Kurdish Language and Literature
From To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise by Ely B. Soane, 1912.
From: Unknown To: 1912 C.E.
Location: Kurdistan Region, Iraq; Kurdistan Province, Iran
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise by Ely B. Soane, 1912.
As to the Kurdish language, so little is known of it that it has been described as a corrupt dialect of Persian and Arabic, “a kind of dog-Persian,” and “a degraded old Persian dialect.”
It is none of these.
Probably the Persian of to-day, beautiful language as it is, and perfect—the most euphonious and complete of all the Aryan tongues—cannot show such manifest signs of antiquity as does Kurdish. For there is a Kurdish language, a complete tongue, having rich grammatical forms, distinct syntax, and a total freedom from those Arabic importations which have, while enriching Persian, thrown into abeyance the old words of pure Aryan origin which were formerly used.
Ranging side by side the many dialects of Kurdistan, which differ in pronunciation and form so much as to be practically different languages, we find that one among them shows a regularity of form, a perfectly developed grammatical scheme, with a conciseness and clarity of construction and pronunciation.
This is the Mukri language, spoken in Lahijan of Persia, south of Lake Urumia, and at Sauch Bulaq, a little town in the mountains, capital of the Mukri tribe.
This is not the place for an excursion into investigations of the similarity of Kurdish roots to those of the Zendavesta; it is sufficient to say that the Mukri people, living where Zoroaster commenced his teaching, and where was possibly his native place, and speaking the language most nearly approaching the archaic form, have some good claim to be considered the preservers of one of the best specimens of a pure Aryan tongue extant.
Investigation of the Kurdish language generally shows it to be a pure language which has suffered only from the erosion of form and corruption of pronunciation inevitable in a language not ‘'fixed” by possessing a generally used literature.
From the point of view of the interest of the student, it is most regrettable that Kurdish has so little literature; indeed, it is commonly supposed to have none. As has been mentioned before, however, there is a large amount of written matter.
Nor has the Kurdish nation, popularly supposed to be so obscure and savage, been deficient in supplying eminent men to the Government and army of Turkey. Probably few people know that the famous Saladin was a Kurd, or that Edrisi, the minister of the Sultan Selim, was of the same race.
As to their part in military affairs, the instinct of the race has given its members pre-eminence wherever as leaders they have sought it, and Turkey has counted among its bravest generals several Kurds of the north.
Bayazid, the frontier town of Turkey in Asia, close under Mount Ararat, is nowadays practically a Kurdish town, and as early as 1591 there was resident there one of the most celebrated Kurds of his time, Ahmadi Khani of the Hakkari, who built a mosque, wrote a number of philosophical, religious, and poetical works in his native tongue, and conducted a large school at which Kurds were the student, and their own language the chief subject of instruction.
One of the first books was a curious little vocabulary of Arabic, written in verse, as he says himself, for the instruction of “Kurmanj,” i.e, Kurdish, children when they have finished their course of the Quran, “when it is well that they become acquainted with reading and writing.”
The little volume begins with the admonition:
“If your grammar and lessons you fail to construe. No fame nor renown is in store for you.”
The text is cleverly written in various metres, the name of which the author states at the head of each stanza, and which it is impossible to imitate in translation:—
“‘Man’ and ‘woman’ of the Arabs, we call mir and zhin. ‘Father,’ bab; and ‘mother,’ da; ‘brother’ we call bra. ‘Son,’ say we kurra; ‘daughter,’ kich; and ‘uncle,’ mam. ‘Aunt ’ is mata; ‘turban,’ shash; ‘grandfather’ goes like pira-da. ‘Rent’ is kira; ‘a pledge,’ kiru; ‘loss,’ zian; and duru, ‘lie.’ ‘Selling’ we say firuhtin; ‘giving,’ dan; and ‘buying,’ kirrin ‘Neck’ is mil or ustu; ‘heart’ is dul; shahina is ‘gay.’”
In this manner some two thousand words are taught to the child, and…this style of teaching (a popular one throughout the East) is less automatic and “parrot-like” than might be imagined.
From Ahmadi Khani we may turn to the Sharaf Nama a famous history of the Kurds written by Sharaf ud Din Bey Hakkari of Bitlis, a rare and eagerly sought after volume, of which there is a copy in the British Museum. This is the best known of the literary works of Kurds, the fact, however, of its not being written in Kurdish denying it a place in Kurdish literature.
Sulaimania, during its short life of two centuries, has produced a great number of poets, who have contributed in verse to the literature of Kurdistan, generally in Kurdish, and some have progressed so far as to have written very bulky volumes.
