—Kurmanji Kurdish— A Reference Grammar with Selected Readings

(10) In relative clauses with indefinite antecedents, often preceded by
wek or mîna ‘like.’ See §22 (3).
Mîna gula ji lûla tufingê derkeve, tu ji
malê derketî.
Dîtina wî bû mîna kêra ku tu di birînê
de bigerînî.
You lit out of the house like a bullet shot
from the barrel of a rifle.
Seeing him was like a knife you twist in
a wound.
Two verbs, karîn ‘to be able’ and zanîn ‘to know,’ do not form their
present subjunctives as other verbs do but use the form of the past subjunctive
(see § 22 below) instead.
§ 16.2. The Future Tense. The future tense is formed by adding -ê or dê to
the personal pronouns followed by the present subjunctive conjugation. Tu
+ ê is often contracted to tê (tû ê and tiwê also exist), and ew + ê may be
contracted to wê, although the contraction is not mandatory. The conjugation
of the future tense of çûn (affirmative and negative) is:
ezê (ez dê) biçim emê (em dê) biçin ezê (ez dê) neçim emê (em dê) neçin
tê (tu dê) biçî hunê (hun dê) biçin tê (tu dê) neçî hunê (hun dê) neçin
ewê (ew dê) biçe ewê (ew dê) biçin ewê (ew dê) neçe ewê (ew dê) neçin
When the subject of a future-tense verb is a noun, wê, ê, or dê comes after
the noun. All the future markers are reflexes of the present stem (ێو wê)
of the verb ﱳـــﺴـــfو wîstin ‘to want,’ which still exists in Sorani Kurdish and
which has produced this synthetic tense much like the English future compounded
with ‘will.’
Dema em dê bighêjin Ewropa, 1 keçên
porzer li Ferensa û li Swêdê wê li ser
porê me dîn bibin.
Ew dibêje ku ewê bi siyasetê ve mijûl
nebe.
KURMANJI KURDISH
When we get to Europe, the blonde girls
in France and Sweden will go crazy for
our hair.
He says he won’t get involved in politics.
1 Kurdish, like French (quand nous arriverons en Europe), uses the future after
‘when’ when it has a future implication.
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