Current issues in Kurdish linguistics
Current issues in Kurdish linguistics

Author: Songül Gündoğdu

Publisher: University of Bamberg Press

Published: 2019-11-18

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 386309686X

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Current Issues in Kurdish Linguistics contains ten contributions which span the field of Kurdish linguistics, both in terms of geography and in terms of the range of topics. Along with several works on Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish) and Sorani (Central Kurdish), two chapters shed light on the lesser-known Southern Kurdish language area. Other studies are comparative, and treat the Kurdish language area in its entirety. The linguistic approaches of the authors are a mix of formal and typological perspectives, and cover topics ranging from geographical distribution and variation to phonology, morphosyntax, discourse structure, historical morphology, and sociolinguistics. The present volume is the first of its kind in bringing together contributions from a relatively large number of linguists, working in a diverse range of frameworks and on different aspects and varieties of Kurdish. As such, it attests to the increasing breadth and sophistication now evident in Kurdish linguistics, and is a worthy launch for the new series Bamberg Studies in Kurdish Linguistics (BSKL).

Structural and Typological Variation in the Dialects of Kurdish
Structural and Typological Variation in the Dialects of Kurdish

Author: Yaron Matras

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-10-19

Total Pages: 474

ISBN-13: 3030788377

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This book offers the first comparative discussion of variation in selected areas of structure in the dialects of Kurdish. The contributions draw on data collected as part of the project on Structural and Typological Variation in Kurdish and stored in the Manchester Database of Kurdish Dialects online resource, as well as on additional data sources. The chapters address issues in lexicon, phonology, and morpho-syntax including nominal case, tense and aspect categories, pronominal clitics, adpositions, word order (with special reference to post-predicate constituents) and connectivity and complex clauses. The materials that inform the analysis consist of a systematic questionnaire-based elicitation covering key features of variation in lexicon and morpho-syntax, and an accompanying corpus of free speech recordings, collected in over 120 locations across the Kurdish-speaking regions in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran and covering mainly the dialects of Northern and Central Kurdish (Kurmani-Bahdini and Sorani), with some consideration of Southern Kurdish. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in fields such as linguistics, linguistic typology, Iranian linguistics and linguistics of the Middle East, and dialectology.

The Laki variety of Harsin
The Laki variety of Harsin

Author: Belelli, Sara

Publisher: University of Bamberg Press

Published: 2022-01-25

Total Pages: 538

ISBN-13: 3863098250

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This book presents a documentation and analysis of Harsini, the language variety spoken by the people of Harsin, a small urban centre located in south-east Kermanshah Province, western Iran. The main features of phonology and morphosyntax are outlined, and an extensive corpus of transcribed spoken texts, recorded in situ, is also provided, together with a lexicon. The book also includes comparative notes and discussion of the place of Harsini within Laki, and its relationship to Southern Kurdish. The sound files from the text corpus are available online at https://multicast.aspra.uni-bamberg.de/resources/kurdish/#laki.

The Cambridge History of the Kurds
The Cambridge History of the Kurds

Author: Hamit Bozarslan

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-04-22

Total Pages: 1027

ISBN-13: 1108583016

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The Cambridge History of the Kurds is an authoritative and comprehensive volume exploring the social, political and economic features, forces and evolution amongst the Kurds, and in the region known as Kurdistan, from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century. Written in a clear and accessible style by leading scholars in the field, the chapters survey key issues and themes vital to any understanding of the Kurds and Kurdistan including Kurdish language; Kurdish art, culture and literature; Kurdistan in the age of empires; political, social and religious movements in Kurdistan; and domestic political developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Other chapters on gender, diaspora, political economy, tribes, cinema and folklore offer fresh perspectives on the Kurds and Kurdistan as well as neatly meeting an exigent need in Middle Eastern studies. Situating contemporary developments taking place in Kurdish-majority regions within broader histories of the region, it forms a definitive survey of the history of the Kurds and Kurdistan.

Advances in Iranian Linguistics
Advances in Iranian Linguistics

Author: Richard K. Larson

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2020-07-15

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 9027260931

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This volume brings together selected papers from the first North American Conference in Iranian Linguistics, which was organized by the linguistics department at Stony Brook University. Papers were selected to illustrate the range of frameworks, diverse areas of research and how the boundaries of linguistic analysis of Iranian languages have expanded over the years. The contributions collected in this volume address advancing research and complex methodological explorations in a broad range of topics in Persian syntax, morphology, phonology, semantics, typology and classification, as well as historical linguistics. Some of the papers also investigate less-studied and endangered Iranian languages such as Tat, Gilaki and Mazandarani, Sorani and Kurmanji Kurdish, and Zazaki. The volume will be of value to scholars in theoretical frameworks as well as those with typological and diachronic perspectives, and in particular to those working in Iranian linguistics.

