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84-587: In Turkic Kalbajar means "Castle on the mouth of the river" . The city of Kalbajar was renamed to Karvachar ( Armenian : Քարվաճառ ) after its occupation in the First Nagorno-Karabakh war , which corresponds to the ancient district of Vaykunik, one of 12 cantons of Artsakh .. Kalbacar was registered as ″Kəlavəçər″ or ″Kellaveçer″, was one of villages of Zar nahiye of Nakhchivan kaza in Nakhchivan sanjak of Revan Eyalet in 1590 during first Ottoman rule. It

168-493: A Kurd himself. You've bitten off more than you can chew and you have brought death to yourself. O son of a Kurd, raised in the tents of the Kurds, who gave you permission to put a crown on your head? The usage of the term Kurd during this time period most likely was a social term, designating Northwestern Iranian nomads, rather than a concrete ethnic group. Similarly, in AD 360,

252-640: A Yezidi rebellion which went on from 1506 to 1510. A century later, the year-long Battle of Dimdim took place, wherein the Safavid king Abbas I (r. 1588–1629) succeeded in putting down the rebellion led by the Kurdish ruler Amir Khan Lepzerin. Thereafter, many Kurds were deported to Khorasan , not only to weaken the Kurds, but also to protect the eastern border from invading Afghan and Turkmen tribes. Other forced movements and deportations of other groups were also implemented by Abbas I and his successors, most notably of

336-570: A people with a distinct language by Arab geographers such as Al-Masudi since the 10th century. Many Kurds are either bilingual or multilingual , speaking the language of their respective nation of origin, such as Arabic, Persian , and Turkish as a second language alongside their native Kurdish, while those in diaspora communities often speak three or more languages. Turkified and Arabised Kurds often speak little or no Kurdish. According to Mackenzie, there are few linguistic features that all Kurdish dialects have in common and that are not at

420-701: A population of close to 1.5 million in Western countries, about half of them in Germany . A special case are the Kurdish populations in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia , displaced there mostly in the time of the Russian Empire , who underwent independent developments for more than a century and have developed an ethnic identity in their own right. This groups' population was estimated at close to 0.4 million in 1990. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims who adhere to

504-474: A region of East Asia spanning from Mongolia to Northwest China , where Proto-Turkic is thought to have been spoken, from where they expanded to Central Asia and farther west during the first millennium. They are characterized as a dialect continuum . Turkic languages are spoken by some 200 million people. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish , spoken mainly in Anatolia and

588-448: A result, there exist several systems to classify the Turkic languages. The modern genetic classification schemes for Turkic are still largely indebted to Samoilovich (1922). The Turkic languages may be divided into six branches: In this classification, Oghur Turkic is also referred to as Lir-Turkic, and the other branches are subsumed under the title of Shaz-Turkic or Common Turkic . It

672-663: A small number of Christian traditions have been preserved. Several Christian prayers in Kurdish have been found from earlier centuries. In recent years some Kurds from Muslim backgrounds have converted to Christianity . Segments of the Bible were first made available in the Kurdish language in 1856 in the Kurmanji dialect. The Gospels were translated by Stepan, an Armenian employee of the American Bible Society and were published in 1857. Prominent historical Kurdish Christians include

756-517: Is Ahura Mazda . Leading characteristics, such as messianism , the Golden Rule , heaven and hell , and free will influenced other religious systems, including Second Temple Judaism , Gnosticism , Christianity , and Islam . In 2016, the first official Zoroastrian fire temple of Iraqi Kurdistan opened in Sulaymaniyah . Attendees celebrated the occasion by lighting a ritual fire and beating

840-504: Is a common characteristic of major language families spoken in Inner Eurasia ( Mongolic , Tungusic , Uralic and Turkic), the type of harmony found in them differs from each other, specifically, Uralic and Turkic have a shared type of vowel harmony (called palatal vowel harmony ) whereas Mongolic and Tungusic represent a different type. The homeland of the Turkic peoples and their language

924-740: Is based on the belief of one God who created the world and entrusted it into the care of seven Holy Beings. The leader of this heptad is Tawûsê Melek , who is symbolized with a peacock . Its adherents number from 700,000 to 1 million worldwide and are indigenous to the Kurdish regions of Iraq , Syria and Turkey , with some significant, more recent communities in Russia , Georgia and Armenia established by refugees fleeing persecution by Muslims in Ottoman Empire . Yazidism shares with Kurdish Alevism and Yarsanism many similar qualities that date back to

