Simply Sorani

An aid for anyone who wishes to begin the study of Sorani.
This brief book is an aid for anyone who wishes to begin the study of Sorani. Second only to Kurmanji in importance, the dialect of Kurdish spoken primarily in Turkey, Sorani is spoken in Iraqi Kurdistan, and therefore is politically important for the Kurdish people.
This book is designed to take the beginner beyond the phrasebooks that are available. It contains a discussion of Sorani as a language, chapters with vocabulary, dialogs, and a description of the grammar. The language is presented in Latini, a Romanized script. Kurdo-Arabic is provided for the used of a Kurdish tutor. Kurdish is an Indo-European language family related to Farsi (Persian). Its grammar will seem quite complicated compared to the speaker of English, French, or German. The verb system in particular can be mastered only by memorization and mimicking a native speaker. What is given here is a foundation of simple, useful constructions.

Livingston Merchant graduated from Harvard College in 1963 in Slavic Studies. He holds doctorates from Harvard University in International Relations and Soviet Studies and from Brown University in Asian History. He has worked for thirty years as an educator in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and has spent nine years in Turkey, first as head of Robert College in Istanbul and then as Senior Lecturer at the Graduate School of Education of Bilkent University in Ankara. In the spring of 2012, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Raparin in Ranya, in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. He lives in Maastricht, the Netherlands and is engaged in literary studies and writing fiction.