Gorani language

This article is about the language spoken by Kurds. For the Slavic dialect, see Gorani dialect.
"Gurani language" redirects here. Not to be confused with the Guarani language.

Gorani
گۆرانی
Goranî
Native toIraq and Iran
RegionKurdistan (Primarily Hawraman, also Garmian and Nineveh), Kermanshah province
Native speakers
300,000 (2008)[1]
DialectsHawraman-I Luhon[3]
Hawraman-I Taxt[4]
Kakai[5]
Gawhara[6]
Kandula[7]
Zardayana[8]
Shabaki[9][10]
Ṣārlī[11][10]
Bāǰalāni (Bēǰwān)[12][13]
Gawrajuyi[14]
Kurdish alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3Variously:
hac – Gorani (Gurani)
sdb – Shabaki
sdf – Sarli
bjm – Bajelani
Glottologgura1251
ELP
Linguasphere58-AAA-b
Gorani (Hawrami) is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO
Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Gorani or Gurani[15] (Kurdish: گۆرانی, romanized: Goranî, lit. 'song'),[16] also known by the name of its main dialect, Hawrami (ھەورامی, romanized: Hewramî), is a Northwestern Iranian language[17][18][19][20][21] spoken in small pockets in northeastern Iraq and northwestern Iran.[20]

Gorani is spoken in Iraq and Iran and has four dialects: Bajelani, Hawrami, and Sarli, some sources also include the Shabaki as a dialect of Gorani as well.[10] Of these, Hawrami was the traditional literary language and koiné of Kurds in the historical Ardalan region at the Zagros Mountains,[22][23] but has since been supplanted by Central Kurdish and Southern Kurdish.[24] Gorani is a literary language for many Kurds.[25]

Etymology

The term Goran appears to be of Indo-Iranian origin. The name may be derived from the old Avestan word, gairi, which means mountain.[26]

Classification

Gurani is a member of the Indo-European language family, belonging to the Northwestern Iranian branch of Iranian languages.[21][17]

The Ethnologue classifies it within a genetic subgroup called Zaza-Gorani, along with Zaza, within the Northwestern Iranian languages.[27] However, despite some similarities, significant linguistic differences were found between the two languages.[28][29]

The Glottolog database proposes a detailed classification and classifies it within the Adharic subgroup.[30]

Dialects

Gorani comprises a group of similar Northwestern Iranian dialects and consist of Kandula, Bāǰalānī, Šabaki, Ṣārlī and Hawrāmāni (Avromān).

Gorani dialects consist of Hawramani, Kakai, Zardayana, Bajalani and Shabaki.[20][17]

Gorani dialects lack gender and case, except for Hawrāmi.[31][32][33]

Bajelani

Bajelani is a Gorani dialect[10] with about 59,000 speakers, predominately around Mosul,[34] near Khanaqin and near the Khosar valley.[35]

Hewrami

Hewrami (Gurani: هەورامی, romanized: Hewramî) also known as Avromani, Awromani , Hawrami, or Horami, is a Gorani dialect and is regarded as the most archaic one.[36] It is mostly spoken in the Hawraman region, a mountainous region located in western Iran (Iranian Kurdistan) and northeastern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan). There are around 23,000 speakers, and it was classed as "definitely endangered" by UNESCO in 2010.[37]

Due to concerns with the decline of Hawrami speakers, as people move away from the Hawraman region to cities like Erbil, 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.[37]

Sarli

Sarli is spoken in northern Iraq by a cluster of villages[38] north of the Little Zab river,[39] on the confluence of the Khazir River and the Great Zab river, just west-northwest of the city of Kirkuk.[40] It has fewer than 20,000 speakers.[41] Many speakers have been displaced by conflicts in the region.[42] It is reportedly most similar to Bajelani[42] but is also similar to Shabaki.[43] It contains Kurdish, Turkish and Persian influences, like its neighbours Bajelani and Shabaki.[44]

Shabaki

Main article: Shabaki language

Phonology

Consonants

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.

  • A glottal stop [ʔ] may be heard before a word-initial vowel, but is not phonemic.
  • Sounds /ʕ ʁ/ only occur in loanwords.
  • /x/ can also be heard as [χ] among different dialects.
  • /q/ can also be aspirated as [qʰ].
  • The voiced /d/ may be lenited in post-vocal positions, and occur as a voiced dental approximant [ð̞]. In the Nawsud dialects, /d/ can be heard as an alveolar approximant sound [ɹ], and may also be devoiced when occurring in word-final positions as [ɹ̥].
  • In the Nawsud and Nodša dialects, a word-initial /w/ can be heard as a [v] or a labialized [vʷ].
  • /n/ when preceding velar consonants, is heard as a velar nasal [ŋ].[45]

Vowels

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
  • Sounds /æ ə/ both can be realized as an open-mid [ɛ].[45]

