Central Kurdish

The term Sorani, named after the Soran Emirate, refers to a variety of Central Kurdish based on the dialect spoken in Slemani. Central Kurdish is written in the Kurdo-Arabic alphabet, an adaptation of the Arabic script developed in the 1920s by Sa'ed Sidqi Kaban and Taufiq Wahby.

History

Tracing back the historical changes of Central Kurdish is difficult. No predecessors of Kurdish are yet known from Old and Middle Iranian times. The extant Kurdish texts may be traced back to no earlier than the 16th century CE. Central Kurdish originates from the Silêmanî region.

1700s–1918

The oldest written literature in Central Kurdish is reported to have been Mehdîname ("The book of Mahdi") from 1762 by Mulla Muhammed ibn ul Haj. Central Kurdish thus only emerged as a written language after the decline of the Gorani vernacular, the Ardalan state and the rise of Baban around Silêmanî. During the Baban era, Sorani emerged as an important literary vernacular and many poets such as Nalî wrote in Sorani despite being proficient in Arabic and Persian. Nalî mentioned that he wrote in Kurdish knowing his poetry might not receive the same dissemination as it might have done in the more prestigious Arabic or Persian. Contemporaries of Nalî like Salim and Mustefa Bêgî Kurdî also wrote in Sorani and their writings would become the foundation for the standard variety of Central Kurdish. When the Baban dynasty was overthrown in 1850, the golden era of Sorani ended and poets including Nalî left the Silêmanî region. Hacî Qadirî Koyî continued the tradition of writing in Sorani and lamented the lack of promotion of Sorani among the Kurdish clergy and called those who did not do so 'bastards'. Beside Koyi, Riza Talebanî also promoted Sorani as a literary language.

Prior to the 20th century, only three non-poetic Central Kurdish works are known to exist being Mewlûdname by Şêx Husên Qazî (1793–1871), a glossary of Arabic-Kurdish by Ehmedî from 1795 and a translation of the introduction to Gulistan by Saadi Shirazi.

The language of these works heavily relied on Arabic and Persian, which prevented Central Kurdish from enjoying further progress besides being a literary language. Only after World War I did this change.

Besides poetry and the few other texts mentioned above, linguistic works on Central Kurdish also existed. Leonard Chodźko wrote a sketch of the Silêmanî variety of Sorani in 1857; de Morgan wrote his "Etudea linguistiques: Dialectee Kurdea" in 1904, in which he compared eleven varieties of Kurdish to each other and with Persian and Sanskrit. Later, in 1903, Ely Bannister Soane published a learner textbook and vocabulary list on Sorani for British personnel in Kurdistan, while Oskar Mann wrote Die Mundart der Mukri Kurden containing a grammar sketch of the Central Kurdish variety of Mukriyan in 1906. Lastly, Ludvig Olsen Fossum published a grammar book in 1919 based on the Central Kurdish variety spoken around Mahabad.

1918–1930s

After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, much of the Central Kurdish-speaking region came under British rule in present-day Iraq. Central Kurdish subsequently became the language for prose, media, and journalism, and a distinct alphabet was created for the vernacular. Sorani also gained a kurdified vocabulary by the 1950s. The British began publishing periodicals in the language to mobilize Kurds, since the Central Kurdish-speaking contingent of Iraq was more urbanized, better educated, and more inclined towards Kurdish nationalism than the Kurmanji-speaking population around Duhok. Such nationalism was promoted to prevent any Turkish takeover of Kirkuk and Mosul. To this end, the first government press in Sorani was established in Sulaymaniyah in 1920, which propelled Central Kurdish into becoming a language of media, education, and administration. The government press had by 1923 published six books, 118 issues of the weekly publication Pêşkewtin (Progress), fourteen issues of Bangî Kurdistan (The Call of Kurdistan), and sixteen issues of Rojî Kurdistan (The Day of Kurdistan). The period also saw the publication of Central Kurdish works for schools, and courts began using the language as well. In 1923, Taufiq Wahby was instructed to produce school books in Central Kurdish by the Iraqi government, and his modified orthography for the language would be implemented as the official Central Kurdish script in school textbooks two decades later. His orthography included purging the Arabic letters (ث/ذ/ص/ض/ط/ظ) and creating the new letters (پ/ژ/چ/گ/ڤ/ڕ/ڵ/وو/ێ). Wahby also supported switching to the Latin alphabet, but this idea was not accepted by the literary society or the state.

