How do you say family in Kurdish?

In Kurmancî, family is malbat. In Soranî it is خێزان (xêzan).

How do you say mother and father in Kurdish?

In Kurmancî, mother is dayik (or dê) and father is bav. In Soranî, mother is دایک (dayk). Father is باوک (bawk).

How do you say brother and sister in Kurdish?

In Kurmancî, brother is bira and sister is xwişk. In Soranî, brother is برا (bira). Sister is خوشک (xuşk).

What is the difference between ap and xal?

Both mean uncle: ap is your father’s brother and xal is your mother’s brother.

Family words in Kurdish: mother, father, brother, sister

Family words are some of the first Kurdish you will want, because you use them at every family meal and on every call home. This guide covers mother, father, brother and sister, then grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins, in Kurmancî (Northern Kurdish, written in Latin letters) and Soranî (Central Kurdish, written in an Arabic-based script).

Every word and sentence below comes from the ZimanGo lessons. In the tables, m and f after a Kurmancî word mean masculine and feminine. Standard Soranî has no grammatical gender, so its words need no label.

The word for family

Malbat خێزان xêzan Family

In Kurmancî, family is malbat. A handy memory hook: it starts with mal, the word for house. Both words are feminine, and you can hear it in “I love my family”: Ez ji malbata xwe hez dikim.

In Soranî, family is خێزان. The same sentence, “I love my family”, is حەزم لە خێزانمە. You may also hear خێزان used for “wife”, so let the context guide you.

Mother, father, brother, sister

These four words are the heart of the family lessons. Learn each Kurmancî word together with its gender, because the gender decides the ending you add when you say “my mother” or “my brother”.

Kurmancî	Soranî	English
dayik f	دایک	mother
bav m	باوک	father
bira m	برا	brother
xwişk f	خوشک	sister
dê û bav	دایک و باوک	parents (literally “mother and father”)
zarok m	منداڵ	child

The Soranî words sound close to the Kurmancî ones. دایک dayk is mother. باوک bawk is father.

Two words for mother

Kurmancî has dayik and a shorter word, dê. You meet the short one in Dê û bav, the everyday way to say “parents”, and in Diya min, “my mother”.

Grandparents, uncles and aunts

Kurdish gives your father’s side and your mother’s side different words. English says “uncle” for both, but Kurmancî says ap for your father’s brother and xal for your mother’s brother.

Aunts work the same way: met is your father’s sister and xaltî is your mother’s sister. A cousin on your father’s side is pismam, literally “son of the uncle”.

Kurmancî	Soranî	English
dapîr f	داپیر	grandmother
bapîr m	باپیر	grandfather
kal û pîr	باپیر و داپیر	grandparents
ap m	مام	uncle (father’s brother)
met f	پوور	aunt (father’s sister)
xal m	خاڵۆ	uncle (mother’s brother)
xaltî f	خاڵۆژن	aunt (mother’s side)
pismam m	ئامۆزا	cousin (father’s side)

Two easy wins: bapîr begins like bav, and dapîr begins like dayik. Soranî uses the same two words for grandfather and grandmother, written in its own script.

Soranî splits uncles by side of the family, too. Your father’s brother is مام. Your mother’s brother is خاڵۆ, which sounds close to Kurmancî xal.

Masculine and feminine: “my father”, “my mother”

In Kurmancî you hear a noun’s gender as soon as you say “my”. Masculine nouns take -ê before min (my), and feminine nouns take -a. Words that end in a vowel add a y first, as in Birayê min.

Kurmancî	Soranî	English
Bavê min	باوکم	my father
Diya min	دایکم	my mother
Birayê min	براکەم	my brother
Xwişka min	خوشکم	my sister

Diya min is built on the short word dê. With dayik you get dayika min, which you will see in the sentences below.

Soranî has no gender to remember. It adds the ending -m for “my”, so باوکم is “my father”. In براکەم (my brother), the lessons also add -eke, the ending for “the”, before the -m. More on these differences in Kurmancî vs Soranî.

Introducing your family

Ev dayika min e /ɛv daˈjika min ɛ/ ئەمە دایکمە This is my mother

The Kurmancî pattern is Ev (this) + family word + min (my) + e (is). Swap the noun and keep its gender ending: Ev bavê min e means “This is my father”.

Soranî fits the whole sentence into two words. ئەمە means “this”. The ending of دایکمە carries both “my” and “is”.

Kurmancî	Soranî	English
Ev mêr kî ye	ئەم پیاوە کێیە	Who is this man?
Ev dayika min e	ئەمە دایکمە	This is my mother
Ev bavê min e	ئەمە باوکمە	This is my father
Dayika min baş e	دایکم باشە	My mother is well (literally “good”)
Xwişk û birayek min hene	خوشکێک و برایەکم هەیە	I have a sister and a brother
Birayê min mezin e	براکەم گەورەیە	My brother is older
Xwişka min biçûk e	خوشکم بچووکە	My sister is small

To say “I have”, Kurmancî uses the word for “there is”: heye, or hene when there is more than one. So Xwişk û birayek min hene is, word for word, “sister and a brother of mine there are”. The -ek on birayek means “a”.

Introducing yourself first? See how to say “My name is…” in Kurdish.

Son, daughter, husband, wife

Some everyday words for people do double duty. In Kurmancî, kur means boy and also son, and keç means girl and also daughter. Soranî works the same way.

Kurmancî	Soranî	English
kur m	کوڕ	boy, son
keç f	کچ	girl, daughter
mêr m	پیاو	man (Kurmancî mêr also means husband)
jin f	ژن	woman, wife
heval m	هاوڕێ	friend

You will also meet the pair jin û mêr, “women and men”. When the talk turns to the past, the intermediate lessons add Ez zarok bûm, “I was a child”, and zaroktî, “childhood”.

A brother for a friend

In the idiom lessons, Soranî uses برا, the word for brother, as a friendly “buddy”. The Kurmancî match there is heval, friend.

Practise with your own family

Family words stick fastest when you use them about real people. Go through a family photo and name everyone, or tell a relative Ez ji malbata xwe hez dikim. For more warm words, see “I love you” in Kurdish.

In ZimanGo, these words come in the beginner About Me lessons, with audio from ZimanGo’s own Kurdish text-to-speech voices. Kurmancî and Soranî are both available, so you can learn the dialect your family speaks.