Speakers

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 the Documentation 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 to Sorani or not. Many speakers of Gorani in Iran also speak Sorani, Persian, as well as Southern Kurdish. Most speakers in Iraq also speak Sorani, while some also speak Mesopotamian 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.[46][47][48][49] Gorani is linguistically distinct from the Kurdish language[10][35][50] although the great majority of its speakers consider their language to be Kurdish[a][52][53][54][35] while some oppose it and emphasize their own identity distinct from the Kurds.[55][56]

Literature

Main article: Ardalan § Gorani Culture in Ardalan

Under the independent rulers of Ardalan (9th–14th / 14th–19th century), with their capital latterly at Sanandaj, 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, or Yarsanism, centered on Gahvara. 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 is Mele Perîşan, author of a masnavi of 500 lines on the Shi'ite faith who is reported to have lived around 1356–1431. Other poets are known from the 17th–19th centuries and include Shaykh Mustafa Takhtayi, Khana Qubadi, Yusuf Yaska, Mistefa Bêsaranî and Khulam Rada Khan Arkawazi. One of the last great poets to complete a book of poems (divan) in Gurani is Mawlawi Tawagozi south of Halabja.

The Kurdish Shahnameh 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 by Almas 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 from Persian literature including: Bijan and Manijeh, Khurshid-i Khawar, Khosrow and Shirin, Layla and Majnun, Shirin and Farhad, Haft Khwan-i Rostam and Sultan Jumjuma. Manuscripts of these works are currently preserved in the national libraries of Berlin, London, and Paris.

Example of Gorani poetry

An excerpt from Şîrîn û Xesrew (Shirin and Khosrow), written in 1740 by Khana Qubadî:[57]

Herçen mewaçan: Fersî şekeren
Kurdî ce şeker bell şîrînteren
Yeqînen ce dewr dunyay pirr endêş
Herkes dillşaden we ziwan wêş

Translation:

Although it's said that Persian 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.

  • Partial tree of Indo-European languages.[58]
    Partial tree of Indo-European languages.[58]