In the 1930s, the League of Nations urged Iraq to draft a law guaranteeing the use of the Kurdish language. The authorities reluctantly agreed, but the British knew the law would not be implemented once they left Iraq. This pushed the British to implement the law themselves in May 1931, which made Kurdish an official language in the governorates of Sulaymaniyah, Kirkuk, and Erbil. Kurds were, however, dissatisfied, since Kurdish was only allowed to be used in elementary schools and Iraq had fully arabized the education and administration systems in Kirkuk and Mosul. In subsequent years, linguistic rights for Kurds were either ignored or reluctantly implemented.

The development of Central Kurdish was slow in Iran and faced many challenges. The earliest use of the language was during the Simko Shikak revolt of 1918 to 1922, which saw the use of Central Kurdish side by side with Kurmanji as official languages in the area controlled by the rebels. After the defeat of the revolt, formal use of Central Kurdish ceased until 1946. During the rule of Reza Shah from 1925 to 1941, Iran was extremely centralist and Persian was dominant to the detriment of other languages. A decree issued by the government in 1935 suppressed Kurdish and marked its end as a written language. Only a dozen handwritten poetic manuscripts in Central Kurdish exist from this period, including works by Hassan Saifulquzzat, Said Kamil Imani, and Khalamin Barzanji.

1940s–1950s

By the 1940s, the Silêmanî variant of the dialect had become the standard variant of Central Kurdish and even Kurds in Iran accepted this. The 1940s also saw the use of Sorani in radio broadcasting which elevated its prestige but also the urgency in proficiency since it was linked to current events.

Iraq

The 1940s experienced an intermittent suppression of Kurdish but Central Kurdish still succeeded in becoming considerably standardized by the end of the period. By the time the 14 July Revolution took place in 1958, Central Kurdish had incorporated the norms of a standard language which had given it legitimacy. During the new Iraqi Republic from 1958 to 1968, the number of journals in Central Kurdish increased fast and a Kurdish department was established at the University of Baghdad and moreover a Directorate General of Kurdish Studies was established to answer the growing Kurdish demands for mother tongue education.

In 1960, the first Central Kurdish-Arabic dictionary was published.

Iran

After the ousting of Reza Shah in 1941 and the Anglo-Soviet occupation of Iran, nationalist movements among Kurds gained strength and Central Kurdish became the formal language again, especially in Mukriyan where the Komeley Jiyanewey Kurd (KJK) used it as their official language. Central Kurdish was also introduced in schools, administration and in mosques. Kurds in Iraq aided with this, for example by exporting school books to Iran. Language planning was also in the works but rudimentary. When the Republic of Mahabad fell, formal use of Central Kurdish also ceased in Iran, however the new Pahlavi state under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi would become more tolerant than that of Reza Shah. Researcher Hassanpour argues that the reason for this was the vulnerability of the new central government which had to approach the Kurds more relaxed. For this, some developments did take place including the publication of periodicals in Central Kurdish but also state-sponsored radio broadcasting and teaching Kurdish at the University of Tehran.

In the 1950s, the Iranian authorities began restricting and controlling the tolerance towards Kurdish which continued towards the Iranian Revolution in 1979. No positive rights were given and any written use was controlled. However, the restrictions had to be loosen since Kurds in Iran were receiving radio broadcasting from Iraq and Soviet Armenia. Iran thus allowed for limited radio broadcasting in Mahabad, Sanandaj and Kermanshah which legitimized and popularized Central Kurdish further.

