Kurds (Kurdish: کورد, romanized: Kurd), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syria. Consisting of 30–45 million people, the global Kurdish population is largely concentrated in Kurdistan, but significant communities of the Kurdish diaspora exist in parts of West Asia beyond Kurdistan and in parts of Europe, most notably including: Turkey's Central Anatolian Kurds (these spread through Eastern Anatolia in 1923 following the Armenian genocide in what was then Western Armenia), as well as Istanbul Kurds; Iran's Khorasani Kurds; the Caucasian Kurds, primarily in Azerbaijan and Armenia; and the Kurdish populations in various European countries, namely Germany, France, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
The Kurdish languages and the Zaza–Gorani languages, both of which belong to the Western Iranic branch of the Iranic language family, are the native languages of the Kurdish people. Other widely spoken languages among the community are those of their host countries or neighbouring regions, such as Turkish, Persian, or Arabic. The most prevalent religion among Kurds is Sunni Islam, with Shia Islam and Alevism being significant Islamic minorities. Yazidism, which is the ethnic religion of the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi people, is the largest non-Islamic minority religion among the broader Kurdish community, followed by Yarsanism, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity.
Although they exercise autonomy in Iraq, the Kurds are a stateless nation. The prospect of Kurdish independence, which is rooted in early Kurdish nationalism, has been the source of much ethnic and political tension in West Asia since the 19th century. In the aftermath of World War I and the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the victorious Western Allies made territorial provisions for the establishment of a Kurdish state, as outlined in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, but it was never ratified after being signed. Three years later, when the Treaty of Lausanne set the boundaries of the Turkish state, the Western Allies ceased their push for Kurdish statehood in the face of certain agreements and guarantees—chiefly Turkey's relinquishing of territorial claims over formerly Ottoman-ruled Arab lands in exchange for the Allies' recognition of Turkish sovereignty over all of Anatolia. As such, since the 20th century, the history of the Kurds has largely been marked by struggles for independence, predominantly in the Kurdish–Turkish conflict and the Iraqi–Kurdish conflict, and to a lesser extent in the Iranian–Kurdish conflict and the comparatively recent Syrian–Kurdish conflict.
The exact origins of the name Kurd are unclear. The underlying toponym is recorded in Assyrian as Qardu and in Middle Bronze Age Sumerian as Kar-da. Assyrian Qardu refers to an area in the upper Tigris basin, and it is presumably reflected in corrupted form in Classical Arabic Ǧūdī (جودي), re-adopted in Kurdish as Cûdî. The name would be continued as the first element in the toponym Corduene, mentioned by Xenophon as the tribe who opposed the retreat of the Ten Thousand through the mountains north of Mesopotamia in the 4th century BC.
There are, however, dissenting views, which do not derive the name of the Kurds from Qardu and Corduene but opt for derivation from Cyrtii (Cyrtaei) instead.
Regardless of its possible roots in ancient toponymy, the ethnonym Kurd might be derived from a term kwrt- used in Middle Persian as a common noun to refer to 'nomads' or 'tent-dwellers', which could be applied as an attribute to any Iranic group with such a lifestyle.
The term gained the characteristic of an ethnonym following the Muslim conquest of Persia, as it was adopted into Arabic and gradually became associated with an amalgamation of Iranic and Iranicized tribes and groups in the region.
In 1923, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland claimed that the same way Kerman in Persian was Qarman in Syriac, Kurd in Persian was Qardu in Syriac, stating that "the Persian gurd or kurd, which seems to have been derived from a common origin with the Babylonian gardu or qardu, signifies 'brave', 'valiant', or 'warlike', and bravery and the love of fighting are the outstanding traits of the Kurdish character. From the Persians it passed into Arabic, whence it became the common European name of the Kurds."
Kurdish (Kurdish: Kurdî or کوردی) is a collection of related dialects spoken by the Kurds. It is mainly spoken in those parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey which comprise Kurdistan. Kurdish holds official status in Iraq as a national language alongside Arabic, is recognized in Iran as a regional language, and in Armenia as a minority language. The Kurds are recognized as a people with a distinct language by Arab geographers such as al-Masudi since the 10th century.
Many Kurds are either bilingual or multilingual, speaking the language of their respective nation of origin, such as Arabic, Persian, and Turkish as a second language alongside their native Kurdish, while those in diaspora communities often speak three or more languages. Turkified and Arabised Kurds often speak little or no Kurdish.
According to Mackenzie, there are few linguistic features that all Kurdish dialects have in common and that are not at the same time found in other Iranian languages.
The Kurdish dialects according to Mackenzie are classified as:
Northern group (the Kurmanji dialect group)
Central group (part of the Sorani dialect group)
Southern group (part of the Xwarin dialect group) including Laki
The Zaza and Gorani are ethnic Kurds, but the Zaza–Gorani languages are not classified as Kurdish.
The number of Kurds living in West Asia is estimated at between 30 and 45 million, with another one or two million living in the Kurdish diaspora. Kurds comprise anywhere from 18 to 25% of the population in Turkey, 15 to 20% in Iraq; 10% in Iran; and 9% in Syria. Kurds form regional majorities in all four of these countries, viz. in Turkish Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Iranian Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdistan. The Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East after Arabs, Persians, and Turks.
The total number of Kurds in 1991 was placed at 22.5 million, with 48% of this number living in Turkey, 24% in Iran, 18% in Iraq, and 4% in Syria.