kurmanji_complete

With the exception of temporal expressions (‘the year in which,’ ‘the
days during which,’ etc), in relative clauses in which the antecedent is other
than the subject or object of the verb in the relative clause (i.e. types like
‘the thing of which I was afraid,’ ‘the man with whom I went’), the syntax of
the relative is indicated by a referent pronoun (literally “the thing which I
was afraid of it,” “the man who I went with him”).
Tiştê ku Celadet Bedir-Xan jê ditirsiya,
bi serê kurdên Tirkiyeyê ve
hatiye.
Gelo tu çima naçî wî welatê ku tu li wir
ji dayikê bûyî û evqasî jê hez dikî?
Mêrik odeya min û nivînê ku ezê tê de
razêm, nîşanî min da.
The thing of which Jeladet Bedir-Khan
was afraid has happened to the Kurds of
Turkey.
I wonder why you don’t go to that country,
where you were born and which
you like so much.
The fellow showed me my room and the
bed in which I would sleep.
Temporal expressions do not normally have a referent pronoun, and the
relative ku after temporal expressions is usually best translated as ‘when.’
Piştî sala 1972 ku derketim Ewrûpê… After the year 1972, when I went off to
Europe…
Piştî 12ê Êlûna 1980, ku cunta sisiyan
a faşîst li Tirkiyê hate ser hikim…
After September 12, 1980, when the
third fascist junta came to power in
Turkey…
Relatives without noun antecedents use yê ku ‘he who,’ ya ku ‘she who,’
and yên ku ‘those who’ or kesê ku ‘one who,’ kesa ku ‘one (f) who,’ and
kesên ku ‘persons who.’
Ya ku ji min re derî vekir berdestka wê
bû.
Îro di nava kurdên me yên Sûriyê de
yên ku kurdî bi alfabeya erebî dinivîsînin,
çi bigire tune ye.
Ew kesên ku dixwazin huner û edebiyat
bikevin bin bandora polîtîkaya
rojê…
KURMANJI KURDISH
76
The one (fem.) who opened the door for
me was her servant.
Today among our Kurds in Syria, those
who write Kurdish in the Arabic alphabet
are practically nil.
Those persons who want art and literature
to come under the influence of the
politics of the day…