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1008-443: Is currently regarded as one of the world's primary language families . Turkic is one of the main members of the controversial Altaic language family , but Altaic currently lacks support from a majority of linguists. None of the theories linking Turkic languages to other families have a wide degree of acceptance at present. Shared features with languages grouped together as Altaic have been interpreted by most mainstream linguists to be

1092-573: Is estimated to be between 30 and 45 million. Kurds speak the Kurdish languages and the Zaza–Gorani languages , which belong to the Western Iranian branch of the Iranian languages . Kurds do not comprise a majority in any country, making them a stateless people . After World War I and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire , the victorious Western allies made provision for a Kurdish state in

1176-564: Is not clear when these two major types of Turkic can be assumed to have diverged. With less certainty, the Southwestern, Northwestern, Southeastern and Oghur groups may further be summarized as West Turkic , the Northeastern, Kyrgyz-Kipchak, and Arghu (Khalaj) groups as East Turkic . Geographically and linguistically, the languages of the Northwestern and Southeastern subgroups belong to

1260-599: Is nowadays Iran's West Azerbaijan Province , marked the start of the Ottoman-Persian Wars between the Iranian Safavids (and successive Iranian dynasties) and the Ottomans . For the next 300 years, many of the Kurds found themselves living in territories that frequently changed hands between Ottoman Turkey and Iran during the protracted series of Ottoman-Persian Wars. The Safavid king Ismail I (r. 1501–1524) put down

1344-451: Is said to have encountered Mar Abdisho , a deacon and martyr, who, after having been questioned of his origins by Mar Qardagh and his Marzobans , stated that his parents were originally from an Assyrian village called Hazza, but were driven out and subsequently settled in Tamanon, a village in the land of the Kurds , identified as being in the region of Mount Judi . Early Syriac sources use

1428-511: Is suggested to be somewhere between the Transcaspian steppe and Northeastern Asia ( Manchuria ), with genetic evidence pointing to the region near South Siberia and Mongolia as the "Inner Asian Homeland" of the Turkic ethnicity. Similarly several linguists, including Juha Janhunen , Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs, suggest that modern-day Mongolia is the homeland of the early Turkic language. Relying on Proto-Turkic lexical items about

1512-411: Is the least harmonic or not harmonic at all. Taking into account the documented historico-linguistic development of Turkic languages overall, both inscriptional and textual, the family provides over one millennium of documented stages as well as scenarios in the linguistic evolution of vowel harmony which, in turn, demonstrates harmony evolution along a confidently definable trajectory Though vowel harmony

1596-594: Is widely rejected by historical linguists. Similarities with the Uralic languages even caused these families to be regarded as one for a long time under the Ural-Altaic hypothesis. However, there has not been sufficient evidence to conclude the existence of either of these macrofamilies. The shared characteristics between the languages are attributed presently to extensive prehistoric language contact . Turkic languages are null-subject languages , have vowel harmony (with

1680-415: The ğ in dağ and dağlı is not realized as a consonant, but as a slight lengthening of the preceding vowel. The following table is based mainly upon the classification scheme presented by Lars Johanson . [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] The following is a brief comparison of cognates among the basic vocabulary across

1764-523: The Afsharid Empire ruled by Nader Shah at its peak. After Nader's death, Iran fell into civil war, with multiple leaders trying to gain control over the country. Ultimately, it was Karim Khan , a Laki general of the Zand tribe who would come to power. The country would flourish during Karim Khan's reign; a strong resurgence of the arts would take place, and international ties were strengthened. Karim Khan

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1848-788: The Armenians , the Georgians , and the Circassians , who were moved en masse to and from other districts within the Persian empire. The Kurds of Khorasan, numbering around 700,000, still use the Kurmanji Kurdish dialect. Several Kurdish noblemen served the Safavids and rose to prominence, such as Shaykh Ali Khan Zanganeh , who served as the grand vizier of the Safavid shah Suleiman I (r. 1666–1694) from 1669 to 1689. Due to his efforts in reforming

