Tenses / 239
3.2.5 Getting up on one's feet: Le-Ser-Pê Hestan/Westan. / 241
3.2.6 Using the suffix aw [pronoun] ete to indicate the present continuous state / 242
3.2.7 Transitive Verbs / 243
3.2.8 The Present, Present Continuos and Future / 248
3.2.9 The Position of Verbs Containing Kirdin and Bun / 249
3.2.10 Syntactual Difference between Definite & Indefinite Nouns and the Possessive pronoun / 250
3.2.11 Syntax considerations of Verbs with Suffixes and/or Prefixes / 251
3.2.12 The syntax of Verbs Containing Common Verbs andadd on's / 253
3.2.13 The Syntax of Positive and Negative uses of theVerbs To Make and To Be / 256
3.2.14 Verbs Ending with Bun and Kirdin / 269
3.2.14.1 Verbs Ending with Bun / 270
3.3.14.2 Verbs ending with Kirdin / 271
3.2.15 Forming the Tenses of Similar-Sounding Verbs / 271
3.2.16 Verbs ending with Kirdin-ewe / 278
3.2.17 Some Other Useful Verbs and Some Peculiarities / 279
3.4 The Interrogative. Questions, Conditionals, Reasoning & Related words / 281
Kê Who / 282
Kê-î Whom / 282
Hî-kê Whose / 283
Hî-min-e It's Mine / 283
Le-kwê Where / 283
RamWhich / 284
Keî When / 284
KwaWhere [is it] / 285
Kwê Where / 285
Çî, Ç-î What, What - to / 286
Çen[d] How Much/Many / 287
Çon How / 287
Bo[Çî] Why [for what] / 288
Bo-ye That's why / 288
Çunke Because, the reason is / 289
Eger, Ger If / 289
Ege-na Otherwise (Else) (If not) / 289
MegerPerhaps/Maybe only / 289
Bellku Perhaps, Maybe / 289
To Billêî Would you (say) believe / 290
Wa So, in this way. Also Weha / 290
Ta Until, While, To, Upto the time or place / 290
Ke-orate That would mean, Therefore, In that case / 290
Re-wa-bu If it is (were) so, . If that is the case / 290
Re-wa-ye Since it is so, (If so, ) / 291
L'êre, Le-wê Here, There / 291
Bî -kirdaye-û If it should happen/ May it be so / 291
Aye Should it be that/If it were so / 291
Aya Is it possible? Could it be? / 292
Kwê-rra How (surprisingly soon)? / 292
Inca [And] Then (After that) / 292
-iş, - Also, too, while, and / 292
3.5 Imperatives / 292
3.6 Using adjectives in factual statements and Imperatives / 295
3.6.1 Factual Statements and Imperatives using Nouns & Adjectives / 295
3.6.2 The Imperative using adverbs / 296
3.6.3 Wishfulness with adverbs and adjectives / 296
3.7 Objects in Sentences / 297
3.7.1 Direct & Indirect Objects in a Sentence / 299
4 Summary of the Kurdish Syntax / 300
The Generic Kurdish Syntax / 307
Subject Phrases / 307
Object Phrase / 308
Verb Phrase / 308
5 Verb Tables / 314
5.1 The Common Kurdish Verbs / 314
5.2 The Kurdish Verb Types / 318
Index /324
Sorany Kurdish
KURDÎ Soranî
For English - Speakers
by
Dr. Fereydun Rafiq Hilmi
First Edition, April, 2000
A COMPLETE
Teach - Yourself and REFERENCE
MANUAL for Beginners
Sorany KURDISH
© Copyright: F R Hilmi, Newhope, 2000
