I NEED YOUR HELP SISTERS

[Kulka]

my beloved sisters of sorani - i need your help with some language matters- coz my beloved brothers are scared of sorani grammar and they run off from it . the question is - are you dear sisters able to help me? i need those who can use original sorani script - its necessary for me, coz i cant learn properly with latini script. so? anyone ready?
ok, brave brothers welcomed as well

[kurdangel]

i can help whats up?

[Kulka]

thats great sister! i will post tomorrow, coz i am dead now after 12 hours shift (and my team did 118% of target today ).
i have few questions, so see you tomorrow and thank you so much

[Kulka]

ok, i am here and thats what

1. i would like to ask. i found that in my devlish book for learning sorani and i want to make sure if its correct and if people use it when they talk (or maybe it must be said dofferent way):

i saw you (singular) دیتمیت
i saw him/her دیتم
i saw you (plural) دیتمن
i saw them دیتمن

you saw me دیتتم
you saw him/her دیتت
you saw us دیتتین
you saw them دیتتن

he saw me دیتمی
he saw you (singular) دیتیتی
he saw her/him دیتی
he saw us دیتینی
he saw you (plural) دیتنی
he saw them دیتنی

we saw you (singular) دیتمانیت
we saw him/her دیتمان
we saw you (plural) دیتمانن
we saw them دیتمانن

and similiar for you (plural) and they.

2. خوشکم هه‌شت ساڵ له‌ ته‌مه‌نی تێده‌په‌ڕێ does it mean that my sister finished (exceed) 8 years? and the word تێده‌په‌ڕێ - is the basic form of this word ( چاوگ ) -
تێپه‌ڕ ? coz i found that word in docyionary, but not as single word - in expressions like:
تێپه‌ڕ بوون به‌ سه‌ر... دا - to pass after (fot time)
تێپه‌ڕ کردن له‌ - to exceed, surpass
and in a sentence abvove its only this word itself (or maybe its not that one).

if anyone can answer me - thank you very much. and if dont have enough i would have more questions.

[kurdangel]

i see some mistakes, but if you give me some time, i will reply to you on thursday

[Kulka]

no problem sister, thank you
and mistakes are not from me, all that things are from internet, so shame is not mine

by the way 0 if you need kurdish keybord:
http://www.lexilogos.com/clavier/sorani.htm

zos supas

[Kulka]

thank you all that you helped me - it was my last question on that forum, coz its no point to ask if everyone ignore me.

[Emanoelkurdistani]

Hi Kulka. I did read this post before but not completely of course. Possibly the thread title misled me to reckon it as a "woman-thing". Now I get dead on that you have welcomed brave brothers as well. Well I don’t know whether I am literally brave or not but I know one thing for sure: to me it wouldn’t be a matter of fright to help out my sister with learning Soraní. Sure thing, it would be a pleasure. By the way I am a Taurean and it means that I could be as patient as once prophet Job used to be! I am ultimately patient when I co-work or teach. So you may feel free to ask any single question that comes to your mind regarding to language learning.

Before getting right into it, may I know what for you don’t feel comfy with Latin alphabet? I personally use a recently devised Latin alphabet for Kurdish language, which is much easier and friendlier than the current Turkish-based Latin alphabet in use. It is devised by Kurdish Academy of Language:

a : as "a" in "car", "are"
b: as "b" in "bus", "big"
c: as "ch" in "chair", "change"
d: as "d" in "door", "dark"
e: as "a" in "ask", "after"
é: as "e" in "end", "error"
f: as "f" in "French", "for"
g: as "g" in "gossip", "great"
gh: not pronounced in English; but "gh" in Kurdish "Efghan" ~ "Afghan" or Arabic "ghayr" ~ "except, unless"
h: as "h" in "horror", "hen"
i: as "e" in "handed", "wanted"
í: as "ee" in "tree", "knee" or "e" in "zero", "hero"
j: as "j" in "jungle", "John"
jh: as "g" in "cortege" or "z" in "azure"
k: as "k" in "Kurdish", "Kent"
l: as "l" in "light", "low"
m: as "m" in "mother", "name"
n: as "n" in "north", "and"
o: as "o" in "or", "for"
p: as "p" in "pearl", "keep"
q: not pronounced in English; but "q" in Kurdish "qise" ~ "word; talk" or Arabic "Quran" ~ "Koran"
r: as "r" in "read", "ring"
s: as "s" in "say", "sea"
sh: as "sh" in "shame, "fish"
t: as "t" in "track", "heart"
u: as "oo" in "root", "hoot"
v: as "v" in "very", "cave"
w: as "w" in "well", "wow"
x: not pronounced in English; but as "x" in Kurdish "xwer" ~ "sun" or Arabic "xeter" ~ "danger"
y: as "y" in "young", "why"
z: as "z" in "Zorro", "zigzag"