1932-555: The Assassins . The Ayyubid dynasty lasted until 1341 when the Ayyubid sultanate fell to Mongolian invasions. The Safavid dynasty, established in 1501, also established its rule over Kurdish-inhabited territories. The paternal line of this family actually had Kurdish roots, tracing back to Firuz-Shah Zarrin-Kolah , a dignitary who moved from Kurdistan to Ardabil in the 11th century. The Battle of Chaldiran in 1514 that culminated in what

2016-764: The Balkans ; its native speakers account for about 38% of all Turkic speakers, followed by Uzbek . Characteristic features such as vowel harmony , agglutination , subject-object-verb order, and lack of grammatical gender , are almost universal within the Turkic family. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility , upon moderate exposure, among the various Oghuz languages , which include Turkish , Azerbaijani , Turkmen , Qashqai , Chaharmahali Turkic , Gagauz , and Balkan Gagauz Turkish , as well as Oghuz-influenced Crimean Tatar . Other Turkic languages demonstrate varying amounts of mutual intelligibility within their subgroups as well. Although methods of classification vary,

2100-586: The Catholic missionaries sent to the Western Cumans inhabiting a region corresponding to present-day Hungary and Romania . The earliest records of the language spoken by Volga Bulgars , debatably the parent or a distant relative of Chuvash language , are dated to the 13th–14th centuries AD. With the Turkic expansion during the Early Middle Ages (c. 6th–11th centuries AD), Turkic languages, in

2184-549: The Chuvash language from other Turkic languages. According to him, the Chuvash language does not share certain common characteristics with Turkic languages to such a degree that some scholars consider it an independent Chuvash family similar to Uralic and Turkic languages. Turkic classification of Chuvash was seen as a compromise solution for the classification purposes. Some lexical and extensive typological similarities between Turkic and

2268-543: The First Nagorno-Karabakh War , the area was occupied by Armenian forces on April 3, 1993. The district was declared a part of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh , although it continued to be recognized by United Nations as a territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan . The Azerbaijani population of Kalbajar were displaced and lived as internally displaced persons in other regions of Azerbaijan. The district

2352-463: The High Middle Ages , the Kurdish ethnic identity gradually materialized, as one can find clear evidence of the Kurdish ethnic identity and solidarity in texts of the 12th and 13th centuries, though, the term was also still being used in the social sense. Since 10th century, Arabic texts including al-Masudi 's works, have referred to Kurds as a distinct linguistic group. From 11th century onward,

2436-626: The Kurmanj , Kalhur , and Guran . Kurdish (Kurdish: Kurdî or کوردی) is a collection of related dialects spoken by the Kurds. It is mainly spoken in those parts of Iran , Iraq , Syria and Turkey which comprise Kurdistan . Kurdish holds official status in Iraq as a national language alongside Arabic , is recognized in Iran as a regional language, and in Armenia as a minority language. The Kurds are recognized as

2520-564: The Sassanid era , in Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan , a short prose work written in Middle Persian, Ardashir I is depicted as having battled the Kurds and their leader, Madig . After initially sustaining a heavy defeat, Ardashir I was successful in subjugating the Kurds. In a letter Ardashir I received from his foe, Ardavan V , which is also featured in the same work, he is referred to as being

2604-523: The Shafiʽi school , while a significant minority adhere to the Hanafi school and also Alevism . Moreover, many Shafi'i Kurds adhere to either one of the two Sufi orders Naqshbandi and Qadiriyya . Beside Sunni Islam, Alevism and Shia Islam also have millions of Kurdish followers. Yazidism is a monotheistic ethnic religion with roots in a western branch of an Iranic pre-Zoroastrian religion. It

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2688-562: The ethnonym Kurd might be derived from a term kwrt- used in Middle Persian as a common noun to refer to ' nomads ' or 'tent-dwellers', which could be applied as an attribute to any Iranian group with such a lifestyle. The term gained the characteristic of an ethnonym following the Muslim conquest of Persia , as it was adopted into Arabic and gradually became associated with an amalgamation of Iranian and Iranianized tribes and groups in

