Kurds or Kurdish people are an Iranic ethnic group native to a mountainous region of Western Asia known as Kurdistan, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria. There are exclaves of Kurds in Central Anatolia, Khorasan, and the Caucasus, as well as significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities of western Turkey and Western Europe. The Kurdish population is estimated to be between 30 and 45 million.
The Kurdish languages constitute a dialect continuum spoken by Kurds in Kurdistan and the Kurdish diaspora. The three Kurdish languages are Northern Kurdish, Central Kurdish, and Southern Kurdish. A separate group of non-Kurdish Northwestern Iranian languages, the Zaza–Gorani languages, are also spoken by several million ethnic Kurds. Studies as of 2009 estimate between 8 and 20 million native Kurdish speakers in Turkey. Kurdish consists of two standard written forms; Kurmanji and Sorani. The majority of the Kurds speak Kurmanji.
The Kurds, are an Iranian ethnic group in the Middle East. They have historically inhabited the mountainous areas to the south of Lake Van and Lake Urmia, a geographical area collectively referred to as Kurdistan. Most Kurds speak Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) or Sorani, which both belong to the Kurdish languages.
Kurmanji, also termed Northern Kurdish, is the northern dialect of the Kurdish languages, spoken predominantly in southeast Turkey, northwest and northeast Iran, northern Iraq, northern Syria and the Caucasus and Khorasan regions. It is the most widely spoken form of Kurdish, and is a native language to some non-Kurdish minorities in Kurdistan as well, including Armenians, Chechens, Circassians, and Bulgarians.
Newroz or Nawroz is the celebration of the traditional Iranian peoples' New Year holiday of Nowruz in Kurdish culture. Before the Islamization of the Iranic peoples in Asia, some ancestors of the modern Kurds followed Zoroastrianism. In Zoroastrian doctrine, fire is a symbol of light, goodness and purification. Angra Mainyu, the demonic anti-thesis of Zoroastrianism, was defied by Zoroastrians with a big fire every year, which symbolized their defiance of and hatred for evil and the arch-demon. In Kurdish legend, the holiday celebrates the deliverance of the Kurds from a tyrant, and it is seen as another way of demonstrating support for the Kurdish cause. The celebration coincides with the March equinox which usually falls on 21 March and is usually held between 18 and 24 March. The festival has an important place in terms of Kurdish identity for the majority of Kurds, mostly in Iraq, Turkey and Syria. Though celebrations vary, people generally gather together to welcome the coming of spring; they wear coloured clothes and dance together.
Jews of Kurdistan are the ancient Eastern Jewish communities, inhabiting the region known as Kurdistan roughly covering parts of northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey. Until their immigration to Israel in the 1940s and early 1950s, the Jews of Kurdistan lived as closed ethnic communities. The Jews of Kurdistan largely spoke Aramaic and Kurdish dialects, in particular the Kurmanji dialect in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Celadet Bedir Khan or Celadet Bedirkhan, also known as Mîr Celadet, was a Kurdish diplomat, writer, linguist, journalist and political activist. He held a master's degree in law from Istanbul University, completed his studies in Munich, and spoke several languages including Arabic, Kurdish, Russian, German, Turkish, Persian and French. He left Turkey in 1923 when the Kemalists declared a new republic. In 1927, at a Kurdish conference held in Beirut, a committee was formed, the Xoybûn. He is known for having been the first modern linguist to compile and organise the grammar of the modern form of the Northern Kurdish language, Kurmanji, and having designed the Latin-based Hawar alphabet, which is now the formal alphabet of Kurmanji and is also frequently used for the other dialects of the Kurdish Language, having replaced the Arabic-based, Cyrillic-based, Persian-based and Armenian-based alphabets formerly used for Kurmanji.
Jamal Nebez was a Kurdish linguist, mathematician, politician, author, translator and writer. He studied Islamic law, philosophy, theology, physics and mathematics at the University of Baghdad in the 1950s. In 1956, he prepared a stenciled script on algebra and in 1960, succeeded in publishing the first physics book in Kurdish, including a rich glossary of Kurdish terms pertaining to physics and mathematics. He translated several literary works, including works of Nikolai Gogol and William Shakespeare into Kurdish. He also wrote and published several books on a variety of topics. Most of the books are mainly about topics related to Kurds.
The Kurdish population of Syria is that country's largest ethnic minority, comprising between 7% and 10% of the country's population according to most sources.
Kurdish literature is literature written in the Kurdish languages. Literary Kurdish works have been written in each of the four main languages: Zaza, Gorani, Kurmanji and Sorani. Ali Hariri (1009-1079) is one of the first well-known poets who wrote in Kurdish. He was from the Hakkari region.
Kurdish PEN or the Kurdish Centre of the International PEN is a branch of International PEN. It was suggested by Kurdish writer Hüseyin Erdem and voted into existence during International PEN's conference in Cambridge in 1988. Its headquarters are located in Cologne, Germany. The Kurdish PEN Center actively works with Kurdish writers in all parts of Kurdistan to promote the Kurdish language and literature. The Center is headed by Dr. Zaradachet Hajo.
Kurdish nationalism holds that the Kurdish people are deserving of a sovereign nation that would be partitioned out of areas in Turkey, northern Iraq, and Syria based on the promised nation of Kurdistan under the Treaty of Sèvres.
Adel Karasholi is a German and Arabic writer of Syrian Kurdish origin.
The problem of Kurdish refugees and displaced people arose in the 20th century in the Middle East, and continues to loom today. The Kurds, are an ethnic group in Western Asia, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES), also known as Rojava, is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing sub-regions in the areas of Afrin, Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij and Deir Ez-Zor. The region gained its de facto autonomy in 2012 in the context of the ongoing Rojava conflict and the wider Syrian Civil War, in which its official military force, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has taken part.
Anti-Kurdish sentiment, also known as anti-Kurdism or Kurdophobia, is the hostility, fear, intolerance or racism against the Kurdish people, Kurdish culture, or Kurdish languages. A person who holds such positions is sometimes referred to as a "Kurdophobe".
Syrians in Germany refers to Syrian immigrants to Germany, as well as their descendants. This includes Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Assyrians as well as smaller minorities from Syria. The number of Syrians in Germany is estimated at around 600,000 people in December 2016 and consists mainly of refugees of the Syrian Civil War. Some other sources claim 200,000 estimated Syrian citizens to reside within Germany as of September 2015. Among German districts, Bonn and Wiesbaden had the highest shares of Syrian migrants in 2011, according to German Census data.
Haco is a Japanese singer
Kâmuran Ali Bedirxan was a Kurdish politician, lawyer and writer.
