—Kurmanji Kurdish— A Reference Grammar with Selected Readings

struct cases, as in şem (nom.) but roja şembê (obl.):
şem(b) Saturday
yekşem(b) Sunday
duşem(b) Monday
sêşem(b) Tuesday
çarşem(b) Wednesday
pêncşem(b) Thursday
în Friday
§ 9.3. Telling Time. In all expressions for telling time, the basis of the expression
is saet (or the variant seet) ‘hour.’
Saet çi ye? What time is it?
Saet deh e. It’s ten o’clock.
Saet nêzîkî dudiyê piştî nîvroje (nîro)
bû.
It was nearly two o’clock in the afternoon.
saet sisê sibehê/şevê three o’clock in the morning/at night
§ 10. Comparative and Superlative Adjectives. The comparative degree
of the adjective is made by suffixing -tir. There are only a few irregularly
formed comparatives, viz. pir ‘much’ > bêtir ‘more,’ baş ‘good’ > çêtir
‘better,’ and mezin ‘big’ > meztir (as well as the regularly formed mezintir)
‘bigger, older.’ Adjectives ending in t drop the t before the addition of
-tir (pêwist > pêwistir, not *pêwisttir, and xurt > xurtir, not *xurttir). The
preposition of comparison is ji, as in the following examples.
Min ji her tiştî bêtir ji wan hez dikir. I liked them more than anything.
Hin ji wan, bi balefiran, ya jî bi
gemiyên mezin dûrtir çûbû.
Ew pêwist e ku nivîskarên me li ser
jiyana gundî û axayan biaxivin, lê
pêwistir e ku ew ji bîr nekin ku kurd
li şehran jî dijîn.
Some of them had gone further in planes
or large ships.
It is important that our writers speak of
the life of villagers and lords, but it is
more important that they not forget that
Kurds live in cities too.
Ez tenê şeş salan ji te mezintir im. I’m only six years older than you.
Erebiya min ji kurdî û turkiya min
çêtir bû û çêtir e jî.
SUBSTANTIVES
My Arabic was and still is better than
my Kurdish and Turkish.
Tu her roj xurtir dibî. You get stronger every day.
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