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Linguistics

Zazaki (Kirmanckî, Dimilkî): linguistics

Zazaki (Kirmanckî, Dimilkî) sounds, pronunciation, grammar and core vocabulary.

Zazakî

01Sounds

The language’s phonemes, from one published description.

Awaiting licence review

This section will show the consonant and vowel tables of Zazaki (Kirmanckî, Dimilkî) from PHOIBLE 2.0, inventory Dimili (PH 1109), based on Todd 1985. PHOIBLE is under CC BY-SA 3.0, and the tables appear once the owner approves the source.

02Grammar at a glance

  • Nouns have two genders, masculine and feminine.
  • Nouns and pronouns have a direct and an oblique case.
  • Past tenses of transitive verbs are ergative.

To verify

Sources Paul. Zazaki: Grammatik und Versuch einer Dialektologie. Reichert. (1998) To verify

03Core words compared

Ten everyday words across the languages of the region.

MeaningPersianKurmanjiSoraniZazakiBalochiAzerbaijaniArmenian
waterآبābavئاوawaweāpsuջուրjur
breadنانnānnanنانnannannānçörəkհացhatsʻ
motherمادرmādardêدایکdaykmayemātanaմայրmayr
fatherپدرpedarbavباوکbawkpîpitataհայրhayr
houseخانهkhānemalماڵmałkeyelōgevտունtun
nightشبshabşevشەوşewşeweshapgecəգիշերgisher
twoدوdoduدووdûdidoikiերկուerku
threeسهsesêسێsêhîrêsēüçերեքerekʻ
eyeچشمcheshmçavچاوçawçimchammgözաչքachkʻ
nameنامnāmnavناوnawnamenāmadանունanun

Persian, Kurdish, Zazaki and Balochi are Iranian languages, and many of their core words are related. Azerbaijani is Turkic and Armenian is its own branch of Indo-European, so their words differ. To verify

Sources Steingass. A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary. Routledge and K. Paul. Digital edition: Digital Dictionaries of South Asia, University of Chicago. (1892) Verified; Chyet. Kurdish-English Dictionary. Yale University Press. (2003) To verify; Wahby and Edmonds. A Kurdish-English Dictionary. Clarendon Press. (1966) To verify; Paul. Zazaki: Grammatik und Versuch einer Dialektologie. Reichert. (1998) To verify; Jahani and Korn. Balochi. In Windfuhr (ed.), The Iranian Languages. (2009) To verify; Johanson and Csató (eds.). The Turkic Languages. Routledge. (1998) To verify; Dum-Tragut. Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian. John Benjamins. (2009) To verify

04Sources

  1. Moran and McCloy (eds.). PHOIBLE 2.0. Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. 2019

    Verified CC BY-SA 3.0 Phoneme inventories, each from the published source it names, read 2026-10-23.

  2. Paul. Zazaki: Grammatik und Versuch einer Dialektologie. Reichert. 1998

    To verify

  3. Steingass. A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary. Routledge and K. Paul. Digital edition: Digital Dictionaries of South Asia, University of Chicago. 1892

    Verified Public domain. The digital edition was reachable on 2026-10-23.

  4. Chyet. Kurdish-English Dictionary. Yale University Press. 2003

    To verify

  5. Wahby and Edmonds. A Kurdish-English Dictionary. Clarendon Press. 1966

    To verify

  6. Jahani and Korn. Balochi. In Windfuhr (ed.), The Iranian Languages. 2009

    To verify

  7. Johanson and Csató (eds.). The Turkic Languages. Routledge. 1998

    To verify

  8. Dum-Tragut. Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian. John Benjamins. 2009

    To verify

Cite this page
APA

The Kurdish Cooperation Organization. (2026). Zazaki (Kirmanckî, Dimilkî): Linguistics. kurds.global. https://kurds.global/language/languages/zza/linguistics/

Chicago

The Kurdish Cooperation Organization. 2026. “Zazaki (Kirmanckî, Dimilkî): Linguistics.” kurds.global. https://kurds.global/language/languages/zza/linguistics/.

BibTeX
@misc{kco2026_language_languages_zza_linguistics,
	author = {{The Kurdish Cooperation Organization}},
	year = {2026},
	note = {Licence: CC BY 4.0},
	title = {Zazaki ({Kirmanck}{\^ i}, {Dimilk}{\^ i}): Linguistics},
	url = {https://kurds.global/language/languages/zza/linguistics/},
	howpublished = {https://kurds.global/language/languages/zza/linguistics/},
}

Download .bib

RIS
TY  - ELEC
AU  - The Kurdish Cooperation Organization
DA  - 2026///
PY  - 2026
ID  - kco2026_language_lan
N1  - Licence: CC BY 4.0
TI  - Zazaki (Kirmanckî, Dimilkî): Linguistics
UR  - https://kurds.global/language/languages/zza/linguistics/
ER  - 

Download .ris

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05Research 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. Can Linguistic Distance help Language Classification? Assessing Hawrami-Zaza and Kurmanji-Sorani

    Hossein Hassani · 2021 · arXiv

    PreprintDataCitearXivOpen accessCC-BY-4.0

  2. Linguistic Variation in Dimili (Zazaki): A Descriptive Study of the Modan Dialect

    Pınar Yıldız · 2026 · Mukaddime

    ArticleDOAJOpen access

  3. Ditransitive Constructions in Zaza Language

    İlyas ARSLAN · 2021 · Akademik İncelemeler Dergisi

    ArticleCrossrefDOAJOpen access

  4. Zaza Language

    National Cancer Institute · 2020 · Definitions

    OtherOpenAlexCrossrefOpen accessCC-BY

  5. A Critical Examination of Some Phonological and Morphological Inconsistencies in The Standardisation of Zazaki

    İbrahim Bingöl, Ümran Altınkılıç · 2026 · Kurdiyat

    ArticleDOAJOpen access

  6. The morphosyntax of Ezafe in Southern Zazaki

    Songul Gundogdu, Arsalan Kahnemuyipour, Sable Peters · 2024 · The Linguistic Review

    ArticleOpenAIRE

  7. The Kırmanjki (Zazaki) Dialect of Kurdish Language and the Issues It Faces

    Mehemed Malmîsanij · 2021 · Cambridge University Press eBooks

    ChapterOpenAlex

  8. Zazaki dı Zafomari

    Ayetullah KARABEYESER · 2023 · Bingöl Üniversitesi Yaşayan Diller Enstitüsü Dergisi

    ArticleCrossref

  9. Building a Corpus for the Zaza–Gorani Language Family

    International Committee for Computational Linguistics 2020 · 2020 · Underline Science Inc.

    OtherDataCite

  10. Ezafe (Genitive) in Zaza Language

    İlyas ARSLAN · 2022 · Anemon Muş Alparslan Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi

    ArticleOpenAlexCrossrefOpen access

  11. Zazaki

    Ludwig Paul · 2013 · Routledge eBooks

    ChapterOpenAlexCrossref

  12. Assessing mutual intelligibility between Kurmanji and Zazaki spoken in Elazığ at text level

    Bilgit SAĞLAM, Fatih ÖZEK, Ahmet BURAN et al. · 2026 · Dilbilim Araştırmaları Dergisi

    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; OpenAIRE (CC BY 4.0 (OpenAIRE Graph)), 2026-10-23; OpenAlex (CC0-1.0 data; metered API (free key)), 2026-10-23.