You may reconsider the Latin alphabet. It is easy and useful. I myself am an Iranian Kurd and certainly I have studied Perso-Arabic script throughout my life. But as a matter of fact more than half of all Kurds, who live in Turkey, cannot communicate thru Arabic scripts and they got the vaguest idea about it at all. But we, as Iraqi, Iranian, or Syrian Kurds, can learn and use Latin alphabet much easier than what Turkey Kurds could ever afford on Arabic script. However I don’t push you, it is just a brotherly suggestion. I am all conversant with Soraní-Arabic script.

First of all, let me know where exactly are you from? I mean your parents come from which Kurdish city? This way I can give you better illustrations.

Well as an ironic and somehow disgraceful fact there is no such a thing called Standard Kurdish Language. That is to say may be English speaking people use different words and pronunciations but when they right in English they all obey a standard form. This standard form is lacking in Kurdish. Therefore everybody talks, says, and writes in their local dialects.

Anyways I start off by your above given examples (I write the Kurdish words in both Arabic and Latin forms):

من : min : I

تو : to : you (singular)

ئه و : ew : s/he

ئێمه : éme : we

ئێوه : éwe : you (plural)

ئه وان : ewan : they


-م : -im : me

-ت : -it : you (singular)

-ی : -í : him / her

-مان : -man : us

-تان : -tan : you (plural)

-یان / -ان : -yan / -an / -in : them


دیتن : dítin : to see

من دیتم : min dítim : I saw

من دیتمت : min dítimit : I saw you (singular)

من ئه و دیتم / من ئه وم دیت : min ew dítim / min ewim dít : I saw him

من ئێوه م دیت / دیتمتان / دیتتانم : min éwem dít / dítimtan / díttanim : I saw you (plural)

من ئه وانم دیت / دیتمن / دیتیانم : min ewanim dít / dítinim / dityanim : I saw


تو دیتت : to dítit : you (sing.) saw

تو دیتتم : to dítitim : you (sing.) saw me

….

ئه و دیت : ew dít : s/he saw

...

ئێمه دیتمان : éme dítman : we saw
...

ئێوه دیتتان : éwe díttan : you (plur.) saw

....

ئه وان دیتیان : ewan dítyan : they saw

.......................

The above are for your examples. Now let me describe it a bit:

In Kurdish we have a case in which oblique pronouns (such as "me", "us", "them", "him", "her", "you", "it") attach each other and together get linked to the verbal roots.

هاتن hatin (to come)

هاتم (هات + م ) hatim (hat + im) I came

"hatim" is comprised of "hat" (came) and "im" (I, me) which together convey the sense of "I came".

هاتت / هاتی hatit / hatí (you came)

هات hat (s/he came)

هاتین hatín (we came)

هاتن hatin (you came)

هاتن hatin (they came)


As you see the pronouns that attach the "hat" for the past sense, differ from those that attach "dítin" ~ "to see". This is because "hatin" is an intransitive verb while "dítin" is a transitive verb. Intransitive verb is a verb that needs no direct objects and contrary to this, transitive verbs always need an object. For example "you can not come someone" but "you can see someone". Therefore "to come" is an intransitive verb and "to see" is a transitive one.

Here are the pronouns that attach the intransitive verbs in Soraní:

-م : -im : I

-ی : -í : you (sing.)

--: -- : s/he (no pronouns attaches for this case)

-ین : ¬-ín : we

-ن : -in : you (plur.)

-ن : -in : they


Please let me know what else you need to know about. So that I can help you better. I am eagerly looking forward for your questions.