The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia
The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia

Author: Geoffrey Haig

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2018-12-03

Total Pages: 1183

ISBN-13: 3110421747

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The languages of Western Asia belong to a variety of language families, including Indo-European, Kartvelian, Semitic, and Turkic, but share numerous features on account of being in areal contact over many centuries. This volume presents descriptions of the modern languages, contributed by leading specialists, and evaluates similarities across the languages that may have arisen by areal contact. It begins with an introductory chapter presenting an overview of the various genetic groupings in the region and summarizing some of the significant features and issues relating to language contact. In the core of the volume the presentation of the languages is divided into five contact areas, which include (i) eastern Anatolia and northwestern Iran, (ii) northern Iraq, (iii) western Iran, (iv) the Caspian region and south Azerbaijan, and (v) the Caucasian rim and southern Black Sea coast. Each section contains chapters devoted to the languages of the area preceded by an introductory section that highlights significant contact phenomena. The volume is rounded off by an appendix with basic lexical items across a selection of the languages. The handbook features contributions by Erik Anonby, Denise Bailey, Christiane Bulut, David Erschler, Geoffrey Haig, Geoffrey Khan, Rene Lacroix, Parvin Mahmoudveysi, Hrach Martirosyan, Ludwig Paul, Stephan Procházka, Laurentia Schreiber, Don Stilo, Mortaza Taheri-Ardali, Christina van der Wal Anonby.

Gorani in Its Historical and Linguistic Context
Gorani in Its Historical and Linguistic Context

Author: Shuan Osman Karim

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2024-10-21

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 3111168859

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Gorani refers to under-documented, endangered varieties spoken in a cluster within the Zagros mountains (Iran/Iraq). These varieties possess conservative features of importance to linguists. However, their study has been plagued by nomenclature and taxonomy issues. Traditional names for these languages have been supplanted first by orientalists' prescriptions and then by their linguist heirs. Inaccurate terminology has sewn discord between speaker communities, disturbing the sociolinguistic landscape. This volume represents the state of the art of Gorani's historical and socio-linguistics, documentation, and literature, as well as an effort to aid the "decolonization" of Gorani linguistics.

Attributive constructions in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic
Attributive constructions in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic

Author: Ariel Gutman

Publisher: Language Science Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 3961100810

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This study is the first wide-scope morpho-syntactic comparative study of North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialects to date. Given the historical depth of Aramaic (almost 3 millennia) and the geographic span of the modern dialects, coming in contact with various Iranian, Turkic and Semitic languages, these dialects provide an almost pristine "laboratory" setting for examining language change from areal, typological and historical perspectives. While the study has a very wide coverage of dialects, including also contact languages (and especially Kurdish dialects), it focuses on a specific grammatical domain, namely attributive constructions, giving a theoretically motivated and empirically grounded account of their variation, distribution and development. The results will be enlightening not only to Semitists seeking to learn about this fascinating modern Semitic language group, but also for typologists and general linguists interested in the dynamics of noun phrase morphosyntax.

The Sociolinguistics of Iran’s Languages at Home and Abroad
The Sociolinguistics of Iran’s Languages at Home and Abroad

Author: Seyed Hadi Mirvahedi

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-06-29

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 3030196054

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This book examines the sociolinguistics of some of Iran’s languages at home and in the diaspora. The first part of the book examines the politics of minority languages and the presence of hegemonic discourses which favour Persian (Farsi) in Iran, exploring issues such as language maintenance and shift, linguistic ideologies and practices among Azerbaijani and Kurdish-speaking communities. The authors then go on to examine Iranians’ linguistic ideologies, practices and (trans)national identity construction in the diaspora, investigating both the challenges of maintaining a home language and the strategies and linguistic repertoires employed when constructing a diasporic identity away from home. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of minority languages and communities, diaspora and migration studies, and language policy and planning.

Language Contact in Sanandaj
Language Contact in Sanandaj

Author: Geoffrey Khan

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2023-11-06

Total Pages: 614

ISBN-13: 3111209180

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This book is a detailed study of contact-induced change in the Neo-Aramaic dialect of the Jews of Sanandaj, a town in western Iran. Since its foundation in early 17th century, the city has been home to a significant Jewish community. The Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of the town displays different historical layers of contact with various Iranian languages over the course of many centuries. The Iranian languages in question are Gorani, Kurdish, and Persian. Among these, Gorani has had a particularly deep impact on Jewish Neo-Aramaic, whereas the impact of Kurdish, and especially Persian, remains superficial. Jewish Neo-Aramaic records a history of language shift from Gorani to Kurdish in the region. The book offers insights into contact-induced change in social contexts in which a language is maintained as a demarcation of communal identity in a multilingual setting.