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Kurdish

Kurdish (Kurdi, Курди) belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is believed that the first Indo-European-speaking people began to move into what is present-day Kurdistan about 4,000 years ago. In the next two thousand years, the original language of the Kurds was completely displaced by an Indo-European variety that eventually became Kurdish as it is spoken today. Kurdish is a macrolanguage that consists of a continuum of closely related languages spoken over a large territory that encompasses Turkey, Kurdistan, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan with a large diaspora spread all over Europe and the United States.

Kurdish is taught periodically through the IU Summer Language Workshop and the Department of Central Eurasian Studies.