Kurdish Arabic Alphabet

Kurdish is written in two main alphabets. In Iraq and Iran it is written right to left in an Arabic-based script: 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, the 33 letters in the CLDR list, with the doubled وو for the long û often counted as one more. In Turkey and Syria, Kurmanji is written in the Latin Hawar alphabet instead, which has its own page, the Kurdish collection.

This page is the Arabic-script form of Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish), which is how the language is written in Iraqi Kurdistan, where its local form is called Badini (Behdînî) and is spoken around Duhok (دهۆک), Zakho and Akre, and by Kurmanji speakers in Iran. It shares many letters with Sorani, but Badini spelling conventions differ; the Central Kurdish (Sorani) collection covers that language, its words and its pronunciation in detail.

The letters join up as in Arabic and change shape at the start, middle and end of a word, but the font does that for you: copy the plain letters from this page. ا د ر ڕ ز ژ و ۆ ە never join to the next letter, which is why ئاڤ (water) and ڕۆژ (day) look broken into pieces.

Kurdish Latin to Arabic: the letter chart

If you read Kurmanji in Latin letters, the Arabic script maps almost one to one. Consonants: b ب, c ج (the j of jam), ç چ, d د, f ف, g گ, h ه, ḧ ح, j ژ (the s of measure), k ک, l ل, m م, n ن, p پ, q ق, r ر, s س, ş ش, t ت, v ڤ, w و, x خ, ẍ غ, y ی, z ز; the apostrophe some writers use for the Arabic ʿayn is ع.

Vowels: a ا, e ە, ê ێ, î ی, o ۆ, u و, û وو. The one Latin letter with no Arabic match is the short i, which is not written: dil (heart) becomes دل, min (me) becomes من, and dikim (I do) becomes دکەم. A word that starts with a vowel takes the silent seat ئ in front of it: ez ئەز (I), av ئاڤ (water), îro ئیرۆ (today).

So Ez te hez dikim (I love you) is written ئەز تە حەز دکەم, and Newroz pîroz be is نەورۆز پیرۆز بە. Read the chart the other way to turn Arabic-script Kurdish back into Latin, adding the short i where the word needs it.

Kurmanji letters in Arabic script: ڤ ێ ۆ ە ڕ ڵ

ڤ (veh) is the Kurmanji letter you will meet most: Kurmanji keeps a v where Sorani says w, so water is ئاڤ in Kurmanji and ئاو in Sorani, and night is شەڤ against Sorani شەو. ێ is ê, the vowel of English day, and does a lot of grammar in Kurmanji: the ezafe ending that links a noun to what follows is ێ after masculine words, as in زمانێ کوردی zimanê kurdî (the Kurdish language), and ا after feminine ones, as in نەورۆزا Newroza.

ە is short e, as in بەفر (snow); ۆ is o, as in ڕۆژ (day) and ئیرۆ (today). Their Unicode names describe the sounds: ARABIC LETTER AE and ARABIC LETTER OE.

ڕ, the rolled rr, and ڵ, the dark ll, belong to the shared Kurdish alphabet, and Sorani uses ڵ in many words where Kurmanji has a plain l: flower is گول gul in Kurmanji and گوڵ in Sorani, heart دل against دڵ. Plain ر and ڕ are both found in Kurmanji text; spellers differ on which words take ڕ, so you will see both ڕۆژ and رۆژ.

Kurdish vs Arabic alphabet: what is different

Kurdish is not Arabic: it is an Iranian language, related to Persian, that took over the Arabic script and reshaped it. Three changes stand out. It writes vowels as full letters (ا ە ێ ی ۆ و وو), so Kurdish needs no vowel marks to be read aloud. It adds letters for Kurdish sounds: پ چ ژ گ, shared with Persian, and ڤ ڕ ڵ ێ ۆ ە. And its letters follow Kurdish sounds: ث ذ ص ض ط ظ and ة are not part of the Kurdish alphabet, so loanwords are spelled the way Kurds say them, with س ز ت.

Kurdish also uses the Persian forms ک and ی, not Arabic ك and ي. They look almost the same, but they are different characters, and a Kurdish word typed with the Arabic ones may not match in some searches and text comparisons. For h, many Kurdish keyboards type ھ (heh doachashmee) instead of ه, so that h never looks like the vowel ە at the end of a word: دهۆک (Duhok) and دھۆک are the same name typed two ways. Both are on this page.

Punctuation is the right-to-left Arabic set: the comma ،, semicolon ؛ and question mark ؟, as in تو چاوا یی؟ (how are you?), with guillemets « » for quotations. The Kurdish Arabic locale defaults to Western digits in CLDR, which also lists the Arabic-Indic digits ٠ ١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ٨ ٩, ٪, ٫ and ٬. The Iraqi dinar is shown as IQD or د.ع.‏; Iran's rial has ﷼; the Lebanese pound is written ل.ل. or LBP.

How to type Kurdish Arabic letters on a keyboard and phone

Use a Sorani keyboard for many shared letters; Badini spelling conventions can differ. Windows: Settings, Time & language, Language & region, add Central Kurdish, then switch layouts with Windows + Space; the on-screen keyboard shows where ڤ ێ ۆ ە ڕ ڵ sit. Android: add Kurdish (Iraq), Arabic in Gboard's languages. Mac and iPhone: look for Kurdish Sorani in the keyboard list, or use a Kurdish keyboard app where your version does not offer it.

An Arabic layout is the wrong stopgap: it types ك and ي, and it has no پ چ ژ گ ڤ ێ ۆ ە. A Persian layout gets پ چ ژ گ ک ی right; copy the rest from this page.

If pasted Kurdish shows as separate letters running left to right, the app is not shaping right-to-left text. Browsers, phones and word processors handle it; some design and video apps need a Middle Eastern or right-to-left setting and a font that has ڤ ێ ۆ ە. On web pages, mark it lang="ku-Arab" dir="rtl".

Where Kurdish is written in Arabic script, and the Kurdish flag emoji

CLDR estimates about 4.8 million people for Kurdish in Arabic script: about 4.2 million in Iraq 🇮🇶, including Sorani speakers across Iraqi Kurdistan and Badini speakers around Duhok in the north, around half a million in Iran 🇮🇷, where Kurmanji is spoken around Urmia, Salmas and Maku and in North Khorasan, and about 90,000 in Lebanon 🇱🇧, where many Kurdish families came from the Mardin area in the twentieth century. The Iraq, Iran and Lebanon collections have each country's own emoji; Persian and Arabic, whose script Kurdish adapted, have collections too.

There is no Kurdistan flag emoji, because Unicode flags follow country codes. People build the red, white and green flag with its golden sun from other emoji: ❤️🤍💚☀️ or 🟥⬜🟩☀️; some paste 🇹🇯, the flag of Tajikistan, as a look-alike, and the text sun ☼ stands in for the Kurdish sun.

The Kurdish year turns at Newroz on 21 March. In Akre (ئاکرێ), in Duhok province, thousands of people carry torches up the hillside above the town on Newroz eve; elsewhere there are bonfires 🔥, picnics in the mountains ⛰️ and long lines of dancers holding hands 💃🕺. The greeting is نەورۆز پیرۆز بە.