Kurmanji phonology

Standard Kurmanji has eight vowels. These can be differentiated by length and quality. However, vowel length is not a phonemically distinguishing feature, as one vowel phoneme is by default either long or short. There are five long and three short phonemes. The table below shows the vowel inventory of Kurmanji. Alternative descriptions for certain phonemes are included in parentheses and explained in the notes under the table. • For this particular phoneme, description in different studies varies between close-open front unrounded : and its higher neighbor open-mid front unrounded . Either way, it is marked as a single phone. • There are discussions on the existence of a short open front /a/. Many studies suggest a back long open , while there are some suggesting front open vowel . In any case, Standard Kurmanji does not differentiate between qualities or the length of this particular phoneme. Length Long vowels are the five tense vowels given as (or ), , , , and that are commonly found in other languages of the world and also known as a typical 5-vowel system. They are realized at least half a length longer than the short ones in pronunciation. Short vowels are the three more central vowels (or ), , and . The vowel in open initial syllables may be subject to shift to . The syllable may further merge with the following one if the next syllable’s onset is a post-velar fricative. • du → di “two” • tune → tine “there is not” • muhacir → mihacir → macir “refugee” • Muhemed → Mihemed → Memed “Muhammad” The long vowels and at the word-final position are subject to shortening with an excrescent glide when followed by a vowel. Both the close front vowel and the close-mid front vowel shift to , somewhere closer to the front in the mouth than , and are represented by an "i" in writing. • kanî "spring" → kaniya spî "white spring" • sêwî "orphan" → sêwiyê gundî "orphan of the village" • rê "road, way" → riya me "our way" • dê "mother" → diya min "my mother" Except for certain grammatical particles, such as prepositions li , bi , and ji , may not be at the end of a word, nor is it found in the beginning. The short round vowel also does not appear word-initially or word-finally. Epenthetic vowels Particularly, "i" is commonly found as the default epenthetic vowel to regulate syllabic structures allowed in Kurmanji phonology. Some analyses suggest the epenthetic vowel may be a schwa sound, although it is still represented by an "i". • bra → bira / "brother" • brûsk → birûsk / "thunder" • stran → sitran / "song" • spî → sipî / "white" • şkeft → şikeft / "cave" The epenthetic i, especially appearing at the end of the word, may be lost in certain conditions, such as being followed by a vowel. • eqil "mind" → eqlê selîm "sensus communis" • fehim "intelligence" → fehmatî "comprehension" Other short vowels are also used as epenthetic vowels in certain constructions, such as /æ/ in compound nouns. • rasterast “direct, straight, correct” • berfeşîr “ice cream” Regressive assimilation In Kurmanji, singular masculine nouns that include or in their final syllable are subject to regressive assimilation to high vowel when receiving the masculine oblique case suffix -(y)î, followed by the loss of the suffix. • şivan "shepherd" + -î → şivên "shepherd" (obl.) • bajar "city" + -î → bajêr "city" (obl.) The regressive assimilation may be carried to the penultimate syllable with or if the final syllable is a high vowel or . • xanî "house" + -(y)î → xênî "house" (obl.) • kevir "stone" + -î → kêvir "stone" (obl.) Dialectal shifts in vowels Several vernaculars of Northwestern Kurmanji, specifically varieties spoken in Elbistan, are subject to a significant vowel shift defined by rising and rounding: to , to , and in some instances and to . • av → "water" • ziman → "tongue" • hêstî → "bone" • li → "at" Badini Kurmanji also shows a significant dialectal deviation by fronting the long close round vowel from to (the same sound shift can be observed in Attic Greek and Zazaki). Further rounding to happens in the southernmost areas. Speakers with rounded front close vowel commonly use the umlauted u “ü” in writing. • dûr → → “far” • bûk → → “bride” ==Consonants==

