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On-line resources for Kurdish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Links & Internet Resources |  | |
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7142 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes  Studies: Uzbek | Message 1 of 7 12 December 2010 at 5:42pm | IP Logged |
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For those interested in Kurdish, the Kurdish Institute of Paris has just started to make its extensive library holdings available on-line for download.
Included among the materials available for downloading, either in whole or in part, are a number of books for learning the Kurdish language. The URLs for the digital library as a whole are: http://bnk.kurde.eu/ http://bnk.kurd.eu/ http://bnk.institutkurde.org/ while the first of several pages of books on "linguistique" is here: http://bnk.institutkurde.org/catalogue/themes/theme.php?them a=4 Note that the page for dictionaries is separate: http://bnk.institutkurde.org/catalogue/themes/theme.php?them a=30 I've only begun to examine the materials on the site, but can say in general that most of the materials for which full downloads are provided are older works not easily obtained on the Western market. Some of these are rarities indeed, and were never formally published but only distributed in Kurdish circles. That said, more modern materials for actually learning Kurdish have come onto the market in recent years, and probably offer a better starting point into the language than some of the materials on the site in question. (I'm providing a link below to an earlier post I did that cites some of these.) But the Institute's digital library site impresses me initially as a treasure trove for a variety of materials, many of them very hard to find otherwise, on Kurdish matters in general as well as language. Edited by daristani on 12 December 2010 at 6:31pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5318 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 2 of 7 12 December 2010 at 5:54pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the links. I assume that these are Kurmancî resources.
Do you happen to know how much Kurmancî differs from Soranî? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7142 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 3 of 7 12 December 2010 at 6:21pm | IP Logged |
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I'm just looking at the materials on the site in question, but there are some for both "dialects", although certainly more for Kurmanji.
Although all Kurds are adamant that Sorani and Kurmanji are dialects of the same language, one non-Kurdish writer has suggested that the two are about as similar as English and German, and I think this is about right: there are certainly lots of similarities, but the differences are such that you really have to learn them as two separate languages in a practical sense. I'm pretty familiar with Kurmanji, and most of the time can only vaguely make out what the subject matter is when I hear spoken Sorani. I'm sure most native Kurdish speakers would do better, but the differences are substantial. But since you asked, let me try to resuscitate an old but pretty lengthy post I did several years ago, which describes the differences and also has a number of recommended resources: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=5256&PN=1&TPN=1#48682 Since writing that massive, multi-part entry, another German-language website with some Kurdish resources has come on-line: http://www.lerne-kurdisch.de/ It has some materials for downloading, as well as some useful links. And there's a YouTube channel with a whole lot of very well done videos for Kurmanji: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXr8vX40VZk Edited by daristani on 12 December 2010 at 6:58pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5318 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 4 of 7 12 December 2010 at 10:09pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the links. I just checked out the German web site and found out that they have classes in the town where I live.
Right now, Kurdish is on my backburner, but I'm sure that I'll eventually get to it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6907 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 7 19 December 2012 at 7:43pm | IP Logged |
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Time for some thread necromancy. In a book I just finished, I saw a couple of interesting titles on a list of references (including links):
Main site - http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~iranian/ Sorani Kurdish — A Reference Grammar with Selected Readings (242 pages, PDF) Kurmanji Kurdish - A Reference Grammar with Selected Readings (80 pages, PDF) I'm not surprised if the site has been posted before. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6270 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 6 of 7 14 January 2013 at 11:53am | IP Logged |
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This is a valuable thread. I considered studying Kurdish, esp. Kurmanji, but materials are quite difficult to obtain, which is a problem if you want to learn languages that are a little off the beaten track.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7142 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 7 of 7 15 January 2013 at 2:56pm | IP Logged |
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William is right about the difficulty of obtaining Kurdish materials, but the situation has improved tremendously in recent years, both with more and better-quality materials becoming available through commercial publishers and with more making it onto the internet for download, either legally as in the Paris Kurdish Institute site or the Harvard site listed above or via "warez" channels. The increased availability of materials for Kurmanji, in particular, is noteworthy, such as three recent readers from Dunwoody Press (two for Kurmanji and one for Sorani).
So while finding materials used to be a real problem, the situation is now much better. Anyone interested in learning Kurdish (especially Kurmanji) and looking for suitable materials can PM me and I'll try to help. Edited by daristani on 15 January 2013 at 3:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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