r/kurdistan

Eastern Kurdish (Hawrami) and Western Kurdish (Kirdki) are so incredibly archaic among New Western Iranic languages that they actually are more archaic than Middle Persian and Parthian WHEN it comes to the grammatical cases, genders and numbers.

Of course as languages of the Middle Iranic stage, both, MP and Parthian had so many lexemes, sound structures and grammatical features that are generally lost in New Iranic. Including EK and WK.

But the archaic subdialects of EK and WK have even to this day these certain features that MP and Parthian didn't have from the earliest time of their attestation on from a point after 2'000 years ago.

Since I am more familiar with EK than with WK I will focus on EK.

EK has three cases (subject, object, vocative), two numbers (singular, plural) and two genders (masculine, feminine). MP and Parthian had two cases, which only showed in a limited way, and no grammatical gender. For example, NK also has two genders and three cases but it does not mark the gender or number of the subject case while EWK does and NK's masculine vocative marker (-o) is an innovation. In EK everything is marked even the adjectives!!! Which is an O.G. Indo-European feature that still existed in Old Iranic (Awistan and Old Persian with seven cases (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, locative, ablative/instrumental, vocative), three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and three numbers (singular, dual, plural)). Latin e.g. worked like that too and Russian e.g. still does. SCNK like New Persian does not do any of this.

English

-----

(A) girl sees (a) boy

(A) boy sees (a) girl

Girls see boys

Boys see girls

Kināca kurrī wīno

Kurr kināce wīno

Kināce kurrān wīnān

Kurre kinācān wīnān

Düat kurr(a) dünet

Kurr düat(a) dünet

Düat kurr dünin

Kurr düat dünin

Kanīshk kurr dabīnet

Kurr kanīshk dabīnet

Kanīshkān kurrān dabīnin

Kurrān kanīshkān dabīnin

Kac kurī dibīna

Kur kace dibīna

Kac kurān dibīnin

Kur kacān dibīnin

Kanīzag pisar wīnad

Pis kanīzag wīnad

Kanīzag pisarān wīnand

Pisar kanīzagān wīnand

She is healthy

He is healthy

They (only female) are healthy

They (only male) are healthy

Āda washa (a)na

Ād wash an

Āde washe (a)ne

Aw xwash a

Awān xwash in

Aw xosh a

Awān xosh in

Aw xwash a

Aw xwash in

Oy xwash ast

Oy xwash and

-----

He sees her

She sees him

They see them

They see her

Ād āde wīno

Āda ādī wīno

Āda ādīshān wīno

Āde āde wīnān

Aw aw dünet

Aw awān dünet

Awān aw dünin

Aw aw(ī) dabīnet

Aw aw(e) dabīnet

Aw awān dabīnet

Awān aw(e) dabīnin

Aw we dibīna

Aw wī dibīna

Aw wān dibīna

Aw wān dibīnin

Oy oy wīnad

Oy aweshān wīnand

Oy oy wīnand

----

Note: <oy> in Middle Persian is transcribed as such but might as well be <awe>

In order to understand the class basis of Kurdish communist movements, it is first necessary to know when Kurdish classes became politically active. In my examples, I will focus mainly on Kurds in Iraq and Kurds in Iran, since that is what I know best.

The political scene in Iran begins with the Anglo-Soviet invasion of the country in 1941. This period created an administrative and political vacuum, which was soon filled by an organization of urban intellectuals called Komalay Jiyanaway Kurdistan (KJK). Emerging from the collapse of Reza Shah's state, the KJK represented the first modern Kurdish political party in Iran, drawing its strength not from tribal or landed elites but from the educated urban petty bourgeoisie.

A brief description from Abbas Vali's The Kurds and the State in Iran:

>The founders of the Komalay Jiyanaway Kurdistan came from the ranks of the Kurdish urban petty bourgeoisie, both traditional and modern, though predominantly the latter. The majority of the founding members were engaged in occupations which were either created by or associated with the development of the political, economic and administrative functions of the modern state in Kurdistan, and the organization included no landlord or mercantile bourgeois representation of any significance.25 The formation of the Komalay Jiyanaway Kurdistan signified the revival of civil society in Kurdistan following the abdication of Reza Shah and the collapse of the absolutist regime in September 1941. Writing in Kurdish, which soon dominated the intellectual scene, was the major indicator of this revival. Kurdish became the language of political and cultural discourse among a small band of Kurdish intelligentsia, whose presence in the political field signified the development of commodity relations, secular education and modern administrative processes in Iranian Kurdistan. The Komalay Jiyanaway Kurdistan insisted on an ethnic qualification for membership: Kurds from all parts of Kurdistan were eligible to join. Although the Christian inhabitants of Kurdistan, especially the Assyrians, could also become members, the constitution of the Komala regarded Islam as the official religion of Kurdistan, and a Quranic verse was inscribed in the emblem of Nishtiman, its official organ.26 But the discourse of Nishtiman remained primarily secular, and its appeal to religion was mostly populist and functional. The Islamic credentials of the organization were often invoked to counteract the charges of atheism and communism increasingly levelled at it from within traditional sectors of Kurdish society, in particular the landowning class, the mercantile community and the clergy, who were made insecure by its radical populist-nationalist rhetoric.

But the KJK did not have a long life. It soon transformed into the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), and this shift had major implications for the class character of the Kurdish movement. One peculiar feature of the KJK was its refusal to take up armed struggle as a means to achieve its nationalist goals. The KJK leadership understood that an armed strategy would have required relying on Kurdish landlords and tribal chiefs, who controlled the means of violence in the countryside. To refuse armed struggle, however, meant political exclusion from the broader anti‑state movement that was gaining ground in post‑invasion Iran. The KDPI that emerged from this transformation was dominated instead by the Kurdish mercantile bourgeoisie, landlords, tribal chiefs, and clerics—precisely the classes the KJK had initially excluded.

So a question arises: why did the urban radicals decide to work with these classes, given that cooperation went against their own nationalist and agrarian populist political position?

>By mid April 1943, barely six months after its formation, the association had already managed to consolidate its basis in Mahabad and extend its influence south and westward to major urban centres such as Bokan, Baneh, Saqqiz and Sardasht, enlisting some new members and considerable popular support in the area north of the British controlled zone.25 However, the increase in membership and the development of popular support posed the intractable problem of administration. The Komalay JK, like any other political organization aspiring to democratic politics, mass base and popular support, had to face this crucial issue. It was unavoidable. It could no longer remain as a parochial political association of free individuals. But administration meant formal authority and a set of rules and regulations specifying its conditions and means within the association. The introduction of formal authority had grave consequences for the subsequent development of the Komalay JK politically and organizationally. It was, therefore, the institutional requirements of modern mass politics which led the core members of the Komalay JK to elect a central leadership committee in April 1943. This committee, widely believed to have been led by Abdulrahman Zabihi, signified the emergence of political authority and institutional hierarchy within the association. Informal political relations and personal and familial ties and associations to a considerable extent had to give way or succumb to the emergent hierarchy of command and obedience characteristic of modern political organizations.

In short, the urban radicals were forced into alliance with the mercantile bourgeoisie, landlords, and tribal chiefs not because they abandoned their ideology, but because the very logic of building a mass-based political organization required administrative structures and territorial reach that they could not achieve on their own. The traditional power holders controlled the countryside, the armed men, and the local networks of patronage. To administer, the KJK had to incorporate them—and in doing so, the organization's class character shifted irreversibly toward the KDPI. A major difference between the KDPI and its predecessor was the KDPI's rejection of Kurdish unification in favor of a model of regional autonomy within Iranian borders and the Iranian political body. Why did the KDPI take such a position? The answer lies in the class composition of the new party. Unlike the KJK's urban petty-bourgeois base, the KDPI was dominated by tribal landlords, mercantile bourgeoisie, and clerics—whose material interests were tied not to a Kurdish state but to their position within Iran's existing political and economic structures.

