Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranic ethnic group* from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syria. Consisting of 30–45 million people,Based on arithmetic from World Factbook and other sources cited herein: A Near Eastern population of 28–30 million, plus approximately a 2 million diaspora gives 30–32 million. If the highest (25%) estimate for the Kurdish population of Turkey, in Mackey (2002), proves correct, this would raise the total to around 37 million. the global Kurdish population is largely concentrated in Kurdistan, but significant communities of the Kurdish diaspora exist in parts of West Asia beyond Kurdistan and in parts of Europe, most notably including: Turkey's Central Anatolian Kurds (these spread through Eastern Anatolia in 1923 following the Armenian genocide in what was then Western Armenia), as well as Istanbul Kurds; Iran's Khorasani Kurds; the Caucasian Kurds, primarily in Azerbaijan and Armenia; and the Kurdish populations in various European countries, namely Germany, France, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
The Kurdish languages and the Zaza–Gorani languages, both of which belong to the Western Iranic branch of the Iranic language family, are the native languages of the Kurdish people. Other widely spoken languages among the community are those of their host countries or neighbouring regions, such as Turkish, Persian, or Arabic. The most prevalent religion among Kurds is Sunni Islam, with Shia Islam and Alevism being significant Islamic minorities. Yazidism, which is the ethnic religion of the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi people, is the largest non-Islamic minority religion among the broader Kurdish community, followed by Yarsanism, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity.
Although they exercise autonomy in Iraq, the Kurds are a stateless nation. The prospect of Kurdish independence, which is rooted in early Kurdish nationalism, has been the source of much ethnic and political tension in West Asia since the 19th century. In the aftermath of World War I and the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the victorious Western Allies made territorial provisions for the establishment of a Kurdish state, as outlined in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, but it was never ratified after being signed. Three years later, when the Treaty of Lausanne set the boundaries of the Turkish state, the Western Allies ceased their push for Kurdish statehood in the face of certain agreements and guarantees—chiefly Turkey's relinquishing of territorial claims over formerly Ottoman-ruled Arab lands in exchange for the Allies' recognition of Turkish sovereignty over all of Anatolia.Who are the Kurds? by BBC News, 31 October 2017 As such, since the 20th century, the history of the Kurds has largely been marked by struggles for independence, predominantly in the Kurdish–Turkish conflict and the Iraqi–Kurdish conflict, and to a lesser extent in the Iranian–Kurdish conflict and the comparatively recent Syrian–Kurdish conflict.
Etymology
The exact origins of the name Kurd are unclear. The underlying toponym is recorded in Assyrian as and in Middle Bronze Age Sumerian as . Assyrian refers to an area in the upper Tigris basin, and it is presumably reflected in corrupted form in Classical Arabic (), re-adopted in Kurdish as .Ilya Gershevitch, William Bayne Fisher, The Cambridge History of Iran: The Median and Achamenian Periods, 964 pp., Cambridge University Press, 1985, , , (see footnote of p.257) The name would be continued as the first element in the toponym Corduene, mentioned by Xenophon as the tribe who opposed the retreat of the Ten Thousand through the mountains north of Mesopotamia in the 4th century BC.
There are, however, dissenting views, which do not derive the name of the Kurds from and Corduene but opt for derivation from () instead.
Regardless of its possible roots in ancient toponymy, the ethnonym Kurd might be derived from a term used in Middle Persian as a common noun to refer to 'nomads' or 'tent-dwellers', which could be applied as an attribute to any Iranic group with such a lifestyle.Karnamak Ardashir Papakan and the Matadakan i Hazar Dastan. G. Asatrian, Prolegomena to the Study of the Kurds, Iran and the Caucasus, Vol.13, pp. 1–58, 2009. Excerpt 1: "Generally, the etymons and primary meanings of tribal names or ethnonyms, as well as place names, are often irrecoverable; Kurd is also an obscurity." "It is clear that kurt in all the contexts has a distinct social sense, 'nomad, tent-dweller.' It could equally be an attribute for any Iranian ethnic group having similar characteristics. To look for a particular ethnic sense here would be a futile exercise." P. 24: "The Pahlavi materials clearly show that kurd in pre-Islamic Iran was a social label, still a long way from becoming an ethnonym or a term denoting a distinct group of people."
The term gained the characteristic of an ethnonym following the Muslim conquest of Persia, as it was adopted into Arabic and gradually became associated with an amalgamation of Iranic and Iranicized tribes and groups in the region.McDowall, David. 2000. A Modern History of the Kurds. Second Edition. London: I.B. Tauris. p. 9.
In 1923, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland claimed that the same way Kerman in Persian was Qarman in Syriac, Kurd in Persian was Qardu in Syriac, stating that "the Persian gurd or kurd, which seems to have been derived from a common origin with the Babylonian gardu or qardu, signifies 'brave', 'valiant', or 'warlike', and bravery and the love of fighting are the outstanding traits of the Kurdish character. From the Persians it passed into Arabic, whence it became the common European name of the Kurds."