The best known was Nali, who was the author of most of the various styles of poems that go to make up a complete “Divan,” or, as it may be called, “set of Works.”
The subject of the Sulaimania poet is like that of nearly all the poems of townsmen, love; page after page of fanciful allusion and play upon words, quite in the Persian style, which the Kurd always allows to influence the poem when it is of one of the forms used in Persian. The Kurdish poets of Sulaimania have, however, committed to writing some of the peculiar Kurdish chorus poems, which have a grace all their own. To translate such is to lose all the beauty of the original, which depends for its charm upon the language and the turn of the phrases more than upon the idea, for the love poems are much restricted in their simile, using all the stereotyped metaphor that Persian prosody allows, and little else, so close does the Kurdish taste in literature run to the Persian, unconsciously. Still, I only speak of the Sulaimania poets here. Outside, in the plain and upon the mountain-side one hears myriad songs, simple and pretty, for the Kurds are a race naturally gifted with all the kindred abilities to the linguistic sense, and it is extremely infrequent to meet one whose memory (unweakened by the use of memoranda and the art of writing, and unburdened by too many ideas) is not a storehouse of ancient folk-songs.
My bovine Hama was very fond in quiet moments of singing to a curious tune the old Mukri song, that of the fighter leaving his wife to go to the blood-feud:—
“I would across the hills and far away, wife, Say, shall I go, or shall I stay, wife?
“If you would go, God guard you on the track, And I will watch you from the pass, till you look back;
"I shall stand there in the sun until your clothes are shining white. Till you overtake the pilgrims that are travelling towards the night.
“What like of wife am I if I should weep or wail for you? Or leave neglected home and field to make a child’s ado?
"Christian, Turk, and Persian whimper thus, and fear. Come, kiss me, and go swiftly, man and Mukri, Ah I my dear.”
There are many hundreds more of this kind of song, some of love, some of war, and others of nothing more than comic histories, such as the Kurds love, and a collection, once started, would never end.
Of the written poetry there is a large quantity—from Sina—written in the old Guran dialect by Kurds who learned it at the Court of Sina, and the following verses are taken from a manuscript volume containing some of the poems of the most celebrated poets of Sina, Aoraman, and Sulaimania, mostly written about a.d. 1750.
From the poems of Zain ul Abidin Palangani:—
The Early Dawn of Spring.
“I look around upon the pearl drops of the dew Suspended from the branch, and from the foliage new.
“The purple budlets show a new yearns wounds are nigh, And tears are dropping from the mist—itself a sigh.
“The buds and flowers are laughing at the nightingale. For though they're wingless, yet they live within the flowery pale.
“From out the turf, the narcissus seems like a scar Upon the ground, of winter—who still has not passed far.”
From Shaik Ahmad Takhti, about AD. 1770:—
“Come with me and view the forest's treasury now, The silver's turned to gold, and yet the trees in sorrow bow.
“The treasury and I, we both are weak and desolate. It, for its turn is come, and I, for griefs my autumn mate.”
“Autumn goes And winter’s storms will leave the forest no repose.
“The weeping, whining wind is singing for the autumn forest's death, The golden trees are weeping leaves of gold into the mountains’ chilly breath.
“Some of them now are shedding all their blood-stained cloaks, and soon Each one shall stand denuded, brave and stark as Bisitun.
“Their boughs displayed not long ago—tints a hundred thousand fold, So that the hot blood-feud, hunting in their glades, from awe grew cold.
“Then, catching them all unprepared, a wind arose and blew, And cast away their ropes of foliage, their glory overthrew,
“And tore their leaves asunder, stripping off their raiment green So poured away their gaudy glory, and left their stature mean.
“And where the autumn’s gorgeous temples stood, was left forlorn A melancholy company of mourners with garments rent and torn.”
An old song of the Mukri:—
“A three-fold anklet jingles in thy skirt, Ah, Amina, then turn about this way; Dancing forward, rustling here and there, O flirt. Shake thy bangles, naughty one, in play.
“But love will catch thee while thou yet mayst dance, And catching thee, will stay the tripping feet That turn thee round, to meet a sudden fiery glance; The head will whirl, the feet stand still, the heart will beat.
“Ah, Amina, thy budlike mouth awhile will sing thy song. Ah, Amina, then turn about this way; But love will take his toll, before so very long. And age, that poor old hag, will have her day.”
These are not scraps and doggerel as it appears here, owing to the translator’s poor English: the originals are sweet, and go far enough to show that the nation is not devoid, as is popularly imagined, of all poetry or any idea beyond savage and insensate war and killing.
Soane, Ely B. To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise. Small, Maynard and Company, 1912.
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