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belongs to the Iranian
subbranch of the the Indo-European family of languages.
Kurdish language is an independent language, having its own historical
development, continuity, grammatical system and rich living vocabularies.
The Kurdish language was derived from the ancient "Median" language or "Proto-Kurdish".
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spoken by
more than twenty million Kurds, a seminomadic people
inhabiting the region of Kurdistân in southwestern Asia
(parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey).
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Kurdish dialects can be divided into three primaries groups:
the Northern Kurdish dialects group also called Kurmanji and Badínaní;
Central Kurdish dialects group also called Sorani (see also basic
linguistic differences between these two major branches) and the Southern
Kurdish dialects group also called Pehlewaní or "Pahlawanik" group in some
sources. The two other major branches of Kurdish language are, Dimílí group
also called "Zaza" and Hewramí group also called Goraní (Gúraní) in some
sources. These are further divided into scores of dialects and sub-dialects
as well.
- Kurdish in Iran and Iraq is written using the Modified Arabic
alphabet. In Turkey and Syria, it is written using the Modified
Latin alphabet (Kurdish alphabet). In these modified alphabet,
special letters are used for particular vowels. The modified Arabic
alphabet is the standard writing system in Iraqi Kurdistan and
Iranian Kurdistan. On the other hand, the modified Latin alphabet is
used mainly for Kurmancî dialect in Turkey and Syria.
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