>The large landlords, predominantly tribal, had been the primary target of Reza Shah's territorial centralism in Kurdistan in the 1930s, and many had suffered major political and military setbacks. They were able to rearm, regroup and reassert their political authority in their traditional areas of influence soon after the collapse of his centralized rule in September 1941. The tribal landlords were thus once again in possession of the military contingents and paid for their upkeep, which traditionally exempted them from paying taxes to the central political authority. The nature and extent of their political and financial support for the Republic varied considerably according to the strength of their nationalist feelings and convictions, which were mediated in turn through a complex network of political and economic relations with the Iranian state. There was also another factor influencing the attitude of the large landlords, particularly the tribal chiefs, towards the Republic and its predominantly urban leadership. The tribal leadership was the locus of traditional political authority in the Kurdish community at large, but especially in the countryside, stemming from their pivotal position in both economic structure and military organization of the Kurdish community. This gave them a sense of legitimacy and superiority in their conduct with the urban dwellers, who were mostly engaged in trade and commerce or worked as minor or middle-ranking officials in government bureaucracies. This 'tribal bias' proved significant in the relationship between the Kurdish tribal chiefs and the Republican leaders and administrators, who with a few notable exceptions originated from the ranks of the urban petty-bourgeoisie and the bazaar merchants. on the significance of this 'tribal bias', and especially the tribal leaders' resentment of the modern means of domination and rule which ensured Ghazi Muhammad's rise to power, Jwaideh comments: 'Many Kurdish tribal leaders resented the rise of Qazi Muhammad to a position of supreme power by the rather unusual means of party machinery and support of the urban population.' (1965, p. 753) The middle and small landowners were mostly non-tribal in origin, and on the whole possessed stronger nationalist convictions than the tribal landlords.

From Marouf Cabi's The formation of modern Kurdish society in Iran

>The integration of the economies of the region into the world market by the end of the century resulted in an unequal trading balance with the effect that it made these economies exporters of raw materials and importers of manufactured goods.2 Consequently, as Masoud Karshenas argues in the case of Iran, free trade led to the peripheralization of these economies in a world economy,3 which by the end of the century, as Eric Hobsbawm explains, had been effectively and permanently divided into 'advanced' and 'underdeveloped' as the result of political and industrial revolutions.4 Consequently, structural reforms in the regional states to modernize and strengthen the economy and society followed. As regards the Kurds, this subsequently transformed the pre-modern power relations based on Empire-Emirate with the effect that the rule of the 'autonomous' Emirates ended and the direct authority of the central state over the Kurdish regions through its representatives followed.The integration of the Ottoman and Qajar Empires in the world market had undoubtedly engaged the Kurds in a wider regional trade. Mrs Bishop, a missionary, observed in her journey in Kurdistan around 1890: Long before reaching Sujbulak [modern Mahabad] there were indications of the vicinity of a place of some importance, caravans going both ways, asses loaded with perishable produce, horsemen and foot passengers, including many fine-looking Kurdish women unveiled, and walking with a firm masculine stride, even when carrying children on their backs.5 Sujbulak, the capital of Northern Persian Kurdistan, and the residence of a governor, is quite an important entrepôt for furs, in which it carries on a large trade with Russia, and a French firm, it is said, buys up fur rugs to the value of several hundred thousand francs annually.6

So the tribes used nationalism to compensate for the loss of their once-autonomous emirates (explanation down below), while the merchants wielded it to secure a more favorable position vis-à-vis the Iranian state. This made both classes vacillating and extremely opportunistic—willing to support Kurdish autonomy when it served their narrow interests, but just as ready to abandon it when the central state offered better terms. Thus we see in the tribal case that this sort of nationalism perfectly mirrors the definition of feudal nationalism that Stalin used to analyze Georgia and that Giap used to analyze Vietnam before the 19th century. But why did the bourgeoisie decide to side with the feudalists? An important characteristic of the Kurdish national movement was the alignment of the political positions of these two classes, despite their differences. Several factors intensified and sustained this alignment: the continuation of the feudal system in Kurdistan, the extreme weakness of the bourgeoisie, and the confrontation of both classes with the central states. Ignoring the simultaneous existence of feudal nationalism and bourgeois nationalism—and the longer historical trajectory of feudal nationalism—leads one to equate the KDP of the 1940s and 1950s with the KDP of the second, third, and fourth congresses, and to mistakenly place all of these under the single category of bourgeois nationalism.

The Kurdish bourgeoisie emerged in the form of a commercial bourgeoisie in some of the larger cities of Ottoman Kurdistan and Qajar-era Iran. Trade with Tsarist Russia and major Ottoman commercial centers contributed to the growth of this bourgeoisie. However, this bourgeoisie suffered heavy blows with the fall of the Tsarist regime and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. The first time a bourgeois-democratic position became somewhat distinct from the feudal issue was in the poems of Haji Qadir Koyi, but this was still an early dawn. Until the anti-fascist war—specifically from 1941 onward, during the Second Imperialist War—the feudal class and the commercial bourgeoisie remained united both politically and organizationally.

