Zazaki	Persian	Kurdi		English
b	d	d		-
hewt	heft	heft		seven
kewt	keft	keft		get in
grewt	greft	-		buy, take
kew	keft	kef		foam
vewre	berf	berf		snow

Note: In Bingol dialect of Zazaki, "ew" further turns to an "o" sound, like hewt to hot, kewt to kot, grewt to grot, kew to ko, and vewr to wor.

Grammar

Grammatical Gender

The Zazaki language distinguishes between masculine and feminine grammatical gender. Each noun belongs to one of those two genders. In order to correctly decline any noun and any modifier or other type of word affecting that noun, one must identify whether the noun is feminine or masculine. This distinguishes Zazaki from many other Western Iranian languages that have lost this feature over time.

For example, the masculine preterite participle of the verb kerdene ("to make" or "to do") is kerde; the feminine preterite-participle is kerdiye. Both have the sense of the English "made" or "done". The grammatical gender of the preterite-participle would be determined by the grammatical gender of the noun representing the thing that was made or done.

The linguistic notion of grammatical gender is distinguished from the biological and social notion of gender, although they interact closely in many languages. Both grammatical and natural gender can have linguistic effects in a given language.

Vocabulary

Words in Zazaki can be divided into five groups in respect to their origins. Mosts words in Zazaki are from Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Iranian origin. The forth group is consist of words that are developed when Zazaki speakers divided from the Proto-Iranian language. The fifth group consist of loan words. Loan words in Zazaki are chiefly from Arabic and Persian.

Controversy over classification

Zazaki is an Iranic language in the Indo-European family. From the point of view of the spoken language, its closest relatives are Mazandarani, Hewrami, Gilaki and other Caspian languages. However, the classification of Zazaki has been an issue of political discussion. Kurdish nationalist advocate that Zazaki is a Kurdish (another Iranic Language) dialect while Turkish nationalist advocate that Zazaki is Turkish (an Altaic language) dialect.

Ethnologue favors the following hierarchy:

• Northwestern Iranian languages
• Zaza-Gorani language group
• Dimli/Zazaki
• other sublanguages/dialects of Zazaki-Gorani group
• Caspian Languages group
• Mazandarani
• Gilaki
• others
• Kurdish language group
• other sublanguages/dialects of Kurdish

The US State Department "Background Note" lists the Zazaki language as one of the major languages of Turkey, along with Turkish (official), Kurdish, Armenian, Greek, and Arabic. Despite the Ethnologue's classification, Kurdish Academy, which describes itself an "electronic non-governmental organization (e-NGO), lists Zazaki as a dialect of the Kurdish language. The Encyclopedia Britannica notes Zazaki to be a dialect of Kurdish. However, this classification is not supported by linguistics and regarded as political rather than scientific.

Linguists connect the word Dimli with the Daylamites in the Alborz Mountains near the shores of Caspian Sea in Iran and believe that the Zaza have immigrated from Deylaman towards the west. Zazaki shows many connections to the Iranian dialects of the Caspian region, especially the Gilaki language.

The Zazaki language shows similarities with (Hewrami or Gorani), Shabaki and Bajelani. Gorani, Bajelani, and Shabaki languages are spoken around Iran-Iraq border; however, it is believed that they are also immigrated from Northern Iran to their present homelands. These languages are sometimes put together in the Zaza-Gorani language group.

Some linguistic studies on Zazaki

• Paul, Ludwig. (1998) "The Position of Zazaki Among West Iranian languages" University of Hamburg,
• Lynn Todd, Terry. (1985) "A Grammar of Dimili" University of Michigan,
• Gippert, Jost. (1996) "Historical Development of Zazaki" University of Frankfurt University,
• Gajewski, Jon. (2003) "Evidentiality in Zazaki" Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
• Gajewski, Jon. (2004) "Zazaki Notes" Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
• Larson, Richard. and Yamakido, Hiroko. (2006) "Zazaki as Double Case-Marking" Stony Brook University and University of Arizona,
• Iremet, Faruk. (1996) "The difference between Zaza, Kurdish and Turkish" Stockholm, Sweden,
• Brigitte Werner. (2007) "Features of Bilingualism in the Zaza Community" Marburg, Germany

Notes

References

• Bozdağ, Cem and Üngör, Uğur. Zazas and Zazaki. (Zazaki Literature.)
• Blau, Gurani et Zaza in R. Schmitt, ed., Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, Wiesbaden, 1989, ISBN 3-88226-413-6, pp. 336-40 (About Daylamite origin of Zaza-Guranis)

See also

• Iranian Languages

External links

• Dimli (on the Ethnologue site)
• Kirmanjki (on the Ethnologue site)
• Academic Research Center of Zazaki - (In several languages, including English)
• ZazaPress (In Zazaki, Turkish, English and Swedish)
• Iremet Publishing (In Zazaki, Turkish and Swedish)
• Zazaki Language Institute (In German, Zazaki, and Turkish)
• Ethnic Differentiation among the Kurds: Kurmancî, Kizilbash and Zaza
• MIT OpenCourseWare online course in Zazaki
• A Zazaki Radio: Miraz FM
• With An Eye and an Ear Towards Zazaki (23-min film, produced/directed by Gulcem Aktas and Andrew Nevins