a-practical-kurdish-grammar

A PRACTICAL KURDISH GRAMMAR
Modern Iranian languages, a sister language of Modern Per¬
sian, containing a considerable element directly borrowed
from the latter, while others again make it simply a deriva¬
tive of the New-Persian.
From whatever language it may have derived, it has cer¬
tainly in many respects, undergone an individual and peculiar
development of its own. For, as true as it is that it has a great
many words directly borrowed or developed from the Persian,
Arabic, Turkish, and other neighboring languages, so true
it is also, that it has a great many words that are not to be
found in any other tongue.
It is to be feared that too much has been made of the
New-Persian as its mother. The reason for this tendency has
been the fact that most writers who have made a study of
the Kurdish language, have done so through Persian glasses,
and have ridden the Persian 'pony' as the 'key' to every root
and form.
It is well known that the Kurdish language embraces sev¬
eral dialects \yhich differ as you approach the borders of the
various tribal districts. Nearly all of these dialects, or groups
of dialects, have been treated by eminent European linguists,
and from the conclusion that these men have come to, as well
as by a thorough study of their treatises, it does not at all
seem impossible to bring these dialects together on a wider
basis, so as to use one language for several groups of dialects.
The Pioneer Kurdish Grammarian was P. M. Garzoni, who
spent nearly twenty years as a Missionary at Amadia, north¬
east of Mosul. His Grammar was printed in Rome, year
1779. Fortunately this first treatise on the Kurdish language
was written at Amadia, within the borders of that district
where, as was discovered later on, some of the best Kurdish
dialects are spoken.
Since the time of Garzoni, some very able treatises on the
same dialects of Amadia, and the dialects farther north, have
been written by Justi, Lerch, and Rhea.. We also have a
splendid treatise on the dialects of the Bebeh Kurds around
Suleimania by Chodsko; and another treatise on the dialects
of the Mosul district, and of the Kurdish Colonists in Khora¬
zan, by Prof. Beresin. Some years ago an Outline (Schitze)