کتاب مقدس به زبان کردی جنوبی — Southern Kurdish New Testament (Iran/Iraq)
Overview
کتاب مقدس به زبان کردی جنوبی - گویش کلهوری ("Holy Scripture in the Southern Kurdish Language — Kalhori Dialect") is the complete New Testament (27 books) in Southern Kurdish, published by Korpu Company in 2024 and available via YouVersion/Bible.com (ID 4105; abbreviation: SKV). This is the most recently completed NT in the Kurdish language group and the first NT in the Kalhori dialect, serving a population of nearly 6 million speakers concentrated in western Iran and northeastern Iraq. Earlier Bible portions in Southern Kurdish date to approximately 1894–1900 (Joshua Project). Southern Kurdish is written in a Perso-Arabic script with one locally added letter — ۊ (waw with two dots), unique to this language.
Language and People
Southern Kurdish (ISO 639-3: sdh; vernacular name: کوردیی باشووری; also called Xwarin "southward," or Kalhori/Kirmasani by dialect) is an Indo-European language: Classical Indo-European → Iranian → Western Iranian → Northwestern Iranian → Kurdish. It is one of three major Kurdish macrolanguage varieties — alongside Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) and Central Kurdish (Sorani) — and is sometimes cited as a fourth with Zazaki. The closely related Laki variety is disputed: some classify it as a Southern Kurdish dialect, others as a separate Kurdish language.
Southern Kurdish dialects include at least 35 varieties (per Fattah); major groups include:
- Kalhori (Kelhurrî) — centered in Kermanshah Province, the primary dialect of this NT
- Kirmasani (Kirmaşanî) — also Kermanshah Province
- Feyli/Ilami — Ilam Province, Iran, and among Feyli Kurds of Iraq
- Laki (disputed) — Hamadan, Lorestan, and Kermanshah provinces
- Kolyai, Sanjabi, Bijar — other significant varieties
Southern Kurdish is spoken in:
- Western Iran: Kermanshah Province and Ilam Province (~80% of Ilam Province is Kurdish-speaking), extending to parts of Lorestan, Hamadan, and Khuzestan
- Northeastern Iraq: Diyala, Wasit, and Maysan governorates (the Feyli Kurds around Khanaqin, and southward to Dehloran); also a diaspora in Baghdad
- The dialect area stretches from Khanaqin (Iraq) in the west to Asadabad (Iran) in the east and from Bijar in the north to Dehloran in the south
Estimated speakers: approximately 5.95–6 million native speakers (Joshua Project 2023), making Southern Kurdish one of the largest speech communities to receive a complete NT in 2024.
Historical and Cultural Context
Southern Kurdish speakers are predominantly Shia Muslim — distinguishing them from most Kurdish speakers who are Sunni — particularly the Feyli Kurds of Ilam Province and Iraq. The Feyli Kurds of Iraq (Iraqi Feyli Kurds) faced severe persecution under Saddam Hussein: approximately 200,000 Feyli Kurds were expelled from Iraq in the early 1980s, stripped of citizenship, and many thousands were executed or disappeared; survivors fled to Iran. About 7,000 remain stateless refugees in Iran.
The Kermanshah Province homeland of this NT's primary dialect preserves some of the ancient world's most significant sites: the Behistun Inscription (522 BCE, Darius the Great's trilingual royal decree — the Rosetta Stone of cuneiform) and the Taq-e Bostan Sassanid rock reliefs (4th–7th centuries CE) are both UNESCO World Heritage sites. The name "Kalhori" comes from the Kalhor tribe — one of the major Southern Kurdish tribal confederations of the Kermanshah region.
Joshua Project classifies Southern Kurdish Christians at Progress Scale Level 1 (Iran) and Level 0 (Iraq) — among the least-reached people groups in the world.
Publishing and Organizations
Published by Korpu Company (copyright ©2024 Korpu Company), a Christian publishing and ministry organization producing Kurdish-language scripture. Korpu Company has a limited public web presence; it operates in a ministry environment where Christian outreach to Muslim-background Kurds requires sensitivity.