Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish): writing

01Scripts

• ISO 15924 Latn · Left to right

  a b c çKurdish Latin alphabet (Hawar)

  31 letters. Celadet Bedirxan published the alphabet in the journal Hawar from 1932.

• ISO 15924 Cyrl · Left to right

  а б щ чKurdish Cyrillic alphabet

  Shown in the order of the Latin alphabet, each with its Hawar letter.

• ISO 15924 Arab · Right to left

  ئ ا ب پKurdish Arabic-based alphabet

  Every vowel is written except short i, which is not written.

02Alphabet chart: Kurdish Latin alphabet (Hawar)

Letters: Unicode CLDR exemplar characters for ku.

• 31 letters. Celadet Bedirxan published the alphabet in the journal Hawar from 1932.
• The ALA-LC Kurdish table (2012) uses the Hawar letters as its romanisation.

Sources Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR), version 49 data. (2026) Verified; The Unicode Standard, version 18.0.0: Unicode Character Database. (2026) Verified

03Alphabet chart: Kurdish Cyrillic alphabet

Letters and their Latin values: ALA-LC Kurdish romanization table, 2012.

• Shown in the order of the Latin alphabet, each with its Hawar letter.
• Used for Kurmanji in the Caucasus and Central Asia. The table also writes aspirated and emphatic consonants with an apostrophe, such as к’ and т’.

Sources Library of Congress. ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Kurdish, 2012 version. (2012) Verified; The Unicode Standard, version 18.0.0: Unicode Character Database. (2026) Verified

04Alphabet chart: Kurdish Arabic-based alphabet

Letters: Unicode CLDR exemplar characters for ckb.

• Every vowel is written except short i, which is not written.
• A word that starts with a vowel takes the seat ئ.
• ە is the vowel e and ه is the consonant h; keyboards and fonts must keep them apart.

Sources Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR), version 49 data. (2026) Verified; The Unicode Standard, version 18.0.0: Unicode Character Database. (2026) Verified

05Romanisation and transliteration

Writing the language in other letters, by open published standards. Libraries use the ALA-LC tables for names and titles.

06Numerals

07Orthography and standards

No official orthography body is recorded for Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish) yet.

Sources ISO 639-3 code tables. SIL International, registration authority. (2025) To verify; ISO 15924 codes for the representation of names of scripts. Unicode Consortium, registration authority. (2025) Verified; Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR), version 49 data. (2026) Verified

08Keyboards and typing

Windows

Settings, Time and language, Language and region: add the language, then its keyboard. Switch with Windows key and Space.

macOS

System Settings, Keyboard, Text Input: edit Input Sources and add the keyboard. Switch from the menu bar.

Android

In the keyboard app’s settings (Gboard: Languages), add the language and choose its layout.

iPhone and iPad

Settings, General, Keyboard, Keyboards: add the keyboard. Switch with the globe key.

Linux

In the desktop settings (GNOME: Keyboard, Input Sources), add the layout.

Which layouts each system ships for each language changes with every release. Check the list on your device; layouts we have confirmed are named on the language’s page.

09Fonts

On this platform the language is shown with IBM Plex Sans. Every face is self-hosted under an open licence.

10Sources

1. Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR), version 49 data. 2026

   Verified Unicode License v3 Exemplar characters and default numbering systems, read 2026-10-23.

2. Library of Congress. ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Kurdish, 2012 version. 2012

   Verified

3. The Unicode Standard, version 18.0.0: Unicode Character Database. 2026

   Verified Unicode License v3 Character names, code points and block ranges.

4. ISO 15924 codes for the representation of names of scripts. Unicode Consortium, registration authority. 2025

   Verified

5. ISO 639-3 code tables. SIL International, registration authority. 2025

   To verify Codes cross-checked through Glottolog records; the code tables themselves were not read.

11Research and sources

Recent and relevant work on this page’s subject, from approved open scholarly sources. Metadata and links only. Titles stay as published. Not yet reviewed.

1. Multi-CAST Northern Kurdish

   Geoffrey Haig, Maria Vollmer, Hanna Thiele · 2025 · Zenodo

   DatasetDataCiteZenodoOpen accessCC-BY-4.0

2. Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) DoReCo dataset

   Geoff Haig, Hanna Thiele, Maria Vollmer · 2024 · NAKALA – https://nakala.fr (Huma-Num – CNRS)

   DatasetDataCiteOpen accessCC-BY-4.0

3. FLEURS-Kobani: Extending the FLEURS Dataset for Northern Kurdish

   Daban Q. Jaff, Mohammad Mohammadamini · 2026 · arXiv

   PreprintarXivOpen access

4. Percentage of Consonants Correct for 3-5 Years Old Kurdish-Speaking Children With Middle Kurmanji-Mukryani Dialect

   Shahla Fatemi Syadar, Talieh Zarifian, Yahya Modarresi et al. · 2018 · Iranian Rehabilitation Journal

   ArticleDOAJOpen access

5. Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) DoReCo audiofiles

   Geoff Haig, Hanna Thiele, Maria Vollmer · 2024 · NAKALA – https://nakala.fr (Huma-Num – CNRS)

   OtherDataCiteOpen accessCC-BY-4.0

6. A Phonological Comparison of Khorasan and Northern Kurmanji

   2024 · Kurdiname

   ArticleOpenAIREOpen access

7. Northern Kurdish Of Khizava Text 7: §1-19

   Masoud Mohammadirad · 2022 · Neo-Aramaic and Kurdish Folklore from Northern Iraq

   ChapterCrossrefCC-BY-NC-4.0

8. Advancing Low-Resource Speech Recognition: A Comprehensive Study of Fine-Tuning Strategies for Northern Kurdish using Whisper Transformers

   Abdulla A, Tabibian S, Veisi H et al. · 2026 · Research Square

   PreprintEurope PMC

9. Dasinya: A dataset and preprocessing pipeline for the Badini Kurdish dialect.

   Saeed VA, Jacksi K · 2026 · Data Brief

   ArticleEurope PMCOpen access

10. End-to-End Transformer-based Automatic Speech Recognition for Northern Kurdish: A Pioneering Approach

    Abdulhady Abas Abdullah, Shima Tabibian, Hadi Veisi et al. · 2024 · arXiv

    PreprintarXivOpen access

11. 2.3. Northern Kurdish (Kurmanjî)

    Geoffrey L.J. Haig · 2018 · De Gruyter eBooks

    ChapterOpenAlex

12. An Ecolinguistics Analysis on Lexicalization of Domestic Animals in Kurmanji Kurdish

    Elham Mizban, Shahla Sharifi, Atiyeh Kamyabi Gol · 2022 · مطالعات زبان‌‌ها و گویش‌های غرب ایران

    ArticleDOAJOpen access

Sources, licences and fetch dates: arXiv (Metadata CC0 1.0; papers under their own licences), 2026-10-23; Crossref (Metadata facts, any use; abstracts may be publisher-owned and are never shown), 2026-10-23; DataCite (CC0 1.0 (DataCite metadata)), 2026-10-23; DOAJ (Metadata CC0 1.0 (DOAJ); articles under their own open licences), 2026-10-23; Europe PMC (Metadata reusable; full text under each article’s licence), 2026-10-23; OpenAIRE (CC BY 4.0 (OpenAIRE Graph)), 2026-10-23; OpenAlex (CC0-1.0 data; metered API (free key)), 2026-10-23; Zenodo (Metadata CC0 1.0; each record under its own licence), 2026-10-23.