Is Kurds a country?
THE KURDS are sometimes called the world’s largest nation without its own independent state. Some 30m or them are scattered mostly across Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. But since the end of the first world war, all four countries have tried to suppress the Kurds’ culture and restricted the use of the Kurdish language.
Is Kurdish Arabic?
Arabic, Persian, Kurdish, among many others, all use an Arabic-based script. In fact, Persian and Kurdish are Indo-European languages and have more in common with English and Greek than they do with Arabic. Turkish, on the other hand, belongs to yet another language family.
Do Kurds speak English?
English Language in Iraq Kurdistan Although Kurdish is the official language plenty of people in the bigger cities of Kurdistan such as Erbil and Sulaymaniyah will be able to understand basic English – especially the younger generation.
Who are the Kurds and where are they from?
Nestled on the margins of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, Kurdistan is one of the planet’s most volatile regions, and its people are the world’s largest stateless group. The Kurds are indigenous to the Middle East, but scholars and Kurdish people alike disagree as to the group’s origin.
What is it like to be a Kurdish?
But for Kurds, an ethnic group of roughly 30 million people, it is very real indeed. Nestled on the margins of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, Kurdistan is one of the planet’s most volatile regions, and its people are the world’s largest stateless group.
What language do Kurds speak in Iran?
Kurds speak the Kurdish languages and the Zaza–Gorani languages, which belong to the Western Iranian branch of the Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. After World War I and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the victorious Western allies made provision for a Kurdish state in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres.
What happened to the Kurds in the 1920s?
In response to uprisings in the 1920s and 1930s, many Kurds were resettled, Kurdish names and costumes were banned, the use of the Kurdish language was restricted, and even the existence of a Kurdish ethnic identity was denied, with people designated “Mountain Turks”.
