Structural and typological variation in the dialects of Kurdish

The goal of the project is to provide a description of some of the major differences between the dialects of Kurdish. The only comparative work on the dialects of the area was conducted by MacKenzie and published in 1961, based on eight major locations. Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq and the rise in the importance of communications in Kurdish in Iraq and lately also in neighbouring Turkey (along with the ongoing intensification of Kurdish cultural activities in northern Syria) make this a timely investigation. Using a questionnaire and samples of free speech, we will interview emigrant Kurds in England and France and, relying on the assistance of students and colleagues at the universities of Mardin (Turkey), Soran and Suleimani (Iraq), also in the Kurdish regions. We aim to cover major structural variants representing up to 50 origin locations. The results will be made freely accessible on an online database, in the form of transcriptions of words and phrases, sound files, and maps representing the location of each variant. The tool will help raise awareness of Kurdish and may support educational and language planning efforts. The project draws on a successful pilot project funded by a Small Grant from the British Academy, during which a data collection method was developed and tested, a database prototype was developed, initial samples were collected and entered into that database, and links have been establishment with three Kurdish-language departments at the universities named above, on which we shall be able to draw for fieldwork. The pilot project also established close links with immigrant Kurdish communities in England and France, on which we will rely for much of the fieldwork. Initial results of the pilot project will be visible online from February 2012 on http://kurdish.humanities.manchester.ac.uk. The project will be led by a PI (Matras) who is one of very few specialists in Kurdish linguistics, and a co-PI (Koontz-Garboden) who is a leading specialist in the study of verb semantics and verb derivational morphology and morpho-syntax. The project will thus be in a position to make a major contribution toward the application of theoretical-linguistic insights to Kurdish and to draw on Kurdish as a case study to help illuminate issues that are of interest to the general linguistic discussion in these fields. The project team will cooperate closely with Dr Salih Akin, a Kurdish linguist at Rouen University (France), who will support the project's strategy to access Kurdish communities, train fieldworkers, and interpret some of the data. The project team has also received expressions of support and assurances of cooperation in regard to the project's outreach strategy from the Kurdish Regional Government, the Kurdish Institute in Paris, and the Kurdish Library in Stockholm. The project will therefore be in the best possible position to deliver a novel and innovative contribution to the study of Kurdish, to the enrichment of linguistic-typological discussions through examples from Kurdish, and to raising general awareness of the Kurdish language and its dialect continuum.

A major non-academic beneficiary of the online resource that the project will develop will be the population of Kurds residing both in the Middle East and in western Europe and their cultural associations. Among many Kurdish communities, especially those from Turkey, knowledge of Kurdish has been in decline due to a variety of social and political factors, among them emigration and lack of educational resources in the language. The database resource and the website that hosts it will help raise awareness of the Kurdish language and will provide a practical tool for Kurds wishing to familiarise themselves with the structures and forms of other dialects of the language, as well as with constructions of the language in general. This impact has already been registered through reactions of the Kurdish communities in Manchester and in Paris. In addition, prominent Kurdish cultural organisations such as the Institut Kurde de Paris and the Kurdish Library in Stockholm, Kurdish Regional Government representatives in London and Paris, and Kurdish language departments at a number of universities in Turkey and in Iraq have taken a direct interest in the pilot project funded by the British Academy (2011-2012). The potential impact on the community is also confirmed from the experience of the applicant's projects on Romani, where a similar resource has been accessed online by well over 200,000 people from over 40 countries during just a six-year period. The online resource and the resulting publications on geographical variation in Kurdish will also assist forensic linguists engaged in Language Analyses for the Determination of Origin (LADO). The database and its mapping tool will provide a way of verifying the mapping of linguistic variables onto geographical locations and will thus be able to support individuals in their cases for asylum and immigration status. The online resource will be freely accessible and so practitioners will be able to make use of it. It will also serve as a teaching and learning tool for students of linguistics especially in the Kurdish areas, and as an opportunity to provide much needed training in Kurdish linguistics for the benefit of the newly emerging degree courses in Kurdish language in Iraq and in Turkey. The project will further extend its outreach to policymakers and, following in the footsteps of Matras' report on Romani to the Council of Europe's Language Policy Division (October 2005), the PI will draft a report on dialect diversity and codification in Kurdish, to be shared with the Expert Committee for the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, the Kurdish Regional Government, Kurdish cultural associations in Europe, and Kurdish language departments in the Middle East.