2772-731: The frame drum or 'daf'. Awat Tayib, the chief of followers of Zoroastrianism in the Kurdistan region, claimed that many were returning to Zoroastrianism but some kept it secret out of fear of reprisals from Islamists. Although historically there have been various accounts of Kurdish Christians , most often these were in the form of individuals, and not as communities. However, in the 19th and 20th century various travel logs tell of Kurdish Christian tribes, as well as Kurdish Muslim tribes who had substantial Christian populations living amongst them. A significant number of these were allegedly originally Armenian or Assyrian , and it has been recorded that

2856-466: The " Turco-Mongol " tradition. The two groups shared a similar religion system, Tengrism , and there exists a multitude of evident loanwords between Turkic languages and Mongolic languages . Although the loans were bidirectional, today Turkic loanwords constitute the largest foreign component in Mongolian vocabulary. Italian historian and philologist Igor de Rachewiltz noted a significant distinction of

2940-797: The 11th-century Kurdish dynasties crumbled and became incorporated into the Seljuk dynasty. Kurds would hereafter be used in great numbers in the armies of the Zengids . The Ayyubid dynasty was founded by Kurdish ruler Saladin , as succeeding the Zengids, the Ayyubids established themselves in 1171. Saladin led the Muslims to recapture the city of Jerusalem from the Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin ; also frequently clashing with

3024-738: The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres . However, that treaty was not ratified. When the Treaty of Lausanne set the boundaries of modern Turkey three years later, no such provision was made, leaving Kurds with minority status in all of the new countries of Turkey, Iraq, and Syria . Recent history of the Kurds includes numerous genocides and rebellions , along with ongoing armed conflicts in Turkish , Iranian , Syrian , and Iraqi Kurdistan . Kurds in Iraq and Syria have autonomous regions, while Kurdish movements continue to pursue greater cultural rights , autonomy , and independence throughout Kurdistan . The exact origins of

3108-539: The 1926 census, Kurds made up 99.8%, and Turks (later known as Azerbaijanis) - only 0.5% of the population of the Kelbajar district of the Kurdistan uezd, while for the majority of the population the native language was Turkic (later known as Azerbaijani ). In 1933, Turks (i.e. Azerbaijanis) accounted for 100% of the total population of the Bashlybel, Asrik, Kilsala, Otaklar, Kamyshli, Kylychli village councils, more than 99% of

3192-571: The Caliph Al-Mu'tasim who sent the commander Itakh to combat him. Itakh won this war and executed many of the Kurds. Eventually, Arabs conquered the Kurdish regions and gradually converted the majority of Kurds to Islam, often incorporating them into the military, such as the Hamdanids whose dynastic family members also frequently intermarried with Kurds. In 934, the Daylamite Buyid dynasty

3276-687: The Sassanid king Shapur II marched into the Roman province Zabdicene , to conquer its chief city, Bezabde, present-day Cizre . He found it heavily fortified, and guarded by three legions and a large body of Kurdish archers. After a long and hard-fought siege, Shapur II breached the walls, conquered the city and massacred all its defenders. Thereafter he had the strategically located city repaired, provisioned and garrisoned with his best troops. Qadishaye, settled by Kavad in Singara , were probably Kurds and worshiped

3360-555: The Seidlar, Synykh-Kilisalinsky, Zarsky, Zulfugarli village councils, as well as more than 90% of the Kelbajar and Keshtak village councils. Also, Azerbaijanis made up 50.6% of the Chirakh village council, while 44.4% were Kurds. Only in the Aghjakent village council, Kurds made up the majority - 90.9%. According to the 1939 census, 89.5% of the region's population were Azerbaijanis. As of 1979,

3444-554: The Syrian considered them as pagan , followers of mahdi and adepts of Magianism . Their mahdi called himself Christ and the Holy Ghost . In the early Middle Ages , the Kurds sporadically appear in Arabic sources, though the term was still not being used for a specific people; instead it referred to an amalgam of nomadic western Iranian tribes, who were distinct from Persians . However, in

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3528-717: The Transcaucasian Territory, extracted from the family lists of 1886", on the territory of the Avrayan, Ayrum, Asrik, Koturli, Farakhkanli and Chirakhli rural communities of the Jevanshir uezd of the Elizavetpol Governorate , corresponding to the territory of the Kelbajar region (within its Soviet borders), overall, there were 6446 Kurds and 919 Tatars (later known as Azerbaijanis ), all of the Shiite religion. According to