[Barış]

Spas, Kak Emanoel! Bijî

[Kulka]

Its really amazing!!! Kak Emanoel - you are champion with no daubt.
i will start from the end - more than one year i was wondering what is the difference between intransitive and transitive verbs - absolutely nobody has any idea that something like that exists. you are the first and THE ONLY ONE person for whom its obvious. and - my godness! - finally i know as well!i was thinking why for past tense the endings are different in plural (-in, -n, -n and - man, -tan, -yan). When i asked my friends at work - they look at me like at strange animal and asking one another : "why we say hatin not hatman?" and nobody was able to answer me. i asked - how can i know which verb i should connect with -in, -n, -n and which with -man -tan, -yan? is any rule for that? nobody knows. But now i can teach them .
i know that kurdish language - withing the same dialect - like sorani - use different words and way of speaking - like most languages on the world, i know that hewleri speak a bit different than suleymani and kurds from east kurdistan (specially south of kermashan) speaks different way. of course i know, but its not a problem, its only some more to learn for me (i even know some badhini words). anyway - suleymani poeple keep saying that their slang is standard sorani . let them to think like that

now i will try to explain to you why latin script is confusing for me. its quite simple - for example we have "a alif" and "a bzwene" - first is usually written in latin script as a, second should be written as e. but we also have the letter "e", which should be written - as you show it - with the mark above. as you can see i dont have that mark on my keybord, so for me its a problem - and also a lot of people - kurdish people dont have it on keyboard and they even dont care to have it, coz however they write to each other - they still understand and know what they writting. to be honest for me its quite annoying (specially extra i - which is not present in sorani script, like in the word کردن - in latin script kirdin - for me headache) - i dont know why, but i prefer sorani script, although i am lucky to read both. still most kurds cant write sorani words in latin script properly. you have no idea how many different ways you can write one sorani word, even that simple as کردن - i saw : kirdin, kirdn, krdn and even kerdn - believe me - someone who dont know that language very well, may get crazy with that. sorani script (i dont call it arabic, for some reasons) is really very simple to learn (it tooks me two days - although i never have contact with that kind of writting before).
by the way - we should say : kurmanji kurds or bakuri kurds (not turkey kurds - turkya has no right for kurdish people and country) - the same with south, east and west kurdistan kurds - we shouldnt call kurds with enemies names. nobody says "russian lithuanians" - although lithuania was under russian control. There is country called Kurdistan - and even if its occupied now - its still country. we have to say that very clearly to the world.

at the end - something that brought smile on my face - your question about my parents. Ok, i will tell you the name of the city that my parents come from and i challenge you to find it in internet yourself - you gonna be suprised or not - i dont know. to make it a bit easier for you - dont try to find it in middle east. the city name is Tarnow (Tarnów - but i dont think you have the letter ó on your keyboard). to make you more confused - just for friendly joke, i hope you will not get upset about that - i can tell you that 3 years ago i have no idea about Kurdistan, in spring 2007 i check on the map for the first time and i saw where is Kurdistan.

and to be honest i have a lot of questions to you, Kaka - as you are the person who knows what you are talking about. but next time, coz its a bit late now. and thank you so so much that you spent your time to post that useful things - its more than kind of you. if you in addition will tell me that you living in west midlands, uk - it will be like win the lottery

my best wishes for you bra xoshawistakam

[Kulka]

hello again,

my questions, first i will show you what i dont understand in your post.


in a sentence "i saw you" - can i say : من تۆم دیت like in the other examples below?
من ئه و دیتم - is it correct to attach the pronoun -m to the verb if the object (him) is present in a sentence? and is it possible to say that without the word ئه‌و ? like for example with the pronoun of 3 person singular -i : من دیتمی ?
دیتمتان / دیتتانم how it is possible that both of this form are correct, while for other examples there is nothing like that. for me it seems like there is no clear rule for creating that kind of expressions.
دیتمن / دیتیانم and similiar question like above, two form, completly different from each other - how come both are correct and can i in addition say for example - دیتمیان - like for second person plural? and if دیتمن is possible for second person plural, why its not possible for third person plural? or maybe it is.

what about the other examples, coz i still dont know how it works for "you saw him", "you saw them", "they saw me", "they saw him" etc - when the object is not present in a sentence (when we have the object i guess i know how to do that, for example - for example "they saw me" - ئه‌وان منیان دیت - or maybe i am wrong).

and the last question - why in past forms of verbs for second person singular there is no letter -i- if its essential for the past tense 2 person singular - دیتت and هاتت - maybe i am wrong, but till now i knew that we can miss the letter -t, but the letter - i must be present for that form of verbs.

i hope i will not confuse you too much kaka, but i dont want just to learn - i must understand what i am learning, how it works, otherwise i will not be able to use the language properly.

thank you very much and i am waiting for your answer.

