| Gorani | ||
|---|---|---|
| گۆرانی Goranî | ||
 | ||
| Native to | Iraq and Iran | |
| Region | Kurdistan (PrimarilyHawraman, alsoGarmian andNineveh),Kermanshah province | |
Native speakers | 300,000 (2008)[1] | |
| Dialects | Hewramî Şebekî[3] Sarlî[3] Bacelanî[4] Gewrejuî Zengeneyî | |
| Kurdish alphabet | ||
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-3 | Variously:hac – Gorani (Gurani)sdb – Shabakisdf – Sarlibjm – Bajelani | |
| Glottolog | gura1251 | |
| ELP | ||
| Linguasphere | 58-AAA-b
| |
 Gorani (Hawrami) is classified as Definitely Endangered by theUNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | ||
Gorani (Kurdish:گۆرانی,romanized: Goranî,lit. 'song'),[5] also known by the name of its maindialect,Hawrami (ھەورامی,romanized:Hewramî), is aNorthwestern Iranian language spoken by ethnicKurds in northeasternIraq and northwesternIran[6] and which withZaza constitute theZaza–Gorani languages.[3][a] Zaza and Gorani are linguistically distinct from theKurdish language,[6][8] although the great majority of their speakers consider their language to be Kurdish.[9][10][11]
Gorani is spoken in Iraq and Iran and has four dialects: Bajelani, Hawrami, and Sarli, some sources also include theShabaki as a dialect of Gorani as well.[3] Of these, Hawrami was the traditional literary language andkoiné ofKurds in the historicalArdalan region at theZagros Mountains,[12][13] but has since been supplanted byCentral Kurdish andSouthern Kurdish.[14] Gorani is aliterary language for many Kurds.[15]
Gorani had an estimated 180,000 speakers in Iran in 2007 and 120,000 speakers in Iraq as well in 2007 for a total of 300,000 speakers.Ethnologue and theDocumentation of Endangered Languages reports that the language is threatened in both Iran and Iraq, and that speakers residing in Iraq includes all adults and some children, however it does not mention if speakers are shifting toSorani or not. Many speakers of Gorani in Iran also speakSorani,Persian, as well asSouthern Kurdish. Most speakers in Iraq also speakSorani, while some also speakMesopotamian Arabic. Furthermore in the 2010 edition of UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger Gorani (Hawrami) was classified as an endangered north-western Iranic language.[16][17][18][19]
The name Goran appears to be ofIndo-Iranian origin. The name may be derived from the oldAvestan word,gairi, which means mountain.[20]
Under the independent rulers ofArdalan (9th–14th / 14th–19th century), with their capital latterly atSanandaj, Gorani became the vehicle of a considerable corpus of poetry. Gorani was and remains the first language of the scriptures of the Ahl-e Haqq sect, orYarsanism, centered onGahvara. Prose works, in contrast, are hardly known. The structure of Gorani verse is very simple and monotonous. It consists almost entirely of stanzas of two rhyming half-verses of ten syllables each, with no regard to the quantity of syllables.
The names of forty classical poets writing in Gorani are known, but the details and dates of their lives are unknown for the most part. Perhaps the earliest writer isMele Perîşan, author of amasnavi of 500 lines on theShi'ite faith who is reported to have lived around 1356–1431. Other poets are known from the 17th–19th centuries and includeShaykh Mustafa Takhtayi,Khana Qubadi,Yusuf Yaska,Mistefa Bêsaranî andKhulam Rada Khan Arkawazi. One of the last great poets to complete a book of poems (divan) in Gurani isMawlawi Tawagozi south ofHalabja.
TheKurdishShahnameh is a collection of epic poems that has been passed down orally from one generation to the next. Eventually, some of these stories were written down byAlmas Khan-e Kanoule'ei in the 18th century. There exist also a dozen or more long epic or romantic masnavis, mostly translated by anonymous writers fromPersian literature including:Bijan and Manijeh, Khurshid-i Khawar,Khosrow and Shirin,Layla and Majnun,Shirin and Farhad, Haft Khwan-iRostam and Sultan Jumjuma. Manuscripts of these works are currently preserved in the national libraries ofBerlin,London, andParis.
An excerpt fromŞîrîn û Xesrew (Shirin and Khosrow), written in 1740 by Khana Qubadî:[21]
Herçen mewaçan: Fersî şekeren
Kurdî ce şeker bell şîrînteren
Yeqînen ce dewr dunyay pirr endêş
Herkes dillşaden we ziwan wêş
Although it's said thatPersian is sweet as sugar,
But, for me Kurdish is sweeter than sugar
Clearly, in this perfidious world,
Everyone is happy with his own beautiful mother tongue.