3612-442: The Turkic language family (about 60 words). Despite being cognates, some of the words may denote a different meaning. Empty cells do not necessarily imply that a particular language is lacking a word to describe the concept, but rather that the word for the concept in that language may be formed from another stem and is not cognate with the other words in the row or that a loanword is used in its place. Also, there may be shifts in

3696-491: The Turkic languages are usually considered to be divided into two branches: Oghur , of which the only surviving member is Chuvash , and Common Turkic , which includes all other Turkic languages. Turkic languages show many similarities with the Mongolic , Tungusic , Koreanic , and Japonic languages. These similarities have led some linguists (including Talât Tekin ) to propose an Altaic language family , though this proposal

3780-528: The West. (See picture in the box on the right above.) For centuries, the Turkic-speaking peoples have migrated extensively and intermingled continuously, and their languages have been influenced mutually and through contact with the surrounding languages, especially the Iranian , Slavic , and Mongolic languages . This has obscured the historical developments within each language and/or language group, and as

3864-566: The Yarsani lack political rights in both countries. The Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism has had a major influence on the Iranian culture, which Kurds are a part of, and has maintained some effect since the demise of the religion in the Middle Ages. The Iranian philosopher Sohrevardi drew heavily from Zoroastrian teachings. Ascribed to the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster , the faith's Supreme Being

3948-530: The area, as they did in the district of Kashat'agh across the Karabagh (Arts'akh) Mountains to the south. 40°06′24″N 46°02′18″E  /  40.1067°N 46.0383°E  / 40.1067; 46.0383 Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia , East Asia , North Asia ( Siberia ), and West Asia . The Turkic languages originated in

4032-416: The brothers Zakare and Ivane Mkhargrdzeli. "The land of Karda" is mentioned on a Sumerian clay tablet dated to the 3rd millennium BC. This land was inhabited by "the people of Su" who dwelt in the southern regions of Lake Van ; the philological connection between "Kurd" and "Karda" is uncertain, but the relationship is considered possible. Other Sumerian clay tablets referred to the people, who lived in

4116-433: The central Turkic languages, while the Northeastern and Khalaj languages are the so-called peripheral languages. Hruschka, et al. (2014) use computational phylogenetic methods to calculate a tree of Turkic based on phonological sound changes . The following isoglosses are traditionally used in the classification of the Turkic languages: Additional isoglosses include: *In the standard Istanbul dialect of Turkish,

4200-407: The climate, topography, flora, fauna, people's modes of subsistence, Turkologist Peter Benjamin Golden locates the Proto-Turkic Urheimat in the southern, taiga-steppe zone of the Sayan - Altay region. Extensive contact took place between Proto-Turks and Proto-Mongols approximately during the first millennium BC; the shared cultural tradition between the two Eurasian nomadic groups is called

4284-593: The common morphological elements between Korean and Turkic are not less numerous than between Turkic and other Altaic languages, strengthens the possibility that there is a close genetic affinity between Korean and Turkic. Many historians also point out a close non-linguistic relationship between Turkic peoples and Koreans . Especially close were the relations between the Göktürks and Goguryeo . Kurds Ancient Medieval Modern Kurds or Kurdish people ( Kurdish : کورد , romanized :  Kurd ) are an Iranic ethnic group native to

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4368-436: The course of just a few centuries, spread across Central Asia , from Siberia to the Mediterranean . Various terminologies from the Turkic languages have passed into Persian , Urdu , Ukrainian , Russian , Chinese , Mongolian , Hungarian and to a lesser extent, Arabic . The geographical distribution of Turkic-speaking peoples across Eurasia since the Ottoman era ranges from the North-East of Siberia to Turkey in

4452-409: The declining Iranian economy, he has been called the "Safavid Amir Kabir " in modern historiography. His son, Shahqoli Khan Zanganeh , also served as a grand vizier from 1707 to 1716. Another Kurdish statesman, Ganj Ali Khan , was close friends with Abbas I, and served as governor in various provinces and was known for his loyal service. After the fall of the Safavids, Iran fell under the control of

4536-436: The district had grown to 3,090 according to the statistics provided by Artsakh. However, the international observers provided different figures. An OSCE Fact-Finding Mission visited the occupied territories of Azerbaijan in 2005 to inspect settlement activity in the area and report its findings to the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group . According to FFM figures, at that time the number of Armenian settlers in Kalbajar District

