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Introduction

The Kurdish language is classified as an Indo-European language. It is the native language of the Kurdish ethnic group. The Kurdish people are an indigenous people of the Zagros Mountains, Taurus Mountains, Anatolia, Mesopotamia and the Caucasus. Ancient names for the Kurdish settlement area include “Land of Karda” in Sumerian (see Sumerian clay tablets), and “Kurda” in Hurrian and Hittite (see Mari Archives). The Kurdish language developed many thousands of years ago within Kurda.

Kurdish is not Iranic/ Iranian/ Indo-Iranian. However, many attempts have been made to erroneously consider Kurdish as an Iranic/ Iranian/ Indo-Iranian language. One example can be found when examining an early form of the Kurdish language, Hurrian, which was spoken within the Kingdom of Mitanni. A clay tablet from a man called “Kikkuli”, who claimed to be from the “land of Mitanni”, shows Indo-European numerals 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9, as “aika“, “tera“, “panza“, “satta“, “nawa” respectively (see Kikkuli Text – Clay Tablet in Hurrian and Hittite). Attempts have been made to classify this as “Indic/ Indo-Aryan” by suggesting a hypothetical Indo-Aryan ruling class. These numerals were simply from the Hurrian language of the land of Mitanni, around 1345 BC. There is no reasonable evidence for the presence of an Indo-Aryan ruling class or language in this region at the time. The oldest record of written Hurrian has been found as the Inscription of Tišatal of Urkeš from the 3rd Millennium BC. The Kurdish language existed and was spoken in this region before the arrival of Indo-Iranian languages.

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