Kurdish dialects explained: Kurmancî, Soranî and more

Kurdish is spoken by an estimated 20 to 40 million people, and it does not sound the same everywhere. A family from Diyarbakır, one from Erbil and one from Kermanshah all speak Kurdish, yet each speaks it in its own way. This guide walks you through the main Kurdish dialects: where they are spoken, how they are written and roughly how many people use them.

All numbers here are estimates. Reliable counts are hard to get, so researchers give ranges, and the ranges are wide.

How many Kurdish dialects are there?

Linguists usually sort Kurdish into three main groups. Each group is a family of local dialects that blend into one another from valley to valley.

• Northern Kurdish, or Kurmancî (Kurmanji): the largest group, written mostly in Latin letters.
• Central Kurdish, or Soranî (Sorani): written in an Arabic-based Kurdish alphabet.
• Southern Kurdish: mostly spoken dialects such as Kelhurî (Kalhori) and Feylî (Feyli).

Two more languages often come up in the same breath: Zazakî (Kirmanckî) and Hewramî (Gorani). Linguists usually classify them as separate languages of the Northwestern Iranian family, while many of their speakers see themselves as Kurds. So the short answer is three main dialect groups, or five if you count Zazakî and Hewramî.

Northern Kurdish: Kurmancî

Kurmancî is the Kurdish of most Kurds in Turkey and Syria. It is also spoken in northern Iraq and northwestern Iran, and far to the east in Iran’s Khorasan region. Smaller communities live in the Caucasus, for example in Armenia and Georgia, and many speakers now live in Europe.

Estimates put Kurmancî at roughly 15 to 20 million speakers, which makes it the biggest Kurdish dialect group. Most Kurmancî writing uses the Latin-based alphabet that Celadet Alî Bedirxan published in his magazine Hawar in 1932. These are the letters you see in Silav (hello) and Spas (thank you). In the former Soviet Union, Kurmancî was also written in Cyrillic.

Kurmancî has many regional accents that shade into one another. In its heartland, people from most areas understand each other well; the biggest gaps are between the dialects at the far southeastern and far northwestern ends.

Behdînî in Iraq

In the Duhok region of northern Iraq, with towns such as Zakho, Amadiya and Akre, people call their Kurmancî Behdînî (Badini). It belongs to the southeastern group of Kurmancî. It is one of the most distinctive Kurmancî dialects, with its own sounds and some words of its own, but its core grammar is clearly Kurmancî.

The big difference is the script. In Iraq, Behdînî is usually written in the same Arabic-based alphabet as Soranî. So a speaker from Duhok and a speaker from Diyarbakır speak the same dialect group, yet often write it in two different alphabets. Read more in our guide to Behdînî.

Central Kurdish: Soranî

Soranî is spoken in much of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, in cities such as Erbil and Sulaymaniyah and around Kirkuk. Across the border it is the Kurdish of western Iran around Sanandaj and Mahabad. Estimates range from about 6 to 9 million speakers.

Soranî is written in an adapted Arabic script that runs from right to left. Unlike Arabic, it writes almost all of its vowels as letters. Its written standard grew out of the speech of Sulaymaniyah in the first half of the 20th century.

Kurdish is one of the two official languages of Iraq, and Soranî has the strongest written tradition in the Kurdistan Region. Its local varieties are usually named after a region or city: Babanî around Sulaymaniyah, Hewlêrî in Erbil, Mukriyanî around Mahabad, Erdelanî around Sanandaj, and Germiyanî. They differ in accent and in some words, and their speakers all use the same written standard.

Southern Kurdish: Kelhurî, Feylî and Lekî

Southern Kurdish is spoken in western Iran, mainly in the provinces of Kermanshah and Ilam, and across the border in eastern Iraq around towns such as Khanaqin. Many Feylî Kurds also live in Baghdad. Speaker estimates vary widely, often between about 3 and 6 million, partly because sources disagree on which dialects to count.

The group includes Kelhurî, named after the Kalhor tribe, Feylî, and the Kurdish of the city of Kermanshah, often called Kirmaşanî. These varieties are closely related and form a chain of dialects that are, to a fair degree, mutually understandable. Speakers often simply call their language Kurdish and add the name of a tribe or place.

Lekî (Laki), spoken by an estimated several hundred thousand people, mainly in northern Lorestan and nearby areas, is sometimes grouped with Southern Kurdish and sometimes treated as a language of its own. Southern Kurdish has no widely used written standard yet. When people write it, most use the Persian or Arabic spelling they learned at school. Some use the Soranî alphabet with a few extra letters.

Zazakî and Hewramî: close relatives

Zazakî, also called Dimlî or Kirdkî, is spoken in eastern Turkey, especially in Dersim (Tunceli), Bingöl, Elazığ, Erzincan and parts of Diyarbakır. A large community also lives in Germany and other parts of Europe. Estimates vary a lot, from about 2 million to as many as 6 million speakers. Today Zazakî is mostly written in Latin letters, much like Kurmancî.

Hewramî is spoken in the Hawraman mountains on both sides of the Iran–Iraq border, around Paveh in Iran and Halabja in Iraq. It is a small language. Numbers are uncertain: estimates speak of tens of thousands of Hewramî speakers, and a few hundred thousand for all Gorani varieties together. Today it is usually written in the Arabic-based Kurdish alphabet, and linguists consider it endangered.

Gorani also has a long literary past. Poetry in Gorani goes back to around the 14th century, and it was widely used for poetry under the Ardalan princes, who ruled from today’s Sanandaj. The 19th-century poet Mewlewî, born in the Hawraman region, wrote much of his poetry in Gorani.

Read more about Zazakî and Hewramî.

How different are Kurmancî and Soranî?

The two big dialects share a large part of their vocabulary. Some words are identical, and many differ by only one sound. A very common pattern: where Kurmancî has a v, Soranî often has a w.

Kurmancî av (water) is ئاو aw in Soranî. In the same way, the greeting Silav becomes سڵاو silaw. Other everyday words are simply different:

The bigger differences are in grammar. Kurmancî nouns are masculine or feminine, and they change their endings depending on their role in the sentence. Soranî has no grammatical gender and does not use those case endings.

Soranî likes to attach small endings to words instead. “My name” is two words in Kurmancî: Navê min. In Soranî it is a single word: ناوم. Soranî also has an ending that works much like “the”, often written ‑eke in Latin letters, which Kurmancî does not use.

So a Kurmancî speaker and a Soranî speaker can pick out many shared words, but a full conversation takes some practice. People who grow up hearing both, through family, music or television, often understand both well. For a closer look, read Kurmancî vs Soranî.

Which dialect should you learn?

Start with the dialect your family or friends speak. If your roots are in Turkey, Syria or the Duhok region, that is usually Kurmancî or its Behdînî form. If they are in Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Kirkuk or Iran’s Kurdistan province, it is usually Soranî. Families from Kermanshah and Ilam often speak Southern Kurdish at home.

If you have no family link, either big dialect is a good start. Kurmancî has the most speakers and uses Latin letters, which feel familiar if you already read English, German, French or Turkish. Soranî has a rich written tradition and opens up the books, songs and television of Iraqi and Iranian Kurdistan.

In ZimanGo, Kurmancî and Soranî are available today, and Behdînî, Zazakî and Hewramî are coming soon. Once you know one dialect well, the others start to sound much more familiar.