4620-593: The district, which was part of Martakert Province , remained under the control of the Republic of Artsakh. Initially, the western part was to be returned to Azerbaijani control by 15 November 2020, but this deadline was subsequently extended to 25 November 2020. In the early hours of November 25, Azerbaijani forces entered the region; it was the second region to be returned to Azerbaijan per the ceasefire agreement. The district has close to 750 Armenian cultural monuments, which include monasteries, churches, chapels, fortresses, khachkars and inscriptions. The most well-known are

4704-435: The early 2000s, the district was slowly repopulated by Armenian settlers from eastern Shahumyan and Gulustan area. According to the 2005 census carried out by the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh, 2,560 Armenians were living in the western part of the Shahumyan Province , which roughly corresponded to the Soviet Kalbajar District. The number grew to 2,800 by 2006. By 2015, the number of Armenians who had settled in

4788-403: The early Turkic language. According to him, words related to nature, earth and ruling but especially to the sky and stars seem to be cognates. The linguist Choi suggested already in 1996 a close relationship between Turkic and Korean regardless of any Altaic connections: In addition, the fact that the morphological elements are not easily borrowed between languages, added to the fact that

4872-403: The end of 3rd millennium BC and distinguished them as the Guti , speakers of a pre-Iranic language isolate . They conquered Mesopotamia in 2150 BC and ruled with 21 kings until defeated by the Sumerian king Utu-hengal . Many Kurds consider themselves descended from the Medes , an ancient Iranian people, and even use a calendar dating from 612 BC, when the Assyrian capital of Nineveh

4956-417: The family. The Compendium is the first comprehensive dictionary of the Turkic languages and also includes the first known map of the Turkic speakers' geographical distribution. It mainly pertains to the Southwestern branch of the family. The Codex Cumanicus (12th–13th centuries AD) concerning the Northwestern branch is another early linguistic manual, between the Kipchak language and Latin , used by

5040-469: The independent Kardouchoi as the ancestors of the Kurds, while others prefer Cyrtians . The term Kurd , however, is first encountered in Arabic sources of the seventh century. Books from the early Islamic era, including those containing legends such as the Shahnameh and the Middle Persian Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan , and other early Islamic sources provide early attestation of the name Kurd . The Kurds have ethnically diverse origins. During

5124-481: The land of Karda, as the Qarduchi (Karduchi, Karduchoi) and the Qurti. Karda/Qardu is etymologically related to the Assyrian term Urartu and the Hebrew term Ararat. However, some modern scholars do not believe that the Qarduchi are connected to Kurds. Qarti or Qartas, who were originally settled on the mountains north of Mesopotamia , are considered as a probable ancestor of the Kurds. The Akkadians were attacked by nomads coming through Qartas territory at

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5208-419: The martyr Abd al-Masih. They revolted against the Sassanids and were raiding the whole Persian territory. Later they, along with Arabs and Armenians, joined the Sassanids in their war against the Byzantines. There is also a 7th-century text by an unidentified author, written about the legendary Christian martyr Mar Qardagh . He lived in the 4th century, during the reign of Shapur II, and during his travels

5292-855: The meaning from one language to another, and so the "Common meaning" given is only approximate. In some cases, the form given is found only in some dialects of the language, or a loanword is much more common (e.g. in Turkish, the preferred word for "fire" is the Persian-derived ateş , whereas the native od is dead). Forms are given in native Latin orthographies unless otherwise noted. (to press with one's knees) Azerbaijani "ǝ" and "ä": IPA /æ/ Azerbaijani "q": IPA /g/, word-final "q": IPA /x/ Turkish and Azerbaijani "ı", Karakhanid "ɨ", Turkmen "y", and Sakha "ï": IPA /ɯ/ Turkmen "ň", Karakhanid "ŋ": IPA /ŋ/ Turkish and Azerbaijani "y",Turkmen "ý" and "j" in other languages: IPA /j/ All "ş" and "š" letters: IPA /ʃ/ All "ç" and "č" letters: IPA /t͡ʃ/ Kyrgyz "c": IPA /d͡ʒ/ Kazakh "j": IPA /ʒ/ The Turkic language family

