Dictionaries of the Kurdish Language

The lexical system has, like orthography, been strongly affected by codification. Two interrelated trends can be distinguished, (a) the enrichment of the lexical stock through the formation (via coinage, semantic expansion, borrowing, etc.) of new words for new ideas and concepts, i.e., modernization, and (b) the Kurdization of thousands of words and phrases borrowed primarily from and through Arabic, Persian and Turkish.

Lexical Modernization

Modernization has embraced all aspects of vocabulary, although it can be traced more conveniently in the specialized lexicons or, to use a more appropriate term, registers that have evolved especially since the 1920s. A "register" is a variety of language defined according to its use in special social situations. In Hallidayan linguistics, it is a variety characterized "according to use.' It is distinguished from regional or social dialects, which are varieties defined according to the characteristics of the user. According to Halliday (1976:5-6), the existence of social dialects reflects the hierarchical form of the social structure. The existence of registers reflects the variety of human roles and actions and, in particular, the social division of labor.

A. Early Registers

Throughout the centuries, specialization in knowledge and experience evolved throughout the centuries in the agrarian society of Kurdistan and was transmitted from generation to generation through the use of terminologies appropriate to each area of expertise. These terms were created and/or borrowed by illiterate farmers and artisans who taught their apprentices informally and on the spot.

The primitive registers often pejoratively called "jargons," are small in size and extensively overlap with non-specialized vocabulary. For example, the water mill has provided a register of at least 96 terms arid no less than 13 proverbs and proverbial phrases (figures calculated from terms collected by Fattahi Qazi 1972; 1972a). Baking bread, traditionally a female household activity, has furnished about 95 terms and 21 proverbial phrases and idiomatic expressions mostly based on the word nan 'bread' (cf. collected terms in Fattahi Qazi 1973). The primitive loom, still popular in Kurdistan, provides 86 terms and twelve idiomatic expressions (cf. terms collected by Fattahi Qazi 1983). The only dictionary of agriculture (Qaradaghi 1972) which includes also the registers of non-agricultural crafts lists some 7,000 items selected from (lie compiler's unpublished general dictionary of 30,000 words. Thus, agricultural terms make up about 23% of the general vocabulary of Kurdish.

In the intellectual field, religion and literature each developed registers that draw heavily on Arabic and Persian. Islam's prohibition on the translation of the Koran and the obligatory use of Arabic in prayer and other religious rites have likely contributed to the limited size of the religious lexicon. The more abstract and specialized terms in theology and jurisprudence are, thus, Arabic loanwords and limited in usage to the clergy. In the more practical domains most of the terms are of native coinage, e.g., nöj (kirdin) '(conduct) ritual prayer', niwéjjí beyan, níwro, éware, shéwa, xewtinan 'morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night prayer', de nöjî 'minor ritual ablution', bredeniwéjh 'slab reserved as place of niwéjh', rojhú girtin 'to fast', bang 'call to niwéjh' and many more. In the realm of literature, poetry has furnished a more extensive stock of native and borrowed words.

B. New Registers

Against this background, new registers of administration and law, elementary science, the humanities and social sciences developed after 1918, primarily as a result of officialization of the language, i.e., its use in education, mass media and administration. Unlike the Western industrial societies, these registers were not a product of a new, social and geographical division of labor within Kurdish society, although processes of social and economic development became a contributing factor later.

Borrowing from Arabic, Persian and Turkish was at the beginning the main source for providing new terms. Gradually, however, the borrowed terms were purified and new terms were coined, as is illustrated by the following examples from two selected fields.