References

  1. ^ Gorani (Gurani) at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
    Shabaki at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
    Sarli at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
    Bajelani at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ A Working Classification
  3. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Hawraman-I Luhon". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  4. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Hawraman-I Taxt". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  5. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Kakai". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  6. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Gawhara". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  7. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Kandula". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  8. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Zardayana". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  9. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Shabaki". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  10. ^ a b c d e "Gurani". Iranica Online. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  11. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Sarli". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  12. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Bajelani". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  13. ^ "Bajalan". Iranica Online. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  14. ^ Paul et al. 2020, pp. 1–2.
  15. ^ Minorsky (1943), p. 77.
  16. ^ Gunter, Michael M. (2018). Historical Dictionary of the Kurds. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 127. ISBN 978-1538110508.
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  19. ^ "639 Identifier Documentation: Gurani [hac]". SIL International. 2025. Retrieved 12 February 2025.
  20. ^ a b c MacKenzie, David Neil (2002). "GURĀNI". Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 12 February 2025.
  21. ^ a b Joyce Blau (1989), «Le gûranî» in R. Schmitt (ed.), Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, Wiesbaden, Reichert, p. 336.
  22. ^ Ara, Behrooz Chaman (2015). Chaman Ara, Behrooz. The Kurdish Shahnama and its Literary and Religious Implications. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1511523493.
  23. ^ "چمن‌آرا، ب، "درآمدی بر ادب حماسی و پهلوانی کُردی با تکیه بر شاهنامه کُردی"، جستارهای ادبی، سال چهل و چهارم، بهار ۱۳۹۰، شماره ۱۷۲".
  24. ^ Meri, Josef W., Medieval Islamic Civilization: A–K, index. p. 444
  25. ^ Ara, Behrooz Chaman; Amiri, Cyrus (8 August 2018). "Gurani: practical language or Kurdish literary idiom?". British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 45 (4): 627–643. doi:10.1080/13530194.2018.1430536. ISSN 1353-0194. S2CID 148611170.
  26. ^ Peterson, Joseph H. "Avestan Dictionary".
  27. ^ "Zaza-Gorani". Ethnologue. 2025. Retrieved 12 February 2025.
  28. ^ Hadank, Karl (1932). Mundarten der Zâzâ, Hauptsächlich aus Siwerek und Kor (in German). Walter de Gruyter. pp. 24-26.
  29. ^ Gholami, Saloumeh (2022). "Classification of the Zazaki language based on the perspectives of perceptual dialectology and comparative linguistics". Iranian Journal of Comparative Linguistic Research. 11 (11): 27–28.
  30. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Adharic". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  31. ^ Gholami, Saloumeh (2024). Gorani in Its Historical and Linguistic Context:. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 73, 88. ISBN 978-3111168685. Gorani and Hawrami use identical grammatical morphemes, but Gorani lacks gender and case markers." "Notably, the lack of gender and case aligns Gorani with Central Kurdish, Southern Kurdish, and Laki, setting them apart from Hawrami.
  32. ^ MacKenzie 2002: "...only Hawrāmī has preserved a further consistent distinction of two grammatical genders.'"
  33. ^ Paul, Ludwig; Mahmoudveysi, Parvin; Bailey, Denise; Haig, Geoffrey (2012). The Gorani language of Gawraju (Gawrajuyi), a village of West Iran: Texts, grammar, and lexicon. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. pp. 3, 12. ISBN 978-3895008559.
  34. ^ "Bajelani". Ethnologue. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  35. ^ a b c Leezenberg, Michiel (1993). "Gorani Influence on Central Kurdish: Substratum or Prestige Borrowing?" (PDF). ILLC - Department of Philosophy, University of Amsterdam: 1. 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.
  36. ^ "Avromani". Iranica Online. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  37. ^ a b Menmy, Dana Taib (31 January 2020). "Teacher translates Quran to save endangered Kurdish dialect". Al-Monitor. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  38. ^ Bruinessen, Martin Van (1 January 2000). Mullas, Sufis and Heretics: The Role of Religion in Kurdish Society : Collected Articles. Isis Press. p. 20. ISBN 9789754281620.
  39. ^ Division, Naval Intelligence (3 September 2014). Iraq & The Persian Gulf. Routledge. p. 329. ISBN 9781136892660.
  40. ^ Sinor, Denis (1 January 1956). Proceedings of the Twenty-Third International Congress of Orientalists, Cambridge, 21st-28th August, 1954. Royal Asiatic Society. p. 178.
  41. ^ "Sarli". Ethnologue. Retrieved 7 November 2023.
  42. ^ a b "Sarli". Ethnologue. Retrieved 4 March 2017.
  43. ^ Bruinessen, Martin Van (1 January 2000). Mullas, Sufis and Heretics: The Role of Religion in Kurdish Society : Collected Articles. Isis Press. p. 300. ISBN 9789754281620.
  44. ^ Nations, League of; Wirsén, Einar Thure af (1 January 1925). Question de la frontière entre la Turquie et l'Irak (in French). Imprimeries réunies, s.a.
  45. ^ a b Mahmoudveysi, Parvin; Bailey, Denise (2018). Hawrāmī of western Iran. Geoffrey Haig and Geoffrey Khan (eds.), The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia: Berlin: DeGruyter Mouton. pp. 533–568.
  46. ^ Gorani language at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  47. ^ "Language". DOBES. Retrieved 2 June 2025.
  48. ^ "PDF.js viewer" (PDF). unesdoc.unesco.org. Retrieved 2 June 2025.
  49. ^ Pg. 47 of the Former Source
  50. ^ Allison, Christine (2007). "'The Kurds are Alive': Kurdish in Iraq". In Postgate, J. N. (ed.). Languages of Iraq, Ancient and Modern. British School of Archaeology in Iraq. pp. 138–139. ISBN 978-0-903472-21-0. 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.
  51. ^ Jügel, Thomas (15 July 2016). "Parvin Mahmoudveysi, Denise Bailey. The Gorani language of Zarda, a village of West Iran". Abstracta Iranica. 34–36. doi:10.4000/abstractairanica.41149. ISSN 0240-8910.
  52. ^ Tavadze, G. (2019). "Spreading of the Kurdish language dialects and writing systems used in the middle east". Bulletin of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences. 13 (1): 170–174. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  53. ^ Jügel, Thomas (15 July 2016). "Parvin Mahmoudveysi, Denise Bailey. The Gorani language of Zarda, a village of West Iran". Abstracta Iranica. 34–36. doi:10.4000/abstractairanica.41149. ISSN 0240-8910.
  54. ^ Sheyholislami, Jaffer (2015). "Language Varieties of the Kurds". In Taucher, W.; Vogl, M.; Webinger, P. (eds.). The Kurds: History, religion, language, politics. Vienna: Austrian Ministry of the Interior. pp. 30–51.
  55. ^ Gholami, Saloumeh (2024). Gorani in Its Historical and Linguistic Context:. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 17–22. ISBN 978-3111168685. In such contexts, they assert the distinctiveness of their ethnic and linguistic background, emphasizing the unique aspects of their Gorani heritage as separate from Kurdish identity.
  56. ^ Sadjadi, Sayyed Mahdi (2023). "Gorani: A Distinct and Independent Language Not a Variety of the So-called Kurdish" (PDF). International Journal of Language and Linguistics. 10 (3): 23–24. The use of these terms and the existence of these attitudes among both the Kurds and Gorans towards each other demonstrate that Gorani is not Kurdish and the Gorans are not Kurdish since both of them make use of such terms frequently and have such attitudes towards each other substantiating their distinction and separateness both linguistically and ethnically.
  57. ^ Xanay Qubadî, Şîrîn û Xesrew, (Saxkirdnewey Ferheng û Pîşekî: Muhemmed Mela Kerîm), Korrî Zanyarî Kurd, Bexda 1975.
  58. ^ "worldhistory". worldhistory.com by Multiple authors. Retrieved 19 December 2021.

Works cited

  • Minorsky, Vladimir (1943). "The Gūrān". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 11 (1): 75–103. Retrieved 18 October 2022.

Textbooks

Further reading

Notes

  1. ^ The speakers of Gorani considered their language as Kurdish.[51]
allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bajelani