Origin of the Kurds

There are different theories about the origin of name Kurd. According to one theory, it originates in Middle Persian as 𐭪𐭥𐭫𐭲 kwrt-, a term for "nomad; tent-dweller".[Note 1] After the Muslim conquest of Persia, this term is adopted into Arabic as kurd-, and was used specifically of nomadic tribes.[Note 2]

As for the Middle Persian noun kwrt- originating in an ancient toponym, it has been argued that it may ultimately reflect a Bronze Age toponym Qardu, Kar-da,[5] which may also be reflected in the Arabic (Quranic) toponym Ǧūdī (re-adopted in Kurdish as Cûdî).[6][7] From the 7th century onwards, the name Kurd is better known, since the Arabs used it often (al Akrad).[8]

According to some sources, by the 16th century, there seems to develop an ethnic identity designated by the term Kurd among various Northwestern Iranian groups,[Note 3][Note 4][Note 5][Note 6] without reference to any specific Iranian language.[4][Note 5]

Kurdish scholar Mehrdad Izady argues that any nomadic groups called kurd in medieval Arabic are "bona fide ethnic Kurds", and that it is conversely the non-Kurdish groups descended from them who have "acquired separate ethnic identities since the end of the medieval period".[Note 7]

Sherefxan Bidlisi in the 16th century states that there are four division of "Kurds": Kurmanj, Lur, Kalhor and Guran, each of which speak a different dialect or language variation. Paul (2008) notes that the 16th-century usage of the term Kurd as recorded by Bidlisi, regardless of linguistic grouping, might still reflect an incipient Northwestern Iranian "Kurdish" ethnic identity uniting the Kurmanj, Kalhor, and Guran.[Note 8]

The present state of knowledge about Kurdish allows, at least roughly, drawing the approximate borders of the areas where the main ethnic core of the speakers of the contemporary Kurdish dialects was formed. The most argued hypothesis on the localisation of the ethnic territory of the Kurds remains D.N. Mackenzie's theory, proposed in the early 1960s.[14] Developing the ideas of P. Tedesco[15] and regarding the common phonetic isoglosses shared by Kurdish, Persian, and Baluchi, D.N. Mackenzie concluded that the speakers of these three languages form a unity within Northwestern Iranian languages. He has tried to reconstruct such a Persian-Kurdish-Baluchi linguistic unity presumably in the central parts of Iran. According to his theory, the Persians (or Proto-Persians) occupied the province of Fars in the southwest (proceeding from the fact that the Achaemenids spoke Persian), the Balochs (Proto-Balochs) inhabited the central areas of Western Iran, and the Kurds (Proto-Kurds), in the wording of G. Windfuhr (1975: 459), lived either in northwestern Luristan or in the province of Isfahan.[16]

The term kurd is used in the 16th century by Sherefxan Bidlisi as encompassing four tribal groups, the Kurmanj, Lur, Kalhor and Guran, each of which speak a different dialect or language variation. Paul (2008) argues that this marks an incipient ethnogenesis of the Kurds as a coherent Northwestern Iranian group, as three out of these four groups can be identified as the ancestors of groups that at least partially identify as Kurdish today, while the Lurs are not a Kurdish group, and indeed do not belong to the Northwest Iranian but to the Southwestern Iranian linguistic phylum. Paul further notes that the first texts that identifiably are written in Kurdish appear during the same period.[17]

The Kurdish people are believed to be of heterogeneous origins[18][19] combining a number of earlier tribal or ethnic groups[20] including Lullubi,[21] Guti,[21] Cyrtians,[22] Carduchi.[23]

Some of them have also absorbed some elements from Semitic,[20][24][25][26][27] Turkic[28][29][30][31] and Armenian people.[20][32][33][34][35][36]

Kurds are an Iranian people,[37] and the first known Indo-Iranians in the region were the Mitanni, who established a kingdom in northern Syria five centuries after the fall of Gutium.[38] The Mitanni are believed to have spoken an Indo-Aryan language,[39] or perhaps a pre-split Indo-Iranian language.[40][41] The current view is that the separation of Iranian peoples from Indo-Aryans occurred between 1800 and 1600 BCE, which makes it nearly impossible for the Gutians to have been linguistically or culturally Kurdish, although it is possible that they still contributed to the Kurdish ethnogenesis to an extent, if at the very least genetically.

Map showing kingdoms of Corduene and Adiabene in the last centuries BC. The blue line shows the expedition and then retreat of the ten thousand through Corduene in 401 BC.