[Emanoelkurdistani]

Spas, Kak Emanoel! Bijî

Ser cavan bira

[Emanoelkurdistani]

Hello Kulka. Thank you my sister. I am really happy that it was useful to know abt intransitive and transitive verbs.

You know what, languages need standard forms. Some have got their standard (formal) forms during history whilst some have not. Undoubtedly to have a standard language via sifting out vocabularies and grammatical features from all Kurdish dialects is a much better and more rational choice to make rather than picking a local subdialect like Suleymani Soraní as standard language which is a very senseless idea. Anyways I was telling my kinfolk that I am considering such a purpose and they couldn’t feel me at all. Until once they came to me while were mentally exhausted and asked me "please do your best achieve a standard form or whatever it is, cuz we are bloody sick of these entertaining programs (like that of Evín Aso) in which everybody's words need to be interpreted … " I hope one day we would have a standard form, God willing.

By the way I know many Soraní speaking guys still cannot use Latin alphabet appropriately. Even those who apparently work for Kurdish channels occasionally do some terrible blunders regarding to spelling.

And abt your parental city, or probably as they call it in Polish "gmina" (~ "city"), no I didn’t get upset and you were right I am all surprised. Initially I could guess from the letters "ó" and "w" that it might be a Polish or even Hungarian city. But eventually I couldn’t resist my curiosity and I googled it so I found out it is a Polish city. A historical city, I could feel from the pictures and a very beautiful place to visit of course. Then you are not Kurdish? If so, are you married to a Kurdish guy or something?


Be sure I am to answer every single question that you have. So don’t mention it, we all are here to share what we know. And the only thing that I am good in is Linguistics and it is all I care for. By the way unfortunately I don’t live in West Midlands, but in Middle East I do. I live in Iran.


Ok back to our topic, yes for sure you can use the same thing in any case:

من توم دیت

تو منت دیت

ئێمه تومان دیت

....

But for the next thing that you asked, in some dialects it is possible to say so, but not all of speakers may comprehend you that way because it is not really popular amongst Soraní speakers:

من ئه و دیتم

تو من دیتت

....

To say it without "ew" is almost impossible. As far as I know only Soraní speakers from Sine are able to use such a feature for third person singular:

دیین : díyín : to see

دیتم : dítim : I saw you

دییم : díyim : I saw him/her

…

But to my knowledge none of Suleymani or Hewlérí speakers comprehend them. I don’t think "min dítimí" could make sense to those speakers. They would probably understand it as "s/he saw me".


Well you next questions just remind us the fatal fact that we do lack in a standard form. "Ditimtan" or "díttanim" belong to various subdialects. If you ask me, the first one is pure Kurdish but the second one is under the sway of Persian grammar where they say: "dídínem". Let me elucidate it to you. The three above examples are comprised of these components:

dít – im – tan

see – me – you (plural)


dit – tan – im

see – you (plur.) – me


díd – ín – em

see – you (plur.) - me



As you can see, in the first form we got this structure:

verb – object - subject

But in the second and third forms:

verb – subject - object


In Soraní both forms are in used within different subdialects, and since we got no standard form then it is just a matter of the speaker's birth place to use which one of the structures.

But if I am not mistaken these are more popular within Suleymani region:

توم دیت / دیتمت

ئه وم دیت

ئێوه م دیت / دیتمتان

ئه وانم دیت / دیتمیان

Also I am sorry I think I have left something in my first examples: "dítimin" is not for "second person plural", but only for "third person plural":

دیتمن / دیتیانم : I saw them

دیتتانم / دیتمتان : I saw you (plur.)