1960s–1980s

Iraq

The Kurdish Scientific Academy was established in Baghdad in 1968 which devoted a significant part of their job to develop neologisms, grammar books, writing style guide-lines, a modified orthography and research in linguistics subjects. The Kurdistan Democratic Party and its media also used Central Kurdish as their official language despite its leader Mustefa Barzanî being a Kurmanji-speaker. Despite the deterioration of relations between the Kurds and Iraq in the 1970s, the state still sponsored the implementation of Central Kurdish as language in secondary schools. However, this ended by 1978 when the Iraqi authorities embarked on an Arabization to quell Kurdish nationalism. On this, Hassanpour wrote in 1992 that:

Language-related aspects of Arabization include, among other things, the Arabization of Kurdish schools in the Autonomous region; the dissolution of the Kurdish Academy in 1978 and the formation of a 'Kurdish corporation' within the Iraqi Scientific Academy (the policy was to replace 'Kurdish' by 'Iraqi' in the name of organizations, institutions and unions); the removal of Sulaymanya University from Sulaymaniya, main center of Kurdish nationalism, to Arbil and partial Arabization of its faculty and curriculum; and the Arabization of Kurdish geographical names.

Central Kurdish continued as the main language in elementary and secondary schools in Iraqi Kurdistan. In the 1980s, the state sponsored publications in Central Kurdish despite warring with the Kurds.

Iran

In the 1960s, schooling in Kurdish or teaching Kurdish was unthinkable, even in private. However, the University of Tehran began offering two courses in Kurdish even though one had to refrain from discussing Kurdish and had to call it a 'dialect'. The policy of the Pahlavi state in regard to Kurdish was like that of safety valve where rights were restricted when the state felt threatened. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the new Iranian constitution was ambiguous towards Kurdish but the new regime discouraged the use of Central Kurdish both in private and in public. Limited media in Central Kurdish was allowed in the subsequent years. The policy of safety valve continued throughout the 1980s.

1990s

Iraq

Kurdistan Region Parliament passed a provisional constitution in 1992 making Kurdish the official language of Kurdistan Region. 'Kurdish' would refer to Central Kurdish which also became the language of instruction in Kurmanji– and Gorani–speaking areas until these linguistic communities demanded education in Kurmanji and Gorani, respectively. Central Kurdish ceased as language of instruction in these areas in the mid-2000s. In 1997, the Kurdistan Sciency Academy was established in Erbil with the goal of creating a unitary language in the autonomous region.

Iran

More leniency was given towards Kurdish, especially Central Kurdish in the 1990s, but use of Central Kurdish in administration and education was still not allowed. The debate on mother tongue education entered the public sphere in the 2000s.

2000s–Present

Orthography remains a challenge for Central Kurdish. In Iraq, Central Kurdish orthography is moving towards being based on a single morpheme while Sorani-speakers in Iran make longer words. An example is the word to review which can be spelled both pêdaçûnewe and pê da çûnewe.

World Wide Web has had a significant impact on Central Kurdish as thousands of Central Kurdish-speakers have gotten free access to literature. It also became easier to listen to radio and watch television. The Internet moreover fostered the use of Central Kurdish in Iran and the diaspora, where the language had no official status, although prevalence of the language in digital spaces is still scarce overall. A language learning app for Sorani has aimed to improve the online accessibility of the language.

Arabic and Persian words continue to be purged from written Central Kurdish and are getting replaced by neologisms. Conversely, Central Kurdish is borrowing words from the English language.

Iraq

After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq declared Kurdish as the official language of the country beside Arabic. The first section of Article 4 secures this. In 2006, Duhok began using Kurmanji as their official language as a way of resisting Central Kurdish. Fearing the loss of hegemony, 53 academics, writers and poets pushed the Kurdish Parliament to declare Central Kurdish as the official language of the autonomous region. This attempt failed multiple times and Kurmanji remains the official Kurdish language in Duhok. In the 2010s, criticism arose due to the quality of the Sorani school textbooks, media texts and signage. In 2011, two journalism professors from Salahaddin University criticized the state of Central Kurdish in Kurdistan Region which could affect its use among the people. They also expressed dismay over the method of the Kurdistan Region Parliament in using the language, since the institution wrote their bills and laws in Arabic and then translated to Central Kurdish.

Iran

More flexibility was shown to Kurdish in the mid-2000s by the reformists, likely to win the Kurdish vote. Kurds used the opportunity and began publishing more in Central Kurdish, set up private language learning courses and also advocated for the implementation of Article 15 of the Constitution which would allow the use of regional languages. The use of Central Kurdish in Iran has since then been revitalized by Kurdish book publishers like Mang. Nonetheless, the use of Central Kurdish in the public school system is not supported by Iranian nationalists and conservatives who believe it could damage the unity of the nation-state.