Days of the week in Kurdish, plus months and seasons

Want to tell someone what day it is, or plan something for next week? This guide gives the days of the week in Kurdish in the two big written standards: Kurmancî (Northern Kurdish, written in Latin letters) and Soranî (Central Kurdish, written from right to left in an Arabic-based script). The Kurdish words and sentences below come from the ZimanGo lessons.

The days of the week

Monday is the day most learners look up first:

Duşem /duˈʃɛm/ دووشەممە dûşemme Monday

The table runs from Monday to Sunday. Read it across: the Kurmancî word, the Soranî word, then the English.

Thursday is missing on purpose. It is built like the others, with the number five, pênc, at the front. It is not among the lesson words we use for this blog, though, so we leave it out rather than guess at the spelling.

How the day names are built

Most Kurdish day names hide a number. The week is counted from Saturday, Şemî, so Sunday is “day one”, Monday is “day two”, and so on up to Thursday, “day five”.

Soranî shows the pattern most clearly. Its word for Saturday is شەممە, and the numbered days simply put a number in front of it. Monday, for example, is دووشەممە: “two” plus “Saturday”.

Kurmancî works the same way, with a short ending, -şem, that is related to Şemî. So Duşem is du (two) followed by that ending, and Yekşem starts with yek (one).

Friday is the exception. It has its own name instead of a number: În in Kurmancî and هەینی in Soranî. The Saturday word itself is old, too. It goes back to the same root as the English word “Sabbath”, and Persian, a related language, counts its days in the same way.

Today, tomorrow and yesterday

Put a day name after one of these words and you already have a sentence:

In Kurmancî, the small word e means “is” and comes at the end of the sentence. For the past, bû means “was”. Soranî joins “is” straight onto the day name, so “is Monday” becomes one word: دووشەممەیە.

Times of day and the clock

The time words also build the greetings. Êvar baş means “good evening” and Şev baş means “good night”. You will find the full set in how to say hello in Kurdish.

In both dialects, the word for “day” also means “sun”: roj in Kurmancî and ڕۆژ in Soranî. To ask a friend how their day is going, say Roja te çawa diçe? The Soranî question is ڕۆژەکەت چۆن دەڕوات؟

Weeks, months and seasons

The Soranî word for month, مانگ, is also the word for the moon. The names of the four seasons are easy to learn because they are almost the same in both dialects:

To say which season you like best, Kurmancî says Ez ji biharê hez dikim, “I love spring”. In Soranî it is حەزم لە بەهارە.

Kurdish month names

Kurdish month names are not the same everywhere. Many Kurds use names for the twelve months of the international calendar, but the names differ from region to region and from dialect to dialect, and there is no single agreed list. Writing dates with numbers is also very common.

There is also a traditional Kurdish solar calendar. Its year begins at Newroz, on 21 March, and each of its twelve months has its own name. Each one begins around the 21st of a month in the international calendar, so it overlaps two of them. Some lists even use the same name for different dates.

Because the names vary so much, we do not give one list here. If you are learning for your family, ask which month names they use, and learn those first.

Time sentences to practise

Notice that the time phrase often comes first, just as in the English sentence “Last week I travelled”. “Every day” is her roj in Kurmancî. In Soranî it is هەموو ڕۆژێک.

To tell the time you need numbers, so our guide to Kurdish numbers is a good next step. After that, say what day it is out loud each morning, for example Îro Duşem e. One short sentence a day helps the day names stick.