19th-century scholars, such as George Rawlinson, identified Corduene and Carduchi with the modern Kurds, considering that Carduchi was the ancient lexical equivalent of "Kurdistan".[42][43][44] This view is supported by some recent academic sources which have considered Corduene as proto-Kurdish[45] or as equivalent to modern-day Kurdistan.[46][23] Some modern scholars, however, reject a Kurdish connection to the Carduchi.[47][48]

There were numerous forms of this name, partly due to the difficulty of representing kh in Latin. The spelling Karduchoi is itself probably borrowed from Armenian, since the termination -choi represents the Armenian language plural suffix -kh.[49] It is speculated that Carduchi spoke an Old Iranian language.[50] They also seem to have had Armenian elements.[51]

Jewish sources trace origins of people of Corduene to marriage of Jinns of King Solomon with 500 beautiful Jewish women.[52][53][54][55][56] The same legend was also used by the early Islamic authorities to explain origins of Kurds.

The Medes have often been believed to be a starting point for Kurdish (as well as Baloch) ethnogesis. This would leave about a millennium of separate development between the collapse of the Median Empire and the first historical mention of the Kurds as an identifiable ethnic group.

The Median hypothesis was advanced by Vladimir Minorsky. I. Gershevitch provided "a piece of linguistic confirmation" of Minorsky's identification and then another "sociolinguistic" argument. Gernot Windfuhr (1975) dentified Kurdish dialects as Parthian, albeit with a Median substratum.[57]

Median descent of the Kurds has found favour as a historical narrative among Kurds in the 20th century, so that identification of Kurds as Medes is now common in Kurdish nationalist sentiment, though some experts believe it is incorrect.

The hypothesis is not without its detractors, among them Martin van Bruinessen (2004).[58] Asatrian (2009) stated that "The Central Iranian dialects, and primarily those of the Kashan area in the first place, as well as the Azari dialects (otherwise called Southern Tati) are probably the only Iranian dialects, which can pretend to be the direct offshoots of Median ... In general, the relationship between Kurdish and Median are not closer than the affinities between the latter and other North Western dialects — Baluchi, Talishi, South Caspian, Zaza, Gurani, etc."[59]

phonetic developments of Kurdish language with Persian and Baluchi language[60]

Depiction of Noah's ark landing on the mountain top, from the North French Hebrew Miscellany (13th century)

There are multiple legends that detail the origins of the Kurds. One details the Kurds as being the descendants of King Solomon’s angelic servants (Djinn). These were sent to Europe to bring him five-hundred beautiful maidens, for the king's harem. However, when these had done so and returned to Israel the king had already died. As such, the Djinn settled in the mountains, married the women themselves, and their offspring came to be known as the Kurds.[61][62]

Additionally, in the legend of Newroz, an evil Assyrian king named Zahak, who had two snakes growing out of his shoulders, had conquered Iran, and terrorized its subjects; demanding daily sacrifices in the form of young men's brains. Unknowingly to Zahak, the cooks of the palace saved one of the men, and mixed the brains of the other with those of a sheep. The men that were saved were told to flee to the mountains. Hereafter, Kaveh the Blacksmith, who had already lost several of his children to Zahak, trained the men in the mountains, and stormed Zahak's palace, severing the heads of the snakes and killing the tyrannical king. Kaveh was instilled as the new king, and his followers formed the beginning of the Kurdish people.[63][64]

In the writings of the Ottoman Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi, there's also a legend concerning the Kurds to be found. He states to have learned of this legend from a certain Mighdisî, an Armenian historian:

According to the chronicler Mighdisî, the first town to be built after Noah's Flood was the town of Judi, followed by the fortresses of Sinjar and Mifariqin. The town of Judi was ruled by Melik Kürdim of the Prophet Noah's community, a man who lived no less than 600 years and who travelled the length and width of Kurdistan. Coming to Mifariqin he liked its climate and settled there, begetting many children and descendants. He invented a language of his own, independent of Hebrew. It is neither Hebrew nor Arabic, Persian, Dari or Pahlavi; they still call it the language of Kürdim. So the Kurdish language, which was invented in Mifariqin and is now used throughout Kurdistan, owes its name to Melik Kürdim of the community of the Prophet Noah. Because Kurdistan is an endless stony stretch of mountains, there are no less than twelve varieties of Kurdish, differing from one another in pronunciation and vocabulary, so that they often have to use interpreters to understand one another's words.[65]

• History of the Kurds
• Medes
• Cyrtians
• Corduene
• Jinn