a-practical-kurdish-grammar

28 A PRACTICAL KURDISH GRAMMAR
reason for their being characterized as long is, that their in¬
itial I is distinctively long, either by virtue of the o'jj' (mad-
da) or prolongation mark placed over it, or by virtue of its
position as a medial.
These are: (i) (j\ (ai), and (2) j| (aii).
58. The long diphthongs may stand alone, or occupy any
position in a word. Examples: (_$\ (ai) 'Ah!' (Is a vulgar
interjection expressing disgust) ; _j\ (aii) 'water'; ^U (chal)
'tea'; _5W- (chad) 'eye'; _j\j (taii) 'sun'; ^^\jf- (khö-rai)
'free' ; ^\5C _»\ (am-ri-kai) 'an American'; j\:>jj (zar-daii)
'bile'; A.^ (draû) 'money', etc.
ACCENT
59. The Kurdish nouns, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs
have three distinct accents.
These are: (1) The individual accent or the accent which
the word has as it stands alone, which is usually on the last
syllable.
(2) The combination accent or the accent which the word
has in the sentence, which is very irregular; but it is usually
on the second syllable.
(3) The poetic accent or as the word is accentuated in
verse, which is usually a 'trochaic' accent ( ' " ) on the last
two syllables.
60. The accentuation of the Kurdish words is somewhat
irregular, owing to the fact that words borrowed from other
languages are not accented alike, but have, more or less,
brought their peculiar accent with them.