Kordestan Province (2016)

Our linguistic survey of Kordestan confirms that most of the province is populated by speakers of Central (Sorāni-type) varieties of Kurdish. However, there is a greater degree of linguistic diversity in the languages here than has often been reported. This is evident in the internal diversity of Central Kurdish itself, and in the presence of other languages along the edges of the province.

In addition to Central Kurdish, Southern (Kermānshāh-type) varieties of Kurdish are spoken in some parts of Kordestan. Southern Kurdish is concentrated at the southern edge of the province, and also in a separate area in the east, in the districts around Bijār.

In the south-western corner of the province, Hawrāmi is the principal language in many of the villages.

Turkic varieties are found along the eastern periphery of Kordestan Province. These varieties, which have never been documented, are reported to be distinct from Iranian Āzarbāyjāni, but closely related to it.

Although Persian is not the primary mother tongue of any settlement in Kordestan, it is being increasingly taught as a first language to children in cities across the province, especially in the larger cities, and in the eastern districts.

Languages of Kordestan Province:
Estimated number of mother tongue speakers

Note: These figures do not account for ethnic population, which is beyond the scope of this atlas, or multilingualism (including second-language heritage speakers), which is an important but complex topic that cannot be adequately addressed in a large-scale survey.

To cite this page

Mohammadirad, Masoud, Erik Anonby, et al. (2016). Language distribution in Kordestan Province, Iran. In Erik Anonby, Mortaza Taheri-Ardali, et al., Atlas of the languages of Iran (ALI). Ottawa: GCRC (Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre), Carleton University. Online address: http://iranatlas.net/module/language-distribution.kordestan.

Data sources for Kordestan Province

Language and dialect distribution assessments
Masoud Mohammadirad, et al.

Local pronunciations of place names
Masoud Mohammadirad, Erik Anonby, et al.

Populated place geolocation data
Erik Anonby, Ali Ghaharbeighi, Nima Kiani, Partow Mohammadi, Masoud Mohammadirad, Pegah Nikravan, Sheema Rezaei, Parisa Sabethemmatabadi, Jaffer Sheyholislami, Adam Stone, Mortaza Taheri-Ardali, Ayat Tadjalli, Emily Wang, et al. Also consulted: http://gndb.ncc.org.ir, http://map.roostanet.com, https://www.google.ca/maps, et al.

Populated place demographic data
https://www.amar.org.ir, with roman transcriptions and corrections added by Masoud Mohammadirad, Erik Anonby, et al.

You are invited to improve the accuracy of this map. You may wish to adjust the percentages for the language distribution of towns and cities that you are familiar with. We are also collecting language data from all areas of Kordestan Province. Your contributions will be acknowledged in the Atlas. For more details, contact erik.anonby@carleton.ca.