Kurmanji

Kurmanji
Kurmanji
Northern Kurdish
کورمانجی, Kurmancî
	Kurmanji Kurdish written in both scripts
Native to	Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey
Region	Autochthonous to Kurdistan, Kurdish diaspora
Ethnicity	Kurds
Native speakers	17 million (2017–2024)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Northwestern Kurdish Kurmanji; ; ; ; ; ;
Dialects	Botanî (Botî); Gurgumî/Mereşî; Ashiti; Beyazidî; Colemêrgî/Colemêrgkî; Şemzînanî/Şemzînî; Badînî; Şikakî; Silivî; Mihemedî;
Writing system	Hawar alphabet (Latin script; used mostly in Turkey and Syria); Sorani alphabet (Perso-Arabic script; used mostly in Iraq and Iran); Cyrillic alphabet (former Soviet Union); Armenian alphabet (1921–29 in Soviet Armenia);
Official status
Official language in	Kurdistan Region; Rojava;
Recognised minority; language in	Armenia
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ku
ISO 639-3	kmr
Glottolog	nort2641
Linguasphere	58-AAA-a
Geographic distribution of the Kurdish languages spoken by Kurds	Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish) Sorani (Central Kurdish) Zaza language Southern Kurdish (Gorani is included) mixed language areas
	Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish) Sorani (Central Kurdish) Zaza language Southern Kurdish (Gorani is included) mixed language areas

Kurmanji (Kurdish: کورمانجی, romanized: Kurmancî, lit. 'Kurdish', pronunciation^ⓘ), also termed Northern Kurdish, is the northernmost of the Kurdish languages, spoken predominantly in southeast Turkey, northwest and northeast Iran, northern Iraq, northern Syria and the Caucasus and Khorasan regions. It is the most widely spoken form of Kurdish.

Kurmanji is also the common and ceremonial language of Yazidis. Their sacred book Mishefa Reş and all prayers are written and spoken in Kurmanji.

Ethnologue reports that the use of Kurmanji is declining in Turkey even when the language is used as a language of wider communication (LWC) by immigrants to Turkey, and that the language is threatened because it is losing speakers.