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Bajelani is a Gorani dialect[3] with about 59,000 speakers, predominately aroundMosul,[22] nearKhanaqin and near the Khosar valley.[6]
Hewrami (Gurani:هەورامی,romanized: Hewramî) also known asAvromani,Awromani,Hawrami, orHorami, is a Gorani dialect and is regarded as the most archaic one.[23] It is mostly spoken in theHawraman region, a mountainous region located in westernIran (Iranian Kurdistan) and northeasternIraq (Iraqi Kurdistan). There are around 23,000 speakers, and it was classed as "definitely endangered" by UNESCO in 2010.[24]
Due to concerns with the decline of Hawrami speakers, as people move away from the Hawraman region to cities likeErbil, Jamal Habibullah Faraj Bedar, a retired teacher from Tawela, decided to translate the Qur'an from Arabic into Hawrami. The translation took two and a half months and 1000 copies of the publication were printed in Tehran.[24]
Sarli is spoken in northern Iraq by a cluster of villages[25] north of theLittle Zab river,[26] on the confluence of theKhazir River and theGreat Zab river, just west-northwest of the city ofKirkuk.[27] It has fewer than 20,000 speakers.[28] Many speakers have been displaced by conflicts in the region.[29] It is reportedly most similar toBajelani[29] but is also similar toShabaki.[30] It containsKurdish,Turkish andPersian influences, like its neighbours Bajelani and Shabaki.[31]
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | |||||||
| Plosive | aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | t͡ʃʰ | kʰ | q | [ʔ] | ||
| voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ɡ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | x | ħ | h | ||
| voiced | (v) | ð | z | ʒ | (ʁ) | (ʕ) | |||
| Lateral | plain | l | |||||||
| velarized | ɫ | ||||||||
| Rhotic | tap | ɾ | |||||||
| trill | r | ||||||||
| Approximant | w | j | |||||||
All voiceless plosives and affricates are aspirated.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Near-close | ɪ | ʊ | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Mid | ə | ||
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Near-open | æ | ||
| Open | a |
Gender distinctions in nouns are indicated by a combination of final stress and vowel/consonant ending. Masculine nouns in the nominative form are indicated by a stressed "-O", -Δ, "-U", "-E", "-A" and all consonant endings. Feminine nouns are indicated by an unstressed "-E", "-Î", a stressed "-Ê" and rarely, a stressed "-A".
There are 3 declensions. The declensions of each gender will be demonstrated as an example.
First Declension (Masculine Consonant Ending; Feminine Short Unstressed Vowel Ending)
Second Declension (Masculine Stressed Short Vowel Ending; Feminine Stressed "-Ê” Ending)
Third Declension (Stressed Long "-A" Ending)
Source[33]
| First Declension | Masculine | Feminine |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative Singular | -ø | -e,î |
| Oblique Singular | -î | -ê |
| Nominative Plural | -ê | -ê,î |
| Oblique Plural | -'a | -'a |
| Second Declension | Masculine | Feminine |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative Singular | -'e,-'î,-'o,-'u | -'ê |
| Oblique Singular | -'ey,-'î,-'oy,-'uy | -'ê |
| Nominative Plural | -'ê,-'ê,-'oê,-'uê | -'ê |
| Oblique Plural | -'a,-'a,-o'a,-,u'a | -'a |
| Third Declension | Masculine | Feminine |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative Singular | -'a | -'a |
| Oblique Singular | -'ay | -'ê |
| Nominative Plural | -'ê | -'ê |
| Oblique Plural | -ay'a | -ay'a |
Note: " ' " indicates syllable followed will be stressed
In Hawrami, definiteness and indefiniteness are marked by two independent suffixes, "-ew", and "-(e)ke".These suffixes decline for case and gender. The indefinite suffix "-ew" is declined by the first declension pattern while the definite suffix "-(e)ke" follows the second declension paradigm
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| First Person | Min | Êm'e |
| Second Person | To | Şim'e |
| Third Person | Masculine | Feminine | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | Að̞ | 'Aðe | 'Aðê |
| Oblique | 'Aðî | 'Aðê | Aðîş'a |
![Partial tree of Indo-European languages.[34]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aIndoEuropeanTree.svg)
The great majority of the Kurds speak a variety of the so-called Kurmanci or Sorani dialects; smaller numbers speak Gorani or Zaza. Although the latter two dialects are close relatives of the former two, they do not strictly speaking belong to the same branch of Indo-Iranian languages. Nonetheless, both groups are commonly thought to belong to the Nortwestern group of Iranian languages.
Zaza and Gorani are two closely related north-western Iranian languages, which are, in purely linguistic terms, distinct from Sorani and Kurmanji. However, the vast majority of their speakers claim Kurdish identity, so the issue of their definition is sensitive. One might perhaps say that Zaza and Gorani are politically and socially, if not linguistically, Kurdish.
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