Zazakî (Kirmanckî): the Zaza language and its speakers

Zazakî (Kirmanckî) is the language of the Zaza people of eastern Anatolia, in today’s Turkey. Its speakers know it by several names, among them Kirmanckî, Kirdkî and Dimilî, and many families have carried it to Europe and beyond.

This guide explains where Zazakî is spoken, roughly how many people speak it, how it is written and how it relates to Kurdish. All speaker numbers here are estimates. There are no official counts, so researchers give wide ranges.

One language, several names

Zaza speakers do not all use the same name for their language. Often the name tells you which region a family comes from.

These are rough patterns, not strict borders: in real life the names overlap. The people themselves are called Zaza, and many also use the names Kirmanc, Kird or Dimilî. In English you will mostly read “Zazaki” or “the Zaza language”, and you may also meet spellings such as Kirmancki, Kirmanjki or Dimli.

Where Zazakî is spoken

The heartland of Zazakî is eastern Anatolia. Its main areas are Dersim (Tunceli), Bingöl, Elazığ and Erzincan, together with parts of Diyarbakır and the Siverek area of Şanlıurfa. Smaller communities live in neighbouring provinces such as Muş and Adıyaman.

Over the last decades, many Zaza families have moved away, both within Turkey and abroad. Estimates speak of a few hundred thousand Zaza speakers in Western Europe, most of them in Germany, with further communities in countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands.

Northern and southern dialects

Linguists usually describe northern, central and southern dialects. Northern dialects are spoken around Dersim, Erzincan and Varto. Southern dialects are spoken in towns such as Siverek, Çermik and Gerger, and central dialects lie in between, for example around Bingöl and Palu.

The groups differ in pronunciation, in some word endings and in part of the vocabulary. How easily speakers from distant regions understand each other depends on the region and on how much they have heard the other dialect.

How many people speak Zazakî?

Nobody knows the exact number, because there are no official statistics on Zazakî speakers. Estimates range from about 1.5 million to 4 million speakers, and some estimates, especially from within the community, go higher still.

The range is wide partly because counts depend on who is included: only fluent everyday speakers, or everyone who grew up with some Zazakî. In some families the grandparents speak it fluently, the parents understand it, and the children mainly speak Turkish, German or another language.

How Zazakî relates to Kurdish

Linguists place Zazakî in the Northwestern Iranian branch of the Iranian languages, the same branch as Kurdish. Within that branch, its closest relatives include Hewramî (Gorani) and languages near the Caspian Sea such as Talysh. Most linguists therefore treat Zazakî as a language of its own rather than a dialect of Kurdish.

You can hear the difference in everyday life. A study in Elazığ, where both languages are spoken, found that Kurmancî and Zazakî speakers understood each other’s words only to a limited degree. Our guide to Kurdish dialects shows how all these varieties fit together.

Identity is a different question from linguistics. Many Zazakî speakers see themselves as Kurds and regard their language as part of the Kurdish world in a wider sense. Others see the Zaza as a people of their own, with their own language and history. Both views are sincerely held, and both deserve respect.

Zaza communities also differ in religion. Some are Sunni Muslims and others are Alevis, and local customs vary from region to region.

How Zazakî is written

Zazakî is written in the Latin alphabet. Many writers use the Kurdish Latin alphabet of Celadet Alî Bedirxan, the same letters as Kurmancî, so letters such as ê, î, û, x and q look familiar to Kurmancî readers. Some writers instead use an alphabet with a few Turkish letters such as ı, ğ and ü, which is why you may also see spellings like Dımıli. The story of the Kurdish Latin letters is told in our history of the Kurdish alphabet.

The best-known early works in Zazakî are two long religious poems, each called a mewlid, from around 1900. Ehmedê Xasî’s mewlid dates from 1899. Osman Efendîyo Babij wrote his a few years later, in the early 1900s. Both were written in Arabic letters, as was usual in the region at the time.

For much of the 20th century, publishing in Kurdish, Zazakî included, was restricted in Turkey, and the language lived on mainly in speech, stories and songs. Modern writing in Latin letters grew from the 1980s, at first largely among Zaza speakers in Europe. After the restrictions were eased in the 1990s, books and magazines in Zazakî began to appear in Turkey as well.

Keeping the language alive

UNESCO lists Zazakî as a vulnerable language. Children still learn it in many places, but it is not used in every part of life, and many young people now grow up speaking mainly Turkish or the language of their new home country.

Speakers are working to change that. Since the 1990s, a group of Zaza writers has worked out common spelling rules and published dictionaries with thousands of standard words, although not every author follows them. Since the early 2010s, two universities, one in Dersim and one in Bingöl, have offered degree programmes in Zazakî language and literature. Books, poetry, magazines and translations keep the written language growing.

Much of the work still happens at home. Grandparents who tell stories in Zazakî, parents who answer their children in it and young people who sing and write in it all help the language reach the next generation.

Zazakî on ZimanGo

The ZimanGo app interface already runs in Zazakî, so Zaza speakers can use it in their own language. Zazakî lessons are coming soon, alongside Behdînî (Badini) and Hewramî.

Learning Kurmancî or Soranî in the meantime? These words help you talk about language and heritage:

Our Kurmancî course uses the same Latin letters as written Zazakî, which makes it a gentle place to start.