Yes you are right "ewan minyan dít" means "they saw me". But when the object is to attach the verb, for sure, it gets complicated and you should hold both forms (as I exampled above) within your mind to figure out what the person you discourse with tries to convey! Just remember the two grammatical structures. I guarantee they aren’t gonna use any other structures out of these two:

verb – object – subject

verb – subject – object

For example, "they saw us":

dít – man – yan (verb – object – subject)

dít – yan – man ( verb – subject – object)

In Soraní script:

دیتمانیان

دیتیانمان

As I told you the first structure is more popular (as far as I know).


And about second person singular, sorry I missed one more thing. As I explained before, we got two different groups of pronouns one for intransitive verbs and another for transitive ones. In the pronouns for intransitive verbs we have two forms for second person singular:

-یت : -ít

-ی : -í

The most accurate form is the first one, which I mistakenly illustrated as "-it" in my examples, but it is "-ít:

هاتیت / هاتی : hatí / hatít : you (sing.) came


As you mentioned we can overlook pronouncing final "-t". And remember that it got nothing to do with "-it" the pronoun for second person singular in transitive verbs. Pronouns for transitive and intransitive verbs should be hold independently from each other. Also we can not miss final "-t" for second person singular in transitive verbs:


دیتت : ditit : you (sing.) saw


No I haven’t got confused. I completely love words and linguistics. Bewilderment is a part of linguistics and language learning but it turns into a sweet feeling as soon as you figure out the right thing.

I believe it too. Certainly there would be no learning without understanding.

You are welcome. I am waiting for your further questions or possible explanations needed in connection with my above examples.

Be fine

[Kulka]

nice to hear from you again, kaka.
first i will post a short reply about non-language things, coz i have some urgent work to do and later, when i finish i will focuse on language (coz i have to look at it carefully).
"Gmina' - yes, thats a word which means the main city (town) with some more teritory around, Tarnów is not too big place - rather town than city - like about a little bit more than 100 000 people. and of course you are welcome to visite - if only i will be there - my house is opened for you.

"Then you are not Kurdish? " - well, for sure, i am not Kurd, but i hope i am kurdish - that for me means certain attitude, the way of life, all that i love and care of. in that meaning, i am kurdish. but not of kurdish origin.
" If so, are you married to a Kurdish guy or something?" - rather "something", than "married to kurdish guy". i am not married, i am alone and trhat kind of question is the most frequent asked of me. of course i know its almost impossible that someone will just became kurdish for completly no reason. i had that reason - it started from someone. there was a boy in my life, originally (grandparents) from Hakari, bakuri kurdistan, he was born and grow up in bashur, mostly lived in hewler - kasnazan. its sad story, coz he did a lot of nasty, bad things to me. its a long story and i dont see a point to put it here (not because i want to hide it - i can write it to you in privat message, if you wish) - anyway i dont have contact with him for almost one year now, so i am kurdish because of myslef and thats something which keeps me alive and let me to go on with life, coz that boy was everything for me and when i lost him, i wouldnt be able to live any more - if i wasnt kurdish.

West Midlands and Middle East - seems like almost the same - but let me ask - you live in iran or in Kurdistan - coz for me it makes a big difference.

Later i will post about the language - thank you and my best wishes.

[Emanoelkurdistani]

Thanks again Kulka. I see. I just had a glance at Tarnow page on Wikipedia. Thanks a lot it's very kind of you. Or as we are given to say in our daily speech: mallit awa bew ~ may your house be abounding with blessings.

I see. Our ancestors don’t make any difference. We all are free-willed men and we can be whatever we want to be. To me you are definitely a Kurd.

I am so sorry to hear that. Anyways we are progenies of Adam and Eve, once larking over the heavens and another time shedding tears on the dirty earth. But regardless of all those happy and saddening stories throughout our lives we always adhere to our magic word "hope" and afterwards we catch up and find the right way to get to the climax of what we really want.


I am agreed too, Midlands West and Middle East resemble each other. Well I am frequently in traveling between cities. I almost look like commuters. Sometimes I come to think that I am roaming just like a gypsy while I aint no gypsy. lol. I do travel becuz of studying, working, visiting family members, etc.

Ok post the language things at your comfort. I am waiting. You are welcome. Take a good care and be fine.