The number of consonants in Standard Kurmanji is twenty-six. However, there are only twenty-three characters in the Standard Kurmanji alphabet. With the addition of aspirated voiceless plosives and pharyngeal fricatives, the number of consonants in actual spoken language may reach thirty-two. The table below shows the consonant inventory commonly found throughout Kurmanji dialects. Sounds in parentheses represent commonly observed phonemes that are nevertheless excluded as part of the standard language, or alternative descriptions of certain phonemes. • The existence of a three-way contrast in plosives is extensively discussed. However, Standard Kurmanji treats the distinction in aspiration as mostly nonexistent. • Standard Kurmanji orthography does not differentiate between voiced velar fricative and voiceless velar fricative in writing. However, they are treated as two separate phonemes. In some instances, the voiced fricative appears as uvular. • In most modern standardization efforts, pharyngeal fricatives are not treated as part of the language, and thus not included in the phonetic inventory. However, they are prominently found across dialects. • The presence of velarized lateral approximant is recorded as dialectal. • The labialized velar fricative is represented by two characters “xw” in the Standard Kurdish orthography. • While there is no orthographic standard to distinguish trilled alveolar from flapped alveolar , they act as distinct phonemes. The distinction is usually unofficially indicated in writing by double r’s (rr) for trill and single r (r) for flap. • Velar nasal only appears before the voiced velar stop . However, Haig et al. note it as a part of the phonemic inventory. Kurmanji phonology eliminates double consonants found in Arabic and Persian loans or in compound words, except in a few common loan phrases. • (Persian) ملا "mullah, religious scholar" → mela “mullah” • (Arabic) ملة "community" → milet "nation" • (Arabic) حق "truth, correctness" → heq "right, justice" • paş "after" + şîv "dinner" → paşîv "suhur, pre-dawn breakfast" Another common occurrence in daily speech is the loss of the final velar voiceless stop in many words. Usually, the elimination aims to delete the so-called "diminutive -k". • zarok → zaro "child" • serşok → serşo "bath" Labiovelars In many instances, the labialized velar fricative is a direct descendant of Proto-Indo-European . Compare xwişk “sister” with English sister from P.I.E. *swésōr, or xwe “oneself” with Latin se, sui “oneself” from P.I.E. *swé-. A common occurrence among various vernaculars is the shift from the labialized velar fricative to plain voiceless velar fricative . The shift happens at various dialects independently at different paces. The shift happening before the short vowel causes compensatory lengthening to . • xwedê → xadê “god” • xwestin → xastin “to want” Gündoğdu reports that Kurmanji spoken in Muş is breaking the near-close rounded short vowel after velars, resulting in the emergence of a set of labiovelar stops , , . While Gündoğdu treats them as separate sounds, their regular occurrence only where palatal stops are followed by the former short front round vowel presents them as allophones of the existing velar stops. • kur → "son" • gul → "rose" Aspiration Native speakers of Kurmanji retain the distinction between aspirated and non-aspirated stops and affricates. Overall, aspiration does not act as a phonemically differentiating characteristic except for a few monosyllabic instances. The few examples of minimal pairs provided by Gündoğdu are given as follows: • ker "donkey" - "deaf" • kêr "knife" - "useful" • kal "unripe" - "old man" • çil "forty" - "‘rapacious’" Several scholars have suggested that the three-way distinction in plosives is a result of a substrate borrowing from Armenian for several reasons, such as the extent of its prevalence in the Kurmanji-speaking area being mostly confined to the northern regions, its low semantic load, inconsistency among its appearence in dialects, and seeming unrelated to the original three-way stops in Proto-Iranian. Pharyngealization Several Kurmanji dialects, especially those in extensive contact with Arabic and Aramaic, are subject to the process known as pharyngealization, meaning that the pharyngeal fricatives and that are unique to Semitic languages have permeated into Kurmanji. The examples below show the pharyngeal sounds in Arabic loanwords commonly appearing in Kurmanji phonology. • (Arabic) جماعة "people, community" → cemaet "people, community" • (Arabic) عدالة "justice" → edalet "justice" • (Arabic) بحر "sea" → behr "sea" • (Arabic) حكيم "wise" → hakim "judge" In a few