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Mar 17, 2020
Kurdish Lexicography
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A Comprehensive List of Kurdish dictionaries

On This Page
Mar 17, 2020
Kurdish Lexicography
Back to all posts

In this post, all the available lexical resources, particularly dictionaries, for the Kurdish language are listed. This is the result of a recent work where we carried out a comprehensive study on the existing resources. Find out more about this work at https://sinaahmadi.github.io/resources/kurdishlex.html.

Please note that all the tables are sortable (by clicking on the name of the column) and only 10 rows are shown by default. You can search in the table or change the number of the rows.
This post is being constantly updated. If you are aware of a resource which is not mentioned, please ping me by email.
[March 2023] The post is updated with more resources in Zazaki thanks to the suggestions of Bilal Zilan.

List of online Kurdish dictionaries

# Name Link Type Source Target Orthography
1 Dicts.info link Bilingual Sorani/Kurmanji 70 languages Persian-Arabic/Latin
2 Wiktionary link Multilingual All dialects All languages Persian-Arabic/Latin
3 Henbana Borîne (via Vejinbooks) link Bilingual/Monolingual Sorani Persian Persian-Arabic
4 Xal (via Vejinbooks) link Monolingual Sorani Sorani Persian-Arabic
5 Wişename (via Vejinbooks) link Cross-dialectal Hawrami Sorani Persian-Arabic
6 Endêk (via Vejinbooks) link Bilingual English Sorani Persian-Arabic
7 Kanî (via Vejinbooks) link Cross-dialectal Kurmanji Sorani Persian-Arabic
8 Dictio link Bilingual Sorani English Persian-Arabic
9 Enahita link Monolingual/Bilingual All dialects English Persian-Arabic/Latin
10 Ferheng.org (=FreeDict) link Multilingual Kurmanji Turkish/German/English Latin
11 Kawa link Bilingual Sorani Persian Persian-Arabic
12 The Kurdish dictionary link Multilingual Sorani/Kurmanji Turkish/Spanish/Persian/Arabic/Swedish Persian-Arabic/Latin
13 Hakkarim.net link Bilingual Kurmanji Turkish Latin
14 Ferheng.com (Scientific Terms) link Multilingual Sorani English/Arabic Persian-Arabic
15 tirsik.net link Multidialectal Kurmanji Many languages Latin
16 Grûba Xebate ya Vateyî link Bilingual Zazaki Turkish Latin

List of printed dictionaries in Kurdish

The following table contains all the printed dictionaries dealing with the Kurdish language. The following information are provided for each resource:

  • Author: This is the author's last name. As not all dictionaries have a name, author's name seems more efficient to find out more information about the resource.
  • Type: monolingual, bilingual or multilingual
  • Year: year of publication
  • Source: the source language or dialect
  • Target: the target language or dialect
  • # Entries: number of entries in each resource. * shows an estimation of the number of entries which is calculated based on the number of the pages and density of entries per page.
  • Script: the script or orthography in which the Kurdish text is written. In some resources, the author uses a self-made script based on the known ones. To show this customization, ~ is used.
  • Content: an analysis of the content of the lexicographic data?
More details about the resources can be found in the bibliography file where authors' name are used as the index of each bibliographic entry. And finally, in cases of uncertainty, ? is used.

# Author Type Year Source Target # Entries Script Content
1 Garzoni bilingual 1787 Italian Kurmanji 5250* ~Latin translation
2 Jaba bilingual 1879 Kurmanji French 14340* ~Persian-Arabic and ~Latin translation, example sentences
3 Mokri bilingual 1892 Kurmanji Arabic 7200* ~Persian-Arabic translations, present stem of verbs
4 Mukryani bilingual 1950 Arabic Sorani 15000 Persian-Arabic translations
5 Bakaev bilingual 1957 Kurmanji Russian 14000 Cyrillic translations, gender, expressions, variant forms
6 Farizov bilingual 1957 Russian Kurmanji 30000 Latin translations, gender, expressions, variant forms
7 Siabandov & Châchân bilingual 1957 Armenian Kurmanji 23000 Cyrillic translation
8 Kurdoev bilingual 1960 Kurmanji Russian 34,000 Cyrillic detailed translations with polysemy, gender, expressions, variant forms
9 Xal monolingual 1960 Sorani Sorani 22000* Persian-Arabic definition, synonyms
10 Mukryani bilingual 1961 Sorani Arabic 30000 Persian-Arabic translations
11 Bedirxan & Keskin monolingual 1962 Kurmanji Kurmanji 15000* Latin synonyms
12 Blau multilingual 1965 Kurmanji (French-English) 6000* Latin translations, gender, present stem of verbs, limited POS
13 Wahby & Edmonds bilingual 1966 Sorani English 6500* ~Latin, Persian-Arabic POS, synonyms and variant forms, rich description
14 Mukryani multilingual 1966 Sorani (Persian-Arabic-English-French) 4000* Persian-Arabic translations
15 MacKenzie bilingual 1966 Hawrami English 1000 ~Latin translation, POS, gender, idioms, example sentences, variant forms
16 Anter bilingual 1967 Kurmanