Gorani language
| Gorani | |
|---|---|
| گۆرانی | |
| Native to | Iraq and Iran |
| Region | Primarily Hawraman and Garmian |
|
Native speakers
|
1.2 million (2014) |
| Dialects | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
|
| Glottolog | gura1251 |
| Linguasphere | 58-AAA-b |
|
|
Gorani (also Gurani) is a group of Northwestern Iranian dialects spoken by Kurdish people in the southernmost parts of Iranian Kurdistan and the Iraqi Kurdistan region. It is classified as a member of the Zaza–Gorani branch of the Northwestern Iranian languages. Gorani is a dialect of the Pahlawani strand of Kurdish, which diverged off from Kurmanji speakers, Badhini and Sorani alike, at around 100 BCE. The Hewramî dialect, although often considered a sub-dialect of Gorani, is a very distinct dialect spoken by Gorani/Hewrami people in a region called Hewraman along the Iran–Iraq border, and is sometimes considered to be a distinct language.
The variations between the Pahlawani strand and the Kurmanji strands of Kurdish are too many, and are therefore far too great by any standard linguistic criteria to warrant classification as dialects of the same languages, though speakers from both sides can understand each other for the most part. Gorani is spoken in the southwestern corner of province of Kurdistan and northwestern corner of province of Kermanshah in Iran, and in parts of the Halabja region in Iraqi Kurdistan and the Hawraman mountains between Iran and Iraq.
The oldest literary documents in these related languages, or dialects, are written in Gorani.
Many Gorani speakers belong to the religious grouping Yarsanism, with a large number of religious documents written in Gorani.
Gorani was once an important literary language in the southeastern parts of the Kurdistan geographical region but has since been replaced by Sorani. In the 19th century, Gorani as a language was slowly replaced by Sorani in several cities, both in Iran and Iraq. Today, Sorani is the primary language spoken in cities including Kirkuk, Meriwan, and Halabja, which are still considered part of the greater Goran region.
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