Refugee Preaching Resources

Speakers of minority languages may also appreciate the Bible-based resources in other languages available here.

The Kurdish languages

There is no single Kurdish language. A number of dialects exist on a continuum, i.e. some are closer to one another than others. Kurdish is usually divided into Sorani (or Central Kurdish), Kurmanji (or Northern Kurdish), and Southern Kurdish. Speakers of these three dialects/languages are not generally able to understand one another without purposefully learning the other language(s).

Most Kurds attending Christadelphian meetings in the UK speak Sorani. It is an official language in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where a standard written form is taught in schools. Most Kurds from Iraq will be able to speak and write in standard Sorani.

In Iran, the situation is very different. The Iranian government favours Farsi and this is the language used in education and for official use, even in areas where most people are Kurdish. As a result, many Kurds from Iran are fluent in spoken Sorani, but may have low levels of literacy in Sorani, since schooling and working life is conducted in Farsi. Kurds from Iran may prefer to read the Bible in Farsi because it is the language in which they are most literate, and through which they have learned biblical concepts.

Sorani translation or interpretation is therefore only generally necessary if Kurds from Iraq are present. They will not usually speak Farsi. Fluent Sorani speakers may sometimes struggle to translate Bible classes from English or from Farsi because they do not know the Sorani terminology (for example, the names of books of the Bible). There are sometimes large differences between spoken dialects of Sorani from different areas of Iran and Iraq. This may cause confusion, or require the need for additional interpretation (i.e. from English to one dialect to another dialect).

Sorani is usually written in Sorani script, which is derived from Arabic. Kurdish texts in Latin script are usually Kurmanji, the variety of Kurdish spoken in Turkey. Kurds from Iran and Iraq will not normally be able to understand this. Translations produced in the UK are sometimes marked Kurdish without any indication of whether they are Sorani or Kurmanji.

Arabic

Arabic is the main official language of Iraq. It is less widely used in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and Kurds may avoid using it because of the uneasy relationship between the Kurdish minority and the Arab majority in Iraq.

Arabic is not widely spoken in Iran, except by the small ethnic Arab population (around 2% of the population of Iran). Other Iranians may have learned some Arabic in secondary school, particularly Classical Arabic, the form of the language used in the Qur’an. However, few will be able to use it in everyday contexts, and may have little interest in using what they do know.

The Turkic languages (Azeri, Khorasani, Turkmen, Qashqai)

Turkic is not the same as Turkish. The Turkic peoples are a collection of ethnic groups which spread from eastern Europe, across central Europe and into northern Russia. Turkish (the language of Turkey) is one of the Turkic languages. If an Iranian tells you that they speak Turki, they are probably referring to one of the Turkic languages spoken in Iran (though they may also speak Turkish, especially if they fled there before travelling to Europe).

Azeri (or Azerbaijani) is spoken in the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan and in the region of Iran also known as Azerbaijan, as well as other parts of Iran. Khorasani and Turkmen are spoken in north-eastern Iran, where it borders Turkmenistan; Qashqai is spoken in southern Iran.

Speakers of Turkic languages account for about 20% of Iran’s population. Nearly all of them also speak Farsi, in which they are likely to have a greater degree of literacy. In Iran, all these languages are written in Persian script; different scripts are used in Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

Luri

Luri is spoken by 4-5 million people in the provinces of Lorestan, Charharmahal and Bakhtiari, and Ilam. It is related to Farsi, and can be divided into three different dialects.

Armenian

Ethnic Armenians form a very small proportion of the Iranian population, no more than 200,000 people. They are overwhelmingly Christian, and have been since the 4th century. The Armenian language is Indo-European and has little in common with the other languages of Iran. It is written using the Armenian alphabet.

Why is this relevant?

All Iranians or Iraqis attending Christadelphian classes speak Farsi and/or Sorani. As such, interpretation and translation is only likely to be required in these languages.

However, the other languages are used socially, and people may gravitate towards those who share the language they speak at home. A British Christadelphian may assume that conversations after classes are all happening in Farsi, whereas in fact a range of languages are in use.