Sorani Kurdish Alphabet

Central Kurdish, usually called Sorani, is written right to left in an Arabic-based alphabet: ئ ا ب پ ت ج چ ح خ د ر ڕ ز ژ س ش ع غ ف ڤ ق ک گ ل ڵ م ن ه ە و ۆ ی ێ. That is the 33 letters in the CLDR list, and many school charts add وو, a doubled wāw for the long û, as one more. Most of the shapes are borrowed from Arabic and Persian: پ p, چ ch, ژ zh (the s in measure) and گ g come from Persian, ڤ v is an extra Kurdish letter; Unicode notes that ۆ is shared with Persian, Urdu, and other languages, while ڕ and ڵ mark the Sorani trilled r and velarized l.

If you know the Latin Kurdish (Hawar) alphabet used for Kurmanji, the letters line up almost one to one: ا a, ب b, ج c, چ ç, خ x, ژ j, ش ş, ق q, ڤ v, ە e, ێ ê, ۆ o, و w or u, وو û, ی y or î. Sorani in Latin letters writes ڕ as rr or ř and ڵ as ll or ł. Short i is usually unwritten between consonants, though it is represented word-initially; دڵ (heart) is read dił although it is written with only two letters.

Like Arabic, the letters join up, and each takes a different shape at the start, middle or end of a word. You never choose those shapes yourself: copy the plain letters from this page and the font joins them. ا د ر ڕ ز ژ و ۆ ە never join to the letter after them, which is why Kurdish words often break into small pieces, as in ڕۆژ (day).

Kurdish letters with distinctive shapes: ڕ ڵ ێ ۆ ە

ڕ is a rolled, trilled r, while plain ر is a single tap; the difference changes meaning: کەر ker is a donkey, کەڕ keř is deaf. Words that begin with an r sound always take ڕ, as in ڕۆژ rož (day) and ڕەنگ reng (colour).

ڵ is a heavy, dark l, said with the back of the tongue raised, like the l at the end of English full. It never starts a word: گوڵ guł (flower), دڵ dił (heart), سڵاو sław (hello).

The vowels get their own letters. ە is the short e/a of English cat: شەو şew (night), بەفر befr (snow). ێ is ê, like the vowel in day: سێ sê (three), ئێوارە êware (evening). ۆ is o: نۆ no (nine), خۆش xoş (nice). Their Unicode names describe the shapes and sounds: ARABIC LETTER AE, YEH WITH SMALL V, OE, REH WITH SMALL V BELOW and LAM WITH SMALL V.

How Sorani writes vowels and look-alike letters

Arabic and Persian leave short vowels unwritten, while Sorani writes most vowels with letters; short i is usually unmarked between consonants but represented word-initially, so a Kurdish word can be read aloud without harakat marks: ا a, ە e, ێ ê, ی î (and y), ۆ o, و u (and w), وو û. Because a word cannot begin with a bare vowel letter, it starts with ئ, a silent seat: ئاو aw (water), ئێمە ême (we), ئەمڕۆ emřo (today).

Several Kurdish letters have Arabic look-alikes with different codes. Kurdish uses the Persian ک and ی, not Arabic ك and ي; they look almost the same, but the wrong form can impair search unless the app accounts for the different characters. Older or hastily typed text sometimes puts ه where the vowel ە belongs; in correct Unicode text ە is the vowel and h is ه, which some Kurdish keyboards and writers type as ھ (heh doachashmee) so that it never looks like ە at the end of a word. Both h forms turn up in Kurdish text, so both are on this page.

ح, ع and غ are sounds Sorani shares with Arabic, used in many loanwords and in some native words such as حەوت ḥewt (seven).

Kurdish punctuation, numbers and currency

Sorani uses the right-to-left Arabic comma ،, semicolon ؛ and question mark ؟, with the ordinary full stop and exclamation mark: چۆنی؟ (how are you?). Quotations go between the guillemets « », which in right-to-left text open on the right.

Sorani usually uses ASCII digits 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 in modern texts; Arabic-Indic digits ٠ ١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ٨ ٩ also appear, especially in official documents and schoolbooks. Both sets run left to right. With the latter, 2026 is ٢٠٢٦; ٪ is the percent sign, ٫ the decimal separator, and ٬ the thousands separator. Kurds in Iran tend to use the Persian digits ۰ ۱ ۲ ۳, which the Persian collection has. Counting to ten: یەک، دوو، سێ، چوار، پێنج، شەش، حەوت، هەشت، نۆ، دە.

The Iraqi dinar has no currency sign of its own; it is written IQD, د.ع in Arabic or دینار in Kurdish. Iran's rial has the sign ﷼, though prices there are mostly written out as ریال or تمەن (toman).

How to type the Kurdish Sorani alphabet on a keyboard and phone

Windows: open Settings, Time & language, Language & region, add Central Kurdish, and switch layouts with Windows + Space. The on-screen keyboard shows where ڕ ڵ ێ ۆ ە sit. Mac and iPhone: look in the keyboard list (Mac: System Settings, Keyboard, Input Sources) for Kurdish Sorani; where your version does not offer it, a Kurdish keyboard app or a downloaded layout adds it. Android: Gboard has Kurdish (Sorani); add it under Languages.

A Persian keyboard is a common stopgap because it types پ چ ژ گ ک ی correctly, but it has no ڕ ڵ ێ ۆ ە or ڤ; copy those from this page. Avoid the Arabic layout for Kurdish: it types ك and ي instead of ک and ی.

If pasted Kurdish comes out as separate letters running left to right, the program is not shaping right-to-left text; browsers, word processors and phones handle it, while some design and video apps need a Middle Eastern or World-Ready text setting or a Kurdish font. On web pages mark Kurdish with lang="ckb" dir="rtl".

Where Central Kurdish is spoken, and the Kurdish flag emoji

CLDR estimates about 5.6 million speakers of Central Kurdish: around 5 million in Iraq 🇮🇶, where Kurdish is an official language and Sorani is the main written language of the Kurdistan Region, in cities such as Erbil (هەولێر), Sulaymaniyah (سلێمانی) and Kirkuk, and around half a million in western Iran 🇮🇷, around Sanandaj (سنە) and Mahabad. Sorani is the largest of the Kurdish languages written in Arabic script; Kurmanji, spoken in Turkey, Syria and the diaspora, is written in Latin letters (see the Kurdish collection), and Southern Kurdish and Laki in Iran have collections of their own, as do Persian and Arabic, whose script Sorani adapted.

There is no Kurdistan flag emoji: Unicode flags follow country codes, and the only regional flags it recommends are England, Scotland and Wales. So people build the red, white and green flag with its golden sun from other emoji: ❤️🤍💚☀️, 🟥⬜🟩 or ☀️ alone. Some paste 🇹🇯, the flag of Tajikistan, as a stand-in because it has the same three bands, though its emblem is a crown and stars, not a sun. The text sun ☼ is a plain-text option for "Kurdish sun copy and paste"; it is a generic sun, not the 21-ray emblem.

The Kurdish year turns at Newroz on 21 March, celebrated with bonfires 🔥 on the hills, picnics in the mountains ⛰️ and long lines of dancers holding hands 💃🕺; the greeting is نەورۆزتان پیرۆز بێت.