Editing Kurdish language (section)

== Varieties ==
Kurdish varieties are divided into three or four groups, with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility.<ref>Hassanpour, A. (1992). Nationalism and language in Kurdistan. San Francisco: Mellon Press. Also mentioned in: [http://www.kurdishacademy.org/?q=node/712 kurdishacademy.org] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160709211539/http://www.kurdishacademy.org/?q=node%2F712 |date=9 July 2016 }}</ref><ref name=":0">Postgate, J.N., Languages of Iraq, ancient and modern, [Iraq]: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2007, {{ISBN|978-0-903472-21-0}}, p.139</ref>

*Kurmanji is the largest dialect group, spoken by an estimated 15 to 20 million Kurds in [[Kurds in Turkey|Turkey]], [[Kurds in Syria|Syria]], [[Kurds in Iraq|northern Iraq]], and [[Kurds in Iran|northwest and northeast Iran]].
*[[Sorani]] is spoken by an estimated 6 to 7 million Kurds in much of [[Iraqi Kurdistan]] and the Iranian [[Kurdistan province]].<ref name="kreyenbroek">Philip G. Kreyenbroek, "On the Kurdish Language", a chapter in the book ''The Kurds: A Contemporary Overview''. The book is previewable at [https://books.google.com/books?id=DkI1u4ta5w4C Google Book Search] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221026091607/https://books.google.com/books?id=DkI1u4ta5w4C |date=26 October 2022 }}.</ref>
*Southern Kurdish (Pehlewani) is spoken in the [[Kermanshah province|Kermanshah]], [[Ilam province|Ilam]] and [[Lorestan province|Lorestan]] provinces of Iran and in the [[Khanaqin District]] of eastern Iraq.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Tavadze|first=Givi|date=2019|title=Spreading of the Kurdish Language Dialects and Writing Systems Used in the Middle East|url=http://science.org.ge/bnas/t13-n1/24_Tavadze.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://science.org.ge/bnas/t13-n1/24_Tavadze.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|journal=Bulletin of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences|page=172}}</ref> [[Laki language|Laki]] and [[Kordali language|Kordali]] (Palai) are often included in Southern Kurdish,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mabry |first1=Tristan James |title=Nationalism, language, and Muslim exceptionalism |date=2015 |location=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |isbn=9780812246919}}</ref> but they have some distinct features.<ref>Erik Anonby, Mortaza Taheri-Ardali & Amos Hayes (2019) ''The Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI)''. Iranian Studies 52. [https://docs.google.com/document/d/13HM6ElEb3cPqf4FWxYVc8LqRrvFsyu0mGXXqaawgXWk/pub#ftnt142 A Working Classification] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211016065304/https://docs.google.com/document/d/13HM6ElEb3cPqf4FWxYVc8LqRrvFsyu0mGXXqaawgXWk/pub#ftnt142 |date=16 October 2021 }}</ref>

In historical evolution terms, Kurmanji is less modified than Sorani and Pehlewani in both phonetic and morphological structure. The Sorani group has been influenced by among other things its closer cultural proximity to the other languages spoken by Kurds in the region including the [[Gorani language]] in parts of [[Iranian Kurdistan]] and Iraqi Kurdistan.<ref name="kreyenbroek" /><ref name="autogenerated1">D.N. MacKenzie, ''Language'' in ''Kurds & Kurdistan'', Encyclopaedia of Islam.</ref>

[[Philip G. Kreyenbroek]], an expert writing in 1992, says:
{{blockquote|Since 1932 most Kurds have used the Roman script to write Kurmanji.... Sorani is normally written in an adapted form of the Arabic script.... Reasons for describing Kurmanji and Sorani as 'dialects' of one language are their common origin and the fact that this usage reflects the sense of ethnic identity and unity among the Kurds. From a linguistic or at least a grammatical point of view, however, Kurmanji and Sorani differ as much from each other as English and German, and it would seem appropriate to refer to them as languages. For example, Sorani has neither gender nor case-endings, whereas Kurmanji has both.... Differences in vocabulary and pronunciation are not as great as between German and English, but they are still considerable.<ref name=kreyenbroek/>}}

According to ''[[Encyclopaedia of Islam]]'', although Kurdish is not a unified language, its many dialects are interrelated and at the same time distinguishable from other [[Western Iranian languages]]. The same source classifies different Kurdish dialects as two main groups, northern and central.<ref name="autogenerated1"/> The average Kurmanji speaker does not find it easy to communicate with the inhabitants of [[Sulaymaniyah]] or [[Halabja]].<ref name=":0"/>

Some linguistic scholars assert that the term "Kurdish" has been applied extrinsically in describing the language the Kurds speak, whereas some ethnic Kurds have used the word term to simply describe their ethnicity and refer to their language as ''Kurmanji'', ''Sorani'', ''Hewrami'', ''Kermanshahi'', ''Kalhori'' or whatever other dialect or language they speak. Some historians have noted that it is only recently that the Kurds who speak the Sorani dialect have begun referring to their language as ''Kurdî'', in addition to their identity, which is translated to simply mean Kurdish.<ref>[http://www.kurdistanica.com/english/history/articles-his/his-articles-02.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080501191513/http://www.kurdistanica.com/english/history/articles-his/his-articles-02.html|date=1 May 2008}}</ref>

The Mokriani variety of Sorani is widely spoken in Mokrian. Piranshahr and Mahabad are two principal cities of the Mokrian area.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dissertation.xlibx.info/d1-other/240081-1-background-the-language-community-and-fieldwork-introduction-the.php|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170305034800/http://www.dissertation.xlibx.info/d1-other/240081-1-background-the-language-community-and-fieldwork-introduction-the.php|url-status=dead|archive-date=2017-03-05|title=Background to the language, community, and fieldwork 1.1 Introduction The present work is a grammatical description of the Mukri variety of Central|website=dissertation.xlibx.info}}</ref>