This opportunism came at a heavy cost. The same vacillating classes that had temporarily aligned with the nationalist project were never reliable allies, and when the balance of power shifted, they abandoned the Republic without hesitation.

>For tribal landlordism was historically replete with opportunism, and sailing with the wind was the modus operandi of tribal politics. Lineage, primordial loyalty and parochial mentality, which are the stuff of tribal politics, could not by definition accommodate the processes and practices associated with modern political identities such as the people and the nation. Nor did this quick shift in allegiance by the tribal leadership take Ghazi Muhammad and his nationalist associates in the government and the party by surprise. They had long realized at their own peril that the power and status of tribal landlordism in Kurdistan was the product of the very same historical processes and practices which had defined their opposition to the modern state and official nationalism in Iran. This historical relationship between the power and status of tribal landlordism in Kurdistan and the development of the modern state in Iran meant that the so-called paradox of modernity was grounded not only in the economic structure and political organization of Pahlavi absolutism but also in the very core of political power in the Republic. Iranian modernity, and more specifically the political and cultural processes and practices of the construction of a uniform nation and national identity by an absolutist state, had made landlordism indispensable to the persistence of the structures of power and domination in both the Iranian state and the Kurdish Republic. The pre-capitalist agrarian relations in Iran and the logistics of military power in the Kurdish Republic both required and ensured, though in different ways, the active representation of the landowning class in the organization of political power. The position of the landowning class was unassailable for as long as this paradox continued to define the relationship between the economic and political forces and relations in the complex structures of power and domination in both entities. The republican administration, the nationalists in the leadership of the party and the government were aware of this paradox, but perhaps never realized its real significance before the news of the re-conquest of Tabriz reached Mahabad on 13 December. Now the tribal soldiery, the sword which was meant to defend the Kurdish Republic, was being held by the state; and its cutting edge was directed menacingly at Ghazi and his comrades in Mahabad.

So up to now, it has been established that the base of Kurdish nationalism has historically been merchants and feudalists. This class composition has made these movements vacillate constantly between collaboration with central governments and a desire to break from them—although the latter has usually been used to achieve the former on better terms. Thus we see movements like the PKK and its offshoots pursue a period of mobilizing workers, because their own class basis is the petty bourgeoisie, which cannot act independently for long. But they are willing to abandon this phase and work with Kurdish reactionary landlords and merchants as soon as the opportunity arises. That is why the PKK has felt so comfortable taking a cozy position in parliament, or why it is willing to integrate with Jolani's fascist army—the very same force that initiated a campaign of terror against Alawites and Druze populations.

Kurdish merchants and feudal lords have always been willing to work with imperialism. Just look at how the Barzanis were willing to work with MIT and SAVAK to hunt down Kurdish revolutionaries. In the 1970s, and especially after the Kissinger‑Barzani conspiracy, Iraqi Kurdistan became a base for American imperialism, for the regime occupying Palestine, and a base against the revolutions of Iraq, Iran, and other peoples of the Middle East. Iraqi Kurdistan was liberated from the domination of the Baghdad regime (the first Ba'ath reaction, the two Arifs, the second Ba'ath) through the sacrifice of the masses and the Peshmergas, but it came under the complete domination of imperial (Pahlavi) reaction and its imperialist and Zionist masters. Barzani explicitly told Kissinger—and also journalists of the imperialist press—that he wanted to place Kurdistan at America's disposal. This move by Barzani was precisely a continuation of the move by Sharif Pasha and Sheikh Taha, who at the beginning of the 20th century wanted to create an "independent" feudal state under the protectorate of imperialist powers. The suppression of the national movement of Iran's Kurds by Barzani (through Ahmad Tawfiq) and the suppression of the Kurdish movement in Turkey (by order of Iranian, Turkish, and American reaction) were also in line with the amirs of the 17th and 18th centuries. In fact, the intelligence branch of the KDP in Iraq (Parastin) was basically a SAVAK front inside Iraq. Or consider how the KDPI was willing to work with the Ba'ath—which had no intention of hiding its plan to ethnically cleanse Kurds, Assyrians, and Turkmens—as well as with Soviet social imperialism.

The opportunism inherent to the petty bourgeoisie makes it structurally unable to serve as a workers’ vanguard. It cannot unite Kurds across four countries because its class interests are tied to specific state frameworks. It cannot lead a socialist revolution because it refuses to overthrow feudalism and imperialism, preferring instead to negotiate with them. As long as Kurdish communist movements remain rooted in the petty bourgeoisie, they will oscillate, collaborate, and ultimately betray every goal they claim to hold. No national liberation, no workers’ state, no united Kurdistan can be built on such a foundation.

