Editing Kurdish language (section)

==Classification and origin==
The Kurdish varieties belong to the [[Iranian languages|Iranian branch]] of the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European family]]. They are generally classified as Northwestern Iranian languages, or by some scholars as intermediate between Northwestern and Southwestern Iranian.<ref name="Windfuhr2009">{{Cite book |title=The Iranian Languages |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2009 |editor-last=Windfuhr |editor-first=Gernot |edition=1st |location=London |language=en-GB |oclc=822565468 |ol=24561295M}}</ref>{{rp|p=587}} [[Martin van Bruinessen]] notes that "Kurdish has a strong South-Western Iranian element", whereas "Zaza and Gurani [...] do belong to the north-west Iranian group".<ref>Bruinessen, M.M. van. (1994). [http://www.let.uu.nl/~martin.vanbruinessen/personal/publications/Competing_Ethnic_Loyalties.htm Kurdish nationalism and competing ethnic loyalties] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111112203117/http://www.let.uu.nl/~martin.vanbruinessen/personal/publications/Competing_Ethnic_Loyalties.htm |date=12 November 2011 }}</ref>

Ludwig Paul concludes that Kurdish seems to be a Northwestern Iranian language in origin,<ref name="Iranica">{{Cite encyclopedia|title=Kurdish language I. History of the Kurdish language|author-last=Paul|author-first=Ludwig|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Iranica]]|editor-last=Yarshater|editor-first=Ehsan|editor-link=Ehsan Yarshater|year=2008|publisher=Routledge|location=London and New York|url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kurdish-language-i|access-date=28 August 2013|url-status=live|archive-url=http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/20111204130713/http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kurdish-language-i|archive-date=4 December 2011}}</ref> but acknowledges that it shares many traits with Southwestern Iranian languages like [[Persian language|Persian]], apparently due to longstanding and intense historical contacts.

Windfuhr identified Kurdish dialects as [[Parthian language|Parthian]], albeit with a [[Median language|Median]] substratum. Windfuhr and [[Richard N. Frye|Frye]] assume an eastern origin for Kurdish and consider it as related to eastern and central Iranian dialects.<ref>Windfuhr, Gernot (1975), "Isoglosses: A Sketch on Persians and Parthians, Kurds and Medes", Monumentum H.S. Nyberg II (Acta Iranica-5), Leiden: 457-471</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft: Alter Orient-Griechische Geschichte-Römische Geschichte. Band III,7: The History of Ancient Iran|last=Frye|first=Richard N.|publisher=C.H.Beck|year=1984|isbn=9783406093975|pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyofancient0000frye/page/29 29]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofancient0000frye/page/29}}</ref>

The present state of knowledge about Kurdish allows, at least roughly, drawing the approximate borders of the areas where the main ethnic core of the speakers of the contemporary Kurdish dialects was formed. The most argued hypothesis on the localisation of the ethnic territory of the Kurds remains [[David Neil MacKenzie|D.N. Mackenzie]]'s theory, proposed in the early 1960s (Mackenzie 1961). Developing the ideas of P. Tedesco (1921: 255) and regarding the common phonetic isoglosses shared by Kurdish, Persian, and [[Baluchi language|Baluchi]], Mackenzie concluded that the speakers of these three languages may once have been in closer contact.