Language
Kurdish (Kurdish: or ) is a collection of related dialects spoken by the Kurds. Writes about the problem of attaining a coherent definition of "Kurdish language" within the Northwestern Iranian dialect continuum. There is no unambiguous evolution of Kurdish from Middle Iranian, as "from Old and Middle Iranian times, no predecessors of the Kurdish language are yet known; the extant Kurdish texts may be traced back to no earlier than the 16th century CE." Ludwig Paul further states: "Linguistics itself, or dialectology, does not provide any general or straightforward definition of at which point a language becomes a dialect (or vice versa). To attain a fuller understanding of the difficulties and questions that are raised by the issue of the 'Kurdish language,' it is therefore necessary to consider also non-linguistic factors." It is mainly spoken in those parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey which comprise Kurdistan.Geographic distribution of Kurdish and other Iranic languages Kurdish holds official status in Iraq as a national language alongside Arabic, is recognized in Iran as a regional language, and in Armenia as a minority language. The Kurds are recognized as a people with a distinct language by Arab geographers such as al-Masudi since the 10th century.
Many Kurds are either bilingual or multilingual, speaking the language of their respective nation of origin, such as Arabic, Persian, and Turkish as a second language alongside their native Kurdish, while those in diaspora communities often speak three or more languages. Turkified and Arabised Kurds often speak little or no Kurdish.
According to Mackenzie, there are few linguistic features that all Kurdish dialects have in common and that are not at the same time found in other Iranian languages."Kurdish Nationalism and Competing Ethnic Loyalties", Original English version of: "Nationalisme kurde et ethnicités intra-kurdes", Peuples Méditerranéens no. 68–69 (1994), 11–37. Excerpt: "This view was criticised by the linguist D. N. MacKenzie, according to whom there are but few linguistic features that all Kurdish dialects have in common and that are not at the same time found in other Iranian languages."
The Kurdish dialects according to Mackenzie are classified as:G. Asatrian, Prolegomena to the Study of the Kurds, Iran and the Caucasus, Vol.13, pp. 1–58, 2009: "The classification of the Kurdish dialects is not an easy task, despite the fact that there have been numerous attempts mostly by Kurdish authors to put them into a system. However, for the time being the commonly accepted classification of the Kurdish dialects is that of the late Prof. D. N. Mackenzie, the author of fundamental works in Kurdish dialectology (see Mackenzie 1961; idem 1961–1962; idem 1963a; idem 1981), who distinguished three groups of dialects: Northern, Central, and Southern." Northern group (the Kurmanji dialect group) Central group (part of the Sorani dialect group) Southern group (part of the Xwarin dialect group) including Laki
The Zaza and Gorani are ethnic Kurds, but the Zaza–Gorani languages are not classified as Kurdish.
Population
The number of Kurds living in West Asia is estimated at between 30 and 45 million, with another one or two million living in the Kurdish diaspora. Kurds comprise anywhere from 18 to 25% of the population in Turkey, This would raise the population estimate by about 5 million. 15 to 20% in Iraq; 10% in Iran; and 9% in Syria. The CIA World Factbook reports all non-Arabs make up 9.7% of the Syrian population, but does not break out the Kurdish figure separately. However, this State Dept. source provides a figure of 9%. , the current document at this state.gov URL no longer provides such ethnic group data. Kurds form regional majorities in all four of these countries, viz. in Turkish Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Iranian Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdistan. The Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East after Arabs, Persians, and Turks.
The total number of Kurds in 1991 was placed at 22.5 million, with 48% of this number living in Turkey, 24% in Iran, 18% in Iraq, and 4% in Syria. Paper presented at the Freie Universitat Berlin. For the figure, cites:
Recent emigration accounts for a population of close to 1.5 million in Western countries, about half of them in Germany.
A special case are the Kurdish populations in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia, displaced there mostly in the time of the Russian Empire, who underwent independent developments for more than a century and have developed an ethnic identity in their own right."The Kurds of Caucasia and Central Asia have been cut off for a considerable period of time and their development in Russia and then in the Soviet Union has been somewhat different. In this light the Soviet Kurds may be considered to be an ethnic group in their own right." The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire This group's population was estimated at close to 0.4 million in 1990.Ismet Chériff Vanly, "The Kurds in the Soviet Union", in: Philip G. Kreyenbroek & S. Sperl (eds.), The Kurds: A Contemporary Overview (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 164: Table based on 1990 estimates: Azerbaijan (180,000), Armenia (50,000), Georgia (40,000), Kazakhstan (30,000), Kyrgyzstan (20,000), Uzbekistan (10,000), Tajikistan (3,000), Turkmenistan (50,000), Siberia (35,000), Krasnodar (20,000), Other (12,000) (total 410,000).
Religion
Islam Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims who adhere to the Shafiʽi school, while a significant minority adhere to the Hanafi school and also Alevism. Moreover, many Shafi'i Kurds adhere to either one of the two Sufi orders Naqshbandi and Qadiriyya.
Beside Sunni Islam, Alevism and Shia Islam also have millions of Kurdish followers.
Yazidism