instances, the voice of the pharyngeal may be found shifted in Kurmanji. • (Arabic) طعم "taste" → tehm "taste" Pharyngealization in some dialects has permeated to such an extreme that these consonants have even contaminated non-Arabic vocabulary. The examples below are the Iranic words in Kurmanji that commonly show pharyngealization. • ezman → "sky" • eywan → "courtyard" • heft → "seven" • pan → "flat" An independent but parallel pharyngealization is also noted in Northern Kurmanji, which is in close contact with Caucasian languages that have their own pharyngeal inventories. • masî → "fish" • çav → "eye" • mar → "snake" The pharyngealization process is observed to have further effect in dialects that have been in most recent contact with Arabic, particularly Southwestern Kurmanji spoken in Syria. Öpengin discusses the existence of yet another distinct set of emphatic obstruents , , , . • tarî → "darkness" • das → "sickle" • sed → "hundred" • mezin → "large" Dialectal shifts in consonants A very common occurrence across dialects is the lenition of the voiced labial stop to . The shift is observed in non-grammatical morphemes in vocalic environments and is sometimes reflexed in writing by the speakers of softened b using v instead. • seba → "for the reason" • cewab → "answer" • dibim → "I become" • dibêjim → "I say" Southern Bahdini collapses the difference between labial fricatives altogether to , including the previously observed labials from . • av → "water" • zebeş → "watermelon" ==Stress==

Kurmanji is generally accepted as a stress-accent language, and it usually places the stress at the final syllable of the root word, although there are notable exceptions. There are certain rules governing the shift in stress with affixation. • With strong suffixes, such as plural nominal declension and ezafe suffixes (-ên, -an) or the infinitive suffix (-(i)n/-în), the stress shifts to the rightmost syllable. • : zarok “child(ren)” → zarokan “of children” (ez.) • : gundî “villager(s)” → gundiyan “of villagers” (ez.) • : avêt- → avêtin “to throw” • : hat- → hatin “to come” • Verbal prefixes, both preverbs (ve-, wer-, ra-, hil-) and modal prefixes (bi-, di-) and their negatives (na-/ni-, ne-, me-), are stressed and carry the primary stress all the way to the beginning. A secondary stress might appear at the original place in the root of the verb. • : geriya → digeriya , digêrin , bigêrin • : girt → hilgirt , vegirt , hildigirin , vedigirin • In the case of both preverb and modal prefix occurring, the verbal prefix takes the stress. However, in negative conjugation, the negative modal prefix dominates. • : vedigirt → venegirt • : hildigirim → hilnagirim • : radiket → raneket • : radizim → ranazim • With weak suffixes, such as the singular nominal declension (-î, -ê) and ezafe (-(y)ê, -(y)a), and verbal conjugation (-m, -î, -e, -n), the stress stays at the end of the root. • Compound words are treated as a single unit, and the stress falls on the ultimate syllable. Several example words with penultimate stress are words that are originally monosyllabic but receive epenthetic to break the illegal coda clusters, and several grammatical words. : eqil "mind" : fehim "understanding" : çawa "how" : kîjan "which" ==Orthography==

Kurmanji has been written with a multitude of alphabets. The current standard was formed by Celadet Alî Bedirxan and first used in his journal Hawar (“The Cry”), published between 1932 and 1943. Since then, the alphabet was named after the journal, the Hawar alphabet. The Hawar alphabet was inspired by the newly adopted Turkish alphabet, which was developed in 1928 and based on the Latin alphabet. The Latin-based Kurmanji alphabet was intended for Kurds in Turkey to be able to pick it up quickly, along with its suitability to represent vowels better than the former Perso-Arabic script. The Hawar alphabet is an extended Latin alphabet consisting of 31 letters, with 8 vowels and 23 consonants, and each having an uppercase and lowercase form. Sometimes in writing, speakers of pharyngealized Kurmanji vernaculars indicate the voiced pharyngeal fricative with an apostrophe (‘) and the voiceless pharyngeal fricative with an h followed by an apostrophe (h’). Bedirxan et al. also suggested using Ẍ,ẍ and Ḧ,ḧ, respectively for voiced velar fricative and voiceless pharyngeal fricative , although these characters have fallen out of use and today are not a part of the alphabet. == Notes ==