Notes on the Phonology of Southern Kurmanji

Extract

The allocation of its proper place among Iranian languages to Kurmanji (Kurdish) has been rendered well-nigh impossible up to the present by the lack of material available for examination. The most careful Orientalists tend to consider it a non-Persian language, notably Justi, Darmesteter, and Socin (in the Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie). The first emphatically states that it is in no way a degraded New Persian, and that a description of the peculiarities of Iranian speech would not be exhaustive if the phonetics and etymology of Kurdish be disregarded.