A Bibliography of Southern Kurdish - I

A Bibliography of southern Kurdish, 1920-36

Kurdistan in Iraq is divided into three parts, corresponding approximately to three earlier principalities: Badinan, between the national frontiers and the Great Zab, comprising the northern districts of Mosul liwa; Soran, between the two Zabs, corresponding to Arbil liwa; and Baban, from the Little Zab to the Sirwan (Diyala), including the liwa of Sulaimani and part of the liwa of Kirkuk. Between the Sirwan and the Iranian boundary the qadha of Khanaqin is part of the old pashaliq of Zohab and is also predominantly Kurdish. East of Baban, in Iran, is the province officially called Kurdistan, the old Ardelan with its capital at Senna; north of it and east of Soran, in the province of Azarbaijan, is the district of Mukriyan with headquarters at Sauj Bulaq.

Badinan speaks a distinct dialect of Kurdish, referred to by people as Kirmanji; it has been almost entirely illiterate and inarticulate; it will not concern us further in this paper.

Soran, Baban, Ardelan and Mukriyan, on the other hand, form a single linguistic group in that the dialects there spoken, though varying in different degrees amongst themselves, yet share certain marked characteristics that distinguish them from other groups; the people refer to their language as Kurdi.

Dialects belonging to a third group, designated by the Kurds themselves macho-macho, and generally called Gorani,* are spoken by certain tribes along the southern fringe of this block: the Kakai near Tauq, the Zangana near Kifri, the Bajilan near Khanaqin, and in Iran the Goran confederation along or north of the great high road to Kirmanshah. The Hewraman tribes inhabiting the main watershed of the Zagros form a macho-macho wedge, running south to north, between Baban and Ardelan.

It is a curious circumstance that, while Mukriyan produced a voluminous literature in Southern Kurdish, the Ardelani men of letters...

* It has generally been maintained by European scholars that Gorani is not Kurdish; this opinion will probably have to be revised in the light of the researches of my learned Kurdish friend, Taufiq Wahbi Beg.