5376-399: The monasteries of Dadivank and Gandzasar . In 2022, the small 4.4 MW hydroelectric power plant Kelbajar-1 was taken into operation. At the beginning of the 17th century, most of the Armenians of the region, roughly corresponding to the territory of the region, were deported to Iran , and Kurds began to settle in the region. According to the "Statistical Data on the Population of

5460-418: The mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia , which spans southeastern Turkey , northwestern Iran , northern Iraq , and northern Syria . There are exclaves of Kurds in Central Anatolia , Khorasan , and the Caucasus , as well as significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities of western Turkey (in particular Istanbul) and Western Europe (primarily in Germany ). The Kurdish population

5544-399: The name Kurd are unclear. The underlying toponym is recorded in Assyrian as Qardu and in Middle Bronze Age Sumerian as Kar-da . Assyrian Qardu refers to an area in the upper Tigris basin, and it is presumably reflected in corrupted form in Classical Arabic Ǧūdī ( جودي ), re-adopted in Kurdish as Cûdî . The name would be continued as the first element in

5628-795: The nearby Tungusic and Mongolic families, as well as the Korean and Japonic families has in more recent years been instead attributed to prehistoric contact amongst the group, sometimes referred to as the Northeast Asian sprachbund . A more recent (circa first millennium BC) contact between "core Altaic" (Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic) is distinguished from this, due to the existence of definitive common words that appear to have been mostly borrowed from Turkic into Mongolic, and later from Mongolic into Tungusic, as Turkic borrowings into Mongolic significantly outnumber Mongolic borrowings into Turkic, and Turkic and Tungusic do not share any words that do not also exist in Mongolic. Turkic languages also show some Chinese loanwords that point to early contact during

5712-434: The notable exception of Uzbek due to strong Persian-Tajik influence), converbs , extensive agglutination by means of suffixes and postpositions , and lack of grammatical articles , noun classes , and grammatical gender . Subject–object–verb word order is universal within the family. In terms of the level of vowel harmony in the Turkic language family, Tuvan is characterized as almost fully harmonic whereas Uzbek

5796-534: The population in Turkey , 15 to 20% in Iraq ; 10% in Iran ; and 9% in Syria . Kurds form regional majorities in all four of these countries, viz. in Turkish Kurdistan , Iraqi Kurdistan , Iranian Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdistan . The Kurds are the fourth-largest ethnic group in West Asia after Arabs , Persians , and Turks . The total number of Kurds in 1991 was placed at 22.5 million, with 48% of this number living in Turkey, 24% in Iran, 18% in Iraq, and 4% in Syria. Recent emigration accounts for

5880-467: The pre-Islamic era. Yarsanism (also known as Ahl-I-Haqq, Ahl-e-Hagh or Kakai) is also one of the religions that are associated with Kurdistan. Although most of the sacred Yarsan texts are in the Gorani and all of the Yarsan holy places are located in Kurdistan , followers of this religion are also found in other regions. For example, while there are more than 300,000 Yarsani in Iraqi Kurdistan, there are more than 2 million Yarsani in Iran. However,

5964-431: The region had a population of 40,516: In 1980, the population excluding Nagorno Karabakh was 40,300, counting 124 settlements. 8 of these settlements were Kurdish . The population grew to 43,713 by 1989. As of 1999, the population in the Kalbajar District including part of the now-abolished Mardakert District was 66,211, however the census counts were not carried out in Armenian-occupied parts of Kalbajar: Starting in

6048-426: The region. Sharafkhan Bidlisi in the 16th century states that there are four division of Kurds: Kurmanj , Lur , Kalhor , and Guran , each of which speak a different dialect or language variation. Paul (2008) notes that the 16th-century usage of the term Kurd as recorded by Bidlisi, regardless of linguistic grouping, might still reflect an incipient Northwestern Iranian "Kurdish" ethnic identity uniting

6132-516: The result of a sprachbund . The possibility of a genetic relation between Turkic and Korean , independently from Altaic, is suggested by some linguists. The linguist Kabak (2004) of the University of Würzburg states that Turkic and Korean share similar phonology as well as morphology . Li Yong-Sŏng (2014) suggest that there are several cognates between Turkic and Old Korean . He states that these supposed cognates can be useful to reconstruct

