This section discuss views related to recent letter by 53 writers in Silémaní who are asking President M. Barezani for promoting Central Kurdish dialect (Soraní) and writing system as official standard language of KRG. The letter was published in in Hawillatí newspaper on Sunday 20/04/2008. The media coverage is represented at In Focus Articlessection. For participating in this debate please apply for KAL’s membership.

Dialectology is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features. Dialectology treats such topics as divergence of two local dialects from a common ancestor and synchronic variation. Dialectologists are ultimately concerned with grammatical and phonological features that correspond to regional areas. Thus they usually deal with populations that have lived in certain areas for generations, but also with migrant groups that bring their languages to new areas. What these concepts mean in Kurdish case?

In this forum you mah have your say about your native Kurdish dialect, its geographic area, native names, idioms, how you preserve it, do you practice it in written form, what are your advise to other in learning writing and speaking their dialect.

Etymology is the study of the history of words and how their form and meaning have changed over time. For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages, and texts about the languages, to gather knowledge about how words were used at earlier stages, and when they entered the languages in question. This may not be a straight forward process in Kurdish language. The amount of Kurdish written works is far insufficient compare to the wide vocabulary of modern Kurdish. The classic Kurdish vocabulary has been largely influenced by Arabic and Persian as well as Armenian literatures. Study historical etymology is a fascinating linguistic branch which needs well trained linguistic mind to logically solve etymological puzzles. This discussion is open to everyone who believes that their views are most logical one. Please join us to discuss root finding.

Kurdish as a modern language needs to enrich its vocabulary to meet the requirement of rapid growth of terminologies in many areas such as economy, IT, sport, Medical, Science and .. In many countries this process is regulated by national linguistic academy which observes the needs in different areas. Here we discuss how this practice take place in Kurdistan and what are the positive and negative impacts.

In your opinion, does Kurdish language need an alphabet reform toward creating a unified writing system to allow for the writing of all dialectal variations in Kurdish? If the answer is yes, what writing system do you prefer? (Please become a member to add your opinion)