During the 15th and 16th centuries CE, the process of the emergence of Kurdish principalities (Emirates) began and continued, so that by the 17th century nearly 40 large and small feudal amirates had been established. This socio-economic development took shape as Kurdish tribes settled down and increasingly engaged in agriculture. Sometimes it also occurred through the domination of a Kurdish tribe over a non-Kurdish agricultural population in order to subjugate them. Of course, it should be noted that agriculture and sedentarization did not completely eliminate the pastoral economy of the tribes, and the coexistence of the two has continued even to our time.

The Emirates

The rule was hereditary, passed from father to son;
Each emirate had a defined territory that included a certain number of villages, with peasants and tribes subject to the emir;
The emirates exercised political sovereignty to varying degrees; some were independent, others were subordinate to other rulers or kings;
In each emirate, the emir, khan, beg, or agha was the supreme feudal lord and the main ruler, and the chiefs of smaller tribes were subordinate to him;
Each emirate had a feudal army to confront external enemies, as well as to attack surrounding lands and expand its territory;
The larger emirates had their own flag and coinage, and the Friday sermon (khutbah) was recited in the name of the amir; and
Feudal dispersion was prevalent throughout Kurdistan.

Economic Policies

The logical outcome of socio-economic evolution could have been for a great emirate to dominate the rest and create a centralized feudal state. But this did not happen. In the west and east of Kurdistan, two great feudal powers arose, namely the Safavid feudal empire and the Ottoman feudal empire. The Safavid kings, in implementing their policy of feudal centralization, threatened the independence of the amirates. They carried out the overthrow of the emirs' rule and the dispatch of governors from Isfahan. The emirs strongly resisted the Safavid policy of feudal centralization. The Ottoman sultans, who themselves were pursuing the same policy of centralization, tried to exploit the emirs' struggle against their Safavid rival. The Ottomans, through one of their high-ranking officials, Idris Bitlisi (who was a Kurd), promised the emirs that if they supported the Ottomans in the war against the Safavids, the Ottomans would recognize their independence. The Safavid kings repeatedly attempted to overthrow the rule of the Safavid and Ottoman empires.

As a result of these wars, which lasted more than a century, firstly, the socio-economic development of society was halted. The growth of the emirates was accompanied by the development of agriculture, the emergence of feudal villages and towns, and even trade within the confines of the feudal economy. The involvement of the emirs in the wars of one of the two empires, or their engaging in resistance wars under feudal leadership, led to the waste of productive forces. Human resources were destroyed as a result of widespread massacres, forced displacement, starvation and disease; bridges, settlements, fields, gardens, qanats (underground canals), and the like were destroyed; or horse breeding and the production of weapons replaced livestock and agricultural tools.

The second consequence of these wars was that the conditions created by the war gave rise to a political awakening within the context of feudal society, which took the form of "national" resistance against the "foreigner".

Dave Rubin dropped some great intel, as always: "It sounds like the Kurds are starting to enter the country with arms to help the people take out the last vestiges of the IRGC"

Map of Modern Kurdish Political Movements and Regional Conflicts

KRG demographics as of latest, 2026?

Convoy of displaced people from Afrin return in the city centre from Kobanî

Kurdish players in Iraqi national team?

her biji serok apo

Today, a number Kurdish political parties (including PYD this time) gathered to voice concerns over the “Syrian People’s Assembly elections,” questioning whether the process reflects inclusive political representation.

Doesn't the kurdistan goverment realize what will happen in the long term by arabization ?

Ethnic composition of Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1890

Eastern and Western Kurdish's archaism!

The Kurdistan region is falling apart

Who really was cyrus the great?

How do you say "tea" in Kurdish?

STATELESS comedy special

Kurdistan🍃🥹

Washington will not mediate Baghdad-Erbil disputes anymore

Feudal Nationalism and the Commercial Bourgeoisie: The Class Roots of Kurdish Communist Bankruptcy

Turkish Parliament rejects proposal on Kurdish language rights

Not getting Kurdish cores achievement?

Arman Tsarukyan tried to jump the cageside barricade and fight Namo Fazil, Then went backstage to confront him