6216-477: The same time found in other Iranian languages . The Kurdish dialects according to Mackenzie are classified as: The Zaza and Gorani are ethnic Kurds, but the Zaza–Gorani languages are not classified as Kurdish. The number of Kurds living in Southwest Asia is estimated at between 30 and 45 million, with another one or two million living in the Kurdish diaspora . Kurds comprise anywhere from 18 to 25% of

6300-614: The term Kurd is explicitly defined as an ethnonym and this does not suggest synonymity with the ethnographic category nomad. Al-Tabari wrote that in 639, Hormuzan , a Sasanian general originating from a noble family, battled against the Islamic invaders in Khuzestan , and called upon the Kurds to aid him in battle. However, they were defeated and brought under Islamic rule. In 838, a Kurdish leader based in Mosul, named Mir Jafar , revolted against

6384-641: The terms Hurdanaye, Kurdanaye, Kurdaye to refer to the Kurds. According to Michael the Syrian , Hurdanaye separated from Tayaye Arabs and sought refuge with the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus . He also mentions the Persian troops who fought against Musa chief of Hurdanaye in the region of Qardu in 841. According to Barhebreaus , a king appeared to the Kurdanaye and they rebelled against the Arabs in 829. Michael

6468-780: The time of Proto-Turkic . The first established records of the Turkic languages are the eighth century AD Orkhon inscriptions by the Göktürks , recording the Old Turkic language, which were discovered in 1889 in the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia. The Compendium of the Turkic Dialects ( Divânü Lügati't-Türk ), written during the 11th century AD by Kaşgarlı Mahmud of the Kara-Khanid Khanate , constitutes an early linguistic treatment of

6552-468: The toponym Corduene , mentioned by Xenophon as the tribe who opposed the retreat of the Ten Thousand through the mountains north of Mesopotamia in the 4th century BC . There are, however, dissenting views, which do not derive the name of the Kurds from Qardu and Corduene but opt for derivation from Cyrtii ( Cyrtaei ) instead. Regardless of its possible roots in ancient toponymy,

6636-735: Was also known as Upper-Khachen or Tsar ( after its chief town ) and was ruled by one of the branches of the House of Khachen , who held it until the Russian conquest of the Karabakh region in the early 19th century. In 1992, Azerbaijan abolished the Mardakert District of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast , and its western part was included in the Kalbajar district. As a result of

6720-473: Was approximately 1,500. The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, who conducted a Field Assessment Mission to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan in October 2010 reported that there was no significant growth in the population since 2005. Though remote, Tsar nevertheless suffered from the deportations of Shah 'Abbas in the early seventeenth century and was almost denuded of its Armenian inhabitants. Eventually, Kurds settled

6804-565: Was conquered by the Medes. The claimed Median descent is reflected in the words of the Kurdish national anthem : "We are the children of the Medes and Kai Khosrow ." However, MacKenzie and Asatrian challenge the relation of the Median language to Kurdish. The Kurdish languages , on the other hand, form a subgroup of the Northwestern Iranian languages like Median . Some researchers consider

6888-419: Was founded, and subsequently conquered most of present-day Iran and Iraq. During the time of rule of this dynasty, Kurdish chief and ruler, Badr ibn Hasanwaih, established himself as one of the most important emirs of the time. In the 10th–12th centuries, a number of Kurdish principalities and dynasties were founded, ruling Kurdistan and neighbouring areas: Due to the Turkic invasion of Anatolia and Armenia,

6972-539: Was made into the Shahumyan Province , one of the eight regions of NKR. The region remained the least populated of the NKR regions with a total population of 2,800. The town of Kalbajar was home to 500 Armenian residents. Under the terms of the agreement that ended the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War , most of the district (i.e. Kelbajar district within its Soviet time borders) returned to Azerbaijani control. The eastern part of

7056-582: Was portrayed as being a ruler who truly cared about his subjects, thereby gaining the title Vakil e-Ra'aayaa (meaning Representative of the People in Persian ). Though not as powerful in its geo-political and military reach as the preceding Safavids and Afsharids or even the early Qajars, he managed to reassert Iranian hegemony over its integral territories in the Caucasus , and presided over an era of relative peace, prosperity, and tranquility. In Ottoman Iraq , following

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