Similarities Between Kurdish and Persian

In this episode, we compare some of the many similarities between Persian and Kurdish, with Mahtab, a Persian speaker, and Serhat, a Kurdish speaker, competing with one another with a list of words and some sentences. For any questions, suggestions for future episodes, or any feedback, contact us on Instagram:

Kurdish and Persian are both classified as Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It should be noted that the Kurdish spoken in this video is Kurmanji, as the Kurdish language is divided into three dialect groups known as Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji), Central Kurdish (Sorani), and Southern Kurdish (Palewani). The Zaza–Gorani languages also has millions of native speakers. The Persian language (Farsi) is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and some other parts of the Middle East, South and Central Asia, in what is sometimes called, Greater Iran. The Persians and Kurds have had a long historical connection with one another and so have the languages. Despite many common words between the two languages, the grammatical relations are a bit different.

[BahadorAlast]

As you enjoy this video, we want to announce that our daughter, Serena, was born earlier this week. She’s very healthy and both Shahrzad and Serena are doing great. As you can imagine, we’re going to be very busy in the coming weeks. However, we definitely plan to continue making language videos, so stay tuned for some great upcoming episodes, and please contact us on Instagram for any suggestions, questions or feedback!

[iranikhorasan]

I love kurdish people. Greetings from Tajikistan 🇹🇯🇹🇯🇹🇯🇹🇯🇹🇯🇹🇯🇹🇯🇹🇯🇹🇯

[PlayfreakProductions]

I am kurd from Bakur. Much love for our persian brothers <3

[SC-luvv]

i am kurdish and speak kurmanji. i can also speak persian very good. i have learned it very fast because its so similar. kurds and persians are brothers. god bless them🙏🏻

[ПавелМорев-зю]

Love kurdistan🇹🇯♥️ Love iran🇮🇷♥️ Love afganistan🇦🇫♥️from tajikistan 🇹🇯♥️

[TolaTheKurd]

Very nice video keep it up im kurdish myself and its great to see love in the air

[kareass]

Kurdish and persian are blood brothers.

[thekurdishgirl]

l'm kurdish

کا بزانم چەند کوردی لێیە لایک بکەن دەی کوردە حەیاتەکان😃

[elementelement]

A few comments for people that are interested.

The person in this video speaks Northern dialect of kurdish (Kurmanji), which has preserved a lot of complicated grammatical structures that has been lost in farsi or to some extend in central kurdish (Sorani) and southern kurdish Kurmanji for example has several tenses, nouns have gender, past tense is ergative (same in sorani) etc.
It's a bit like if kurmanji was German, fasi would be English. The relationships are similar in a (grammar structural) sense.

(Btw. I am myself a native speaker of southern kurdish and not the dialect spoken here, though I understand it fairly fluently.)
(See bottom for rough pronounciation of kurdish words as written her in kurdish alphabet.)

1) In the sentence (I have 24 friends): "Man 24 ta doost daram".
In kurmanji they mostly use heval (hewal in sorani/feyli/...) but many regions in all dialect groups also use dûst/dûs. I don't think they do in Van, where he is from. A more important thing is that southern kurdish (feyli/kalhori) has, like farsi, a verb for "to have": "daştin" (pronounced daashtn). However in Sorani and Kurmanji such verb does not exist and possession is formulated in a very different way, which is why he could not recognize it. To say "to have" in kurmanji/sorani constructions with "to exist/hebûn" are used.

In my dialect (feyli) we would say (similar to farsi): Min 24 dûs/hewal dirim.
In kurmanji it would be something like: 24 hevalên min hene (direct meaning: 24 friends of mine exist, or in rough farsi: 24 doostane man hastand).

2) In sentence: "Ez îşev tixe bikim" (pronounced: az ishav tkha bkm).
The reason she thought it meant last night, rather than tonight is because the "az" is misleading. In farsi "az" means "from", but in kurmanji it means "I". This is one of the features lost in many modern iranic languages, but preserved in kurmanji. In english we have lost all distinction between object and subject forms of nouns, but they exist for pronouns! For example there is a difference between "I" vs "me", or "he" vs "him", "she" vs "her" etc. This distinction exists in kurmanji too (also for nouns there actually), but not in farsi.

English Kirmanji Farsi
I/me Ez/min Man/man
You/you Tu/te To/to
He/him Ew/Wê Uu/uu (او)
She/her Ew/Wî Uu/uu

Note not only difference between nominative vs oblique case (object vs subject), but also between genders.

Had he instead of "Ez îşev tixe bikim", said "min îşev tixe bikim", I think she would've not misunderstood this part. But in kurmanji that is wrong grammar. It would sound like saying "Me work tonight" rather than "I work tonight". This difference does not exist in farsi or sorani/feyli/kalhori.

Another issue is that future tense works differently in these two languages (and in his local dialect, it's slightly different from "standard kurmanji"). This makes the verb part hard to understand for persian speakers.


3) Phonology: the guy in the video mentions (9:21) that it sounds similar to farsi even if the doesnt understand the sentence.
This is good observation. When it comes to phonology, kurmanji is more similar to farsi than for example sorani or feyli, despite the fact that sorani/feyli are linguistically more similar to farsi. For example where there are hard "v" and "b" sounds in kurmanji/farsi, there are often softer "w" like sounds in more southern regions. Like baran vs waran, behar vs wehar, berf vs wefr etc.

4) As mentioned in the video "pirr" is used as "a lot/many/much" in kurmanji. But in other dialects of kurdish the meaning is similar to "por" in farsi, meaning full.

5) As observed by the girl in the video, verb endings in kurdish (all dialcts) use short vowels while (standard) farsi uses long vowels. Some local dialects of farsi and lori do however use shorter vowels too. For example instead of "Kardan", we would say "Kirdin" (pronounced as kr-dn) ("i" is a very shorth vowel).


Ps. when writing in kurdish above, "e" is pronounced as "a" in english. While "a" in kurdish is pronounced a long "a/آ". And the "i" is almost not pronounced. When writing in farsi, I have used english alphabet pronounciation.

[nadianejad]

Kurds & Persians are brothers and will always be! <3 We are ONE family <3 Try with a sorani-speaker from Iran next time - there are much more similarities :D Almost the same. The Sorani-dialect of Kurdish is much closer to Persian than the Kurmanji-dialect of Kurdish :D

[CyrusCadusi]

I am Talysh from Talysh region of Rep. of Azerbaijan. For me very easy to recognise both Persian & Kurdish words. Kurdish people are same as Talyshs Median origin why they more close to Talysh people than to Persian. Very good tasks.

[abdulsatarkawa]

I’m a Persian but I love Kurdish people❤️❤️❤️❤️
We have got same nationalities

[gurbanaarongulman]

I am Talysh(born in Russia, lived in South Carolina and Brooklyn, Beijing and currently residing in the U.K.😂)and it is so crazy that I can actually understand y’all. Well obviously we all belong to the same language fam but hey still so much fun!

BTW, the guy to the left gives me Chester Bennington kinda vibe and I am a huge freaking fan of Linkik Park. Much love to y’all!

[Diranlou]

I am Kurdish and I really really enjoyed this video! thank you so much.

[fatma]

I’m Turk from Azerbajian 🇦🇿 and I love Kurdish & Persian ❤️

[simamohamed]

I'm Kurdish and honestly, I understood more of the Farsi than I did the Kurdish. It just goes to show how different the Sorani and Kurmanji dialect is.

[rostamdamavandi]

Makes sense. Both Kurdish and Persian are linguistically Iranian languages. It's really cool to see the similarities!

[vistamoba]

I am persian but i love kurds i have it in my blood

[Evecaliaz]

I expected the Soranî dialect but it was the Kurmancî dialect. Made me very happy and excited considering that is my dialect. Great video! I would love to see a ’turkish vs. uzbek’ or ’turkish vs. turkmen’ video!

[shadangarib]

Zazaki, sorani, badini, gorani and etc who cares ? As long as we all stand together. We are all kurdish and that's what matters. 💕