Yekgirtú's digraphs

[alijsh]

I found about a new Kurdo-Latin alphabet called Yekgirtú some time ago in Wikipedia. My question is about digraphs "gh/xh, jh, sh" used in this alphabet. Isn't there any word in Kurdish in which, for example, "s" and "h" stand apart and are pronounced individually? The reason we don't use the digraphs "gh, jh/zh, sh" in our various proposed Latin alphabets for Persian is that Persian has words in which, for example, adjacent "s" and "h" don't form a digraph e.g. eshal that one can mispronounce it as "e.shal" whereas it is pronounced "es.hâl".

Now, I'm thinking if there are such words in Kurdish and if so, why they haven't used single characters like "ğ, ĵ, ş". Is the problem minor and they are economizing in the utilization of non-basic Latin characters or it has another reason? Kurmanji alphabet doesn't use any digraph and therefore, doesn't expose such a problem.

- Thanks in advance

[kchi-kurdi]

well, the reason they have created the Yekgirtu alphebets so that all the different parts fo kurdistan can use it , but i agree with u, but as far as i know ( and i tried to think of as many words as i could wiv my mum lol) but i dont think we have any words where 's' follows by 'h' and pronounced individually. . but personally i prefer the "ğ, ĵ, ş"characters, they are less confusing for forgners and more exotic (in my opinion lol)

although the kurds in kurdistan use the arabic-like alphebets , but many kurds in europ use the latin alphebets (most of which cant spell the words properly as they havent learnt it. for example, the word SWEET in kurdish is "shiryn" in latin alphebets, but most people spell it as they pronounce it (phonetic) because its easier like shireen, in latin this would be pronounced as shiran (the a is rponounced as in english word bAby) so there is the difference between the actual latin alphebets which eevry-day people very rarely use, and the phonetic alphebets that most people use. just thought i share this with u...


eh. ..

[alijsh]

Thanks.

How about j and g? Also compound words? Don't you have any suffix/prefix that begins/ends with "h"? For example, in Persian, the plural suffix is "hâ". So, words that, for example end with "s", can be mispronounced: xers (bear), xershâ (bears). Or the prefix "ham" in azhamgosixtegi (az+ham+gosixtegi).

It seems that the problem is minor, safe enough that they haven't feel any need to use «ğ, ş, ĵ».

in latin this would be pronounced as shiran (the a is rponounced as in english word bAby)

If I'm not mistaken, you mean a long e sound. In academic books they use ē for the sound you mentioned. This sound has also been preserved in many dialects of Persian (including standard dialects of Afghanistan and and Tajikistan) but in many dialects (including standard dialect of Iran) it has evolved to "i". So, we say "şirin". To represent this sound, use an e-based character (do you denote it with ê?). I just wanted to say this I couldn't stand "a" However, it all depends to that I have understood you correctly and you meant the same sound.

- Good luck

[kchi-kurdi]

just as long as we r on the same page lol

my kurdish is not perfect. . . . its allright i guess. . .
man farsi nami dunam but there are a lot of similarity in out languages . . ..


eh. .. good stuff. ..

[kirmashanim]

Hi there,
Nice to see that web site like this exist. I think discussion like this need to be on the related web site as well. I see they have forum on http://www.kurdishacademy.org . May be they can reply to this questions directly.

First of all the word "eshal" is not Persian or Kurdish (in Kurdish "zik cún") it is loanword from Arabic. It is importnat to know that codification of speaking languages is not based on individual rare cases but overall workability and feasibility in expressing that language in written. This is not the shape of the letter but workability in cross dialect in Kurdish case which is the main factor. When you think of codification you need to leave your skills in foreign languages aside and think on the bases of the core language.

If you compare Kurdish texts form 1920s with today you realise how much the usage of Arabic loanwords has declined. They might not representing less than 1% of the written words on local dialectal bases. If you work on codification in 1990s you do not imagine how to express couple hundreds Arabic loanwords to preserve them in the original Arabic spelling but classifying them as exceptions in today's norm. Compromising in such cases is normal in all written languages, you will say "خواستن" in Persian without pronouncing the "w" and you say "Plumber" in English without pronouncing the "b", so why should Kurdish create a prefect mathematically correct alphabet with 80 letters to respond to all single cases?

Thank you