ABSTRACT
Kurdish is a cover term for the largest group of closely-related Western Iranian dialects, spoken in a large contiguous area that extends from Turkey into Iraq, Iran, and Armenia, with smaller groups in other countries. This cover term also reflects the linguistic and ethnic unity perceived by the speakers in spite of considerable linguistic differences. There are three main sub-groups: (1) Northern Kurdish is the most widely spoken variety of Kurdish (ca. 20 million), also known as Kurmānjī, which is the autonym used by most speakers, besides Bahdīnān in north Iraq. This variety is roughly delimited in the west by the Turkish town of Malatya, in the south by the north-eastern tip of Syria and by Mosul in northern Iraq, and it reaches up to the Armenian capital of Yerevan in the north-east. Relatively large groups are also found in Syria and Lebanon, as well as in Azerbaijan and Georgia in the Caucasus (ca. 500,000 in the former Soviet republics). There are also considerable emigrant groups in urban centers in the Middle East (e.g. ca. 2 million or more in Istanbul) and in Western Europe (ca. 700,000, mostly Germany). (2) Central Kurdish (total ca. 5 million) has two main subgroups, Sōrānī in northern Iraq up to the Little Zab river, and Mukrī in adjacent Iranian province of Kordestan, with pockets (by earlier deportations) elsewhere in Iran, mostly the Caspian provinces and the northeastern province of Khorasan. (3) Southern Kurdish (ca. 3 million) is found in the abutting areas of Iraq and Iran, from Khaneqin in Iraq over to Kermanshah in Iran and down to north of Al-Amara, Iraq, as well as in the Bijar region of Iran. Best known are the Laki tribes in the Pish-e Kuh region of the Zagros mountains between Kermanshah, Khorramabad, and Kangavar (cf. the monumental study by Fattah, 2000).
