Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Kurds
- The Cambridge History of the Kurds
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Additional material
- Introduction
- Part I Historical Legacies
- Part II Regional Political Developments and the Kurds in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Part III Domestic Political Developments and the Kurds in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Part IV Religion and Society
- Part V Kurdish Language
- 24 The History of Kurdish and the Development of Literary Kurmanji
- 25 The History and Development of Literary Central Kurdish
- 26 The Kırmanjki (Zazaki) Dialect of Kurdish Language and the Issues It Faces
- Part VI Art, Culture and Literature
- Part VII Transversal Dynamics
- Index
- References
24 - The History of Kurdish and the Development of Literary Kurmanji
from Part V - Kurdish Language
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2021
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Kurds
- The Cambridge History of the Kurds
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Additional material
- Introduction
- Part I Historical Legacies
- Part II Regional Political Developments and the Kurds in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Part III Domestic Political Developments and the Kurds in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Part IV Religion and Society
- Part V Kurdish Language
- 24 The History of Kurdish and the Development of Literary Kurmanji
- 25 The History and Development of Literary Central Kurdish
- 26 The Kırmanjki (Zazaki) Dialect of Kurdish Language and the Issues It Faces
- Part VI Art, Culture and Literature
- Part VII Transversal Dynamics
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter tackles several interrelated issues around the Kurdish language. It provides a general internal classification of Kurdish varieties, proposing also a theoretically informed distinction between language history and collective identity perceptions of speakers to resolve the classification disputes around Zazaki and Gorani varieties. ‘Kurdish’ in this sense is considered more a sociolinguistic unit than a purely linguistic entity. The chapter then provides summary discussion of the position of Iranian philology on the history of Kurdish, whereby it is shown that Kurdish is not in a direct descendant relationship with any of the known languages of the Old and Middle Iranian periods. The chapter traces the history of written and literary Kurmanji Kurdish. The rise of literary or written code in Kurmanji is shown to have taken place in late sixteenth century within the wider sociopolitical context of, on one hand, the emergence of powerful Kurdish principalities and widespread madrasa education, and, on the other hand, a general trend in the vernacularization of local community languages in Kurdistan. Finally, the development of modern Kurmanji as a polycentric variety is discussed and the current approximation of written norms are projected to merge in a more comprehensive plurinormative Kurmanji standard.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of the Kurds , pp. 603 - 632Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
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