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Kurdish alphabets
Kurdish is most commonly written using either of two alphabets: the Latin-based Bedirxan or Hawar alphabet, introduced by Celadet Alî Bedirxan in 1932 and popularized through the Hawar magazine, and the Kurdo-Arabic alphabet. The Kurdistan Region has agreed upon a standard for Central Kurdish, implemented in Unicode for computation purposes. The Hawar alphabet is primarily used in Syria and Turkey, while the Kurdo-Arabic alphabet is commonly used in Iraq and Iran. The Hawar alphabet is also used to some extent in Iraqi Kurdistan. Two additional alphabets, based on the Armenian and Cyrillic scripts, were once used by Kurds in the Soviet Union, most notably in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and Kurdistansky Uyezd. Southern Kurdish lacks a standard orthography, as of 2024.
Usually it is the northern languages spoken by Kurds, Zazaki and Kurmanji, that are written in the extended Latin alphabet consisting of the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin Alphabet with 5 letters with diacritics, for a total of 31 letters (each having an uppercase and a lowercase form):
In this alphabet the short vowels are E, I and U while the long vowels are A, Ê, Î, O and Û (see the IPA equivalents in the Help:IPA/Kurdish table).
When presenting the alphabet in his magazine Hawar, Celadet Alî Bedirxan proposed using diacritics on ⟨ḧ ẍ⟩ to distinguish the Arabic غ and ح sounds (see [1] page 12, 13). These are not considered letters, but are used to disambiguate loanwords that would otherwise be conflated.
Turkey does not recognize this alphabet. Using the letters Q, W, and X, which did not exist in the Turkish alphabet until 2013, led to a trial in 2000 and 2003 (see [2], p. 8, and [3]). Since September 2003, many Kurds applied to the courts seeking to change their names to Kurdish ones written with these letters, but failed.
The Turkish government finally legalized the letters Q, W, and X as part of the Turkish alphabet in 2013.
The Kurdish Latin alphabet was elaborated mainly by Celadet Bedirxan who initially had sought the cooperation of Tewfîq Wehbî, who in 1931 lived in Iraq. But after not having received any responses by Wehbî for several months, he and his brother Kamuran Alî Bedirxan decided to launch the "Hawar" alphabet in 1932. Celadet Bedirxan aimed to create an alphabet that wrote each sound with its own letter. As the Kurds in Turkey already learned the Turkish Latin alphabet, he created an alphabet which would specifically be accessible for the Kurds in Turkey. Some scholars have suggested making minor additions to Bedirxan's alphabet to make it more user-friendly.
Many Kurdish varieties, mainly Sorani, are written using a modified Perso-Arabic script with 33 letters introduced by Sa'id Kaban Sedqi. Unlike the Persian alphabet, which is an abjad, Central Kurdish is almost a true alphabet in which vowels are given the same treatment as consonants. Written Central Kurdish also relies on vowel and consonant context to differentiate between the phonemes u/w and î/y instead of using separate letters. It does show the two pharyngeal consonants, as well as a voiced velar fricative, used in Kurdish.
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Kurdish alphabets
Kurdish is most commonly written using either of two alphabets: the Latin-based Bedirxan or Hawar alphabet, introduced by Celadet Alî Bedirxan in 1932 and popularized through the Hawar magazine, and the Kurdo-Arabic alphabet. The Kurdistan Region has agreed upon a standard for Central Kurdish, implemented in Unicode for computation purposes. The Hawar alphabet is primarily used in Syria and Turkey, while the Kurdo-Arabic alphabet is commonly used in Iraq and Iran. The Hawar alphabet is also used to some extent in Iraqi Kurdistan. Two additional alphabets, based on the Armenian and Cyrillic scripts, were once used by Kurds in the Soviet Union, most notably in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and Kurdistansky Uyezd. Southern Kurdish lacks a standard orthography, as of 2024.
Usually it is the northern languages spoken by Kurds, Zazaki and Kurmanji, that are written in the extended Latin alphabet consisting of the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin Alphabet with 5 letters with diacritics, for a total of 31 letters (each having an uppercase and a lowercase form):
In this alphabet the short vowels are E, I and U while the long vowels are A, Ê, Î, O and Û (see the IPA equivalents in the Help:IPA/Kurdish table).
When presenting the alphabet in his magazine Hawar, Celadet Alî Bedirxan proposed using diacritics on ⟨ḧ ẍ⟩ to distinguish the Arabic غ and ح sounds (see [1] page 12, 13). These are not considered letters, but are used to disambiguate loanwords that would otherwise be conflated.
Turkey does not recognize this alphabet. Using the letters Q, W, and X, which did not exist in the Turkish alphabet until 2013, led to a trial in 2000 and 2003 (see [2], p. 8, and [3]). Since September 2003, many Kurds applied to the courts seeking to change their names to Kurdish ones written with these letters, but failed.
The Turkish government finally legalized the letters Q, W, and X as part of the Turkish alphabet in 2013.
The Kurdish Latin alphabet was elaborated mainly by Celadet Bedirxan who initially had sought the cooperation of Tewfîq Wehbî, who in 1931 lived in Iraq. But after not having received any responses by Wehbî for several months, he and his brother Kamuran Alî Bedirxan decided to launch the "Hawar" alphabet in 1932. Celadet Bedirxan aimed to create an alphabet that wrote each sound with its own letter. As the Kurds in Turkey already learned the Turkish Latin alphabet, he created an alphabet which would specifically be accessible for the Kurds in Turkey. Some scholars have suggested making minor additions to Bedirxan's alphabet to make it more user-friendly.
Many Kurdish varieties, mainly Sorani, are written using a modified Perso-Arabic script with 33 letters introduced by Sa'id Kaban Sedqi. Unlike the Persian alphabet, which is an abjad, Central Kurdish is almost a true alphabet in which vowels are given the same treatment as consonants. Written Central Kurdish also relies on vowel and consonant context to differentiate between the phonemes u/w and î/y instead of using separate letters. It does show the two pharyngeal consonants, as well as a voiced velar fricative, used in Kurdish.
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