Editing Medes (section)

== Kurds and Medes ==
{{Main|Origin of the Kurds}}

Russian historian and linguist [[Vladimir Minorsky]] suggested that the Medes, who widely inhabited the land where currently the [[Kurds]] form a majority, might have been forefathers of the modern Kurds. He also states that the Medes who invaded the region in the eighth century BC linguistically resembled the Kurds. This view was accepted by many Kurdish nationalists in the twentieth century. However, [[Martin van Bruinessen]], a Dutch scholar, argues against the attempt to identify the Medes as ancestors of the Kurds:<ref name="Ozoglu25">Hakan Özoğlu, ''Kurdish notables and the Ottoman state: Evolving Identities, Competing Loyalties, and Shifting Boundaries'', SUNY Press, 2004, [https://books.google.com/books?id=CttLWEaTrJUC&dq=%22many+Kurdish+nationalists+in+the+twentieth+century%22&pg=PA25 p. 25.]</ref>

<blockquote>Though some Kurdish intellectuals claim that their people are descended from the Medes, there is no evidence to permit such a connection across the considerable gap in time between the political dominance of the Medes and the first attestation of the Kurds 
:—van Bruinessen</blockquote>

Contemporary linguistic evidence has challenged the previously suggested view that the Kurds are descendants of the Medes.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cxr_vqpwVUkC&q=%22kurds+are+descendants%22&pg=PA61|title=Turkey Foreign Policy and Government Guide|date=April 2003|publisher=International Business Publications, USA|isbn=9780739762820}}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EzzYk_gzpJ0C&q=%22kurds+are+descendants%22&pg=PA59|title=Turkey|isbn=9781419191268|last=Federal Research Division|year=2004|publisher=Kessinger }}</ref> [[Gernot Ludwig Windfuhr]], professor of Iranian Studies, identified the [[Kurdish languages]] as [[Parthian language|Parthian]], albeit with a [[Median language|Median]] substratum.<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> [[David Neil MacKenzie]], an authority on the Kurdish language, said Kurdish was closer to Persian and questioned the "traditional" view holding that Kurdish, because of its differences from Persian, should be regarded as a [[Northwestern Iranian language]].<ref name=Paul>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Paul |first=Ludwig | title= KURDISH LANGUAGE i. HISTORY OF THE KURDISH LANGUAGE | encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Iranica | access-date=2016-10-31|url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kurdish-language-i}}</ref> The [[Kurdology|Kurdologist]] and [[Iranian studies|Iranologist]] [[Garnik Asatrian]] stated that "The Central Iranian dialects, and primarily those of the Kashan area in the first place, as well as the Azari dialects (otherwise called [[Tati language (Iran)|Southern Tati]]) are probably the only Iranian dialects, which can pretend to be the direct offshoots of Median... In general, the relationship between Kurdish and Median is not closer than the affinities between the latter and other North Western dialects – Baluchi, Talishi, South Caspian, Zaza, Gurani, Kurdish (Soranî, Kurmancî, Kelhorî).<ref>Schmitt, Rüdiger (1989). Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum. Wiesbaden: Reichert.</ref><ref>G. Asatrian, ''Prolegomena to the Study of the Kurds'', Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 13, pp. 1–58, 2009. (p. 21 [https://archive.org/stream/ProlegomenaToTheStudyOfTheKurds/Asatrian_kurds_djvu.txt])</ref> Asatrian also stated that "there is no serious ground to suggest a special genetic affinity within North-Western Iranian between this ancient language [Median] and Kurdish. The latter does not share even the generally ephemeric peculiarity of Median."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Asatrian|first=Garnik|date=2009|title=Prolegomena to the Study of the Kurds|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25597392|journal=Iran & the Caucasus|volume=13|issue=1|pages=1–57|doi=10.1163/160984909X12476379007846|jstor=25597392|issn=1609-8498}}</ref>

According to [[Alireza Shapour Shahbazi|Shahbazi]], the Medes were ancestors of many Iranians, particularly the Kurds.<ref>{{Cite book|author-last=Shahbazi|author-first=A. Shapur|author-link=Alireza Shapour Shahbazi|editor-last=Daryaee|editor-first=Touraj|editor-link=Touraj Daryaee|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KjQ_AwAAQBAJ&q=Kurds&pg=PT157|title=The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History|chapter=The Achaemenid Persian Empire (550–330 BCE): Political History|date=2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-020882-0|page=122}}</ref> To [[Wadie Jwaideh|Jwaideh]], "The empire of the Medes, one of the reputed ancestors of the Kurdish people, was the only great national state that may be said to have been established by the Kurds."<ref>[[Wadie Jwaideh|Jwaideh, W. Elias]] (2006). ''The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development''. [[Syracuse University Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0-8156-3093-7}}. p. xv.</ref>

According to ''The Cambridge History of the Kurds:''

{{blockquote|Although some Kurdish authors have claimed descendants for Kurdish from [[Avestan]] and Median, a direct link of Kurdish with Avestan was ruled out in Iranian [[philology]] even back in its initial stages (cf. Rödiger and Pott, 1842, cited in Lecoq, 1997: 31), while Avestan, although its classification is also unresolved, is traditionally considered to be closer to [[Eastern Iranian languages]] (cf. Korn, 2016: 403). Furthermore, the purported relationship of Kurdish to the Median language, although defended by Minorsky based mostly on [[Conjecture|conjectural]] historical evidence (Minorsky, 1940: 143–6), is not supported by linguistic evidence, since information about the Median language is extremely limited and indirect, being mostly restricted to the loanwords found in the [[Old Persian]] inscriptions (Lecoq, 1987: 674).4 As Lecoq (1997: 31) states in relation to the Kurdish–Median connection, everything is possible but nothing is demonstrable. But even the limited data at hand provide evidence against Kurdish–Median genetic affinity (Asatrian, 2009: 21; MacKenzie, 1999: 675–6; Rossi, 2010: 308). Refuting thus the Median origin of Kurdish, MacKenzie (1961) outlined a picture of the evolution of North-western Iranian languages where Kurdish and [[Persian language|Persian]] evolved in parallel and therefore Kurdish "represented an early splitting from the linguistic subgroup of Median" (cf. Rossi, 2010: 307–8). Likewise, in his survey of major isoglosses in the historical [[phonology]] of [[West Iranian languages]], Windfuhr (1975: 458) concluded on the basis of these facts (and with regard to the subsequent migration of the Kurds into the Median territory – explained below) that Kurdish can probably not be considered a 'Median' dialect neither linguistically nor geographically, stating further that the modern Iranian languages of [[Azerbaijan (Iran)|Azerbaijan]] (originally '[[Atropatene|Aturpatakan]]') and [[Central Iran]] (e.g. Sivandi) are Median dialects (Windfuhr, 2009: 15).<ref>{{cite book |editor-first1=Hamit |editor-last1=Bozarslan |editor-first2=Cengiz |editor-last2=Gunes |editor-first3=Veli |editor-last3=Yadirgi |chapter=The History of Kurdish and the Development of Literary Kurmanji |first=Ergin |last=Öpengin |title=The Cambridge History of the Kurds |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2021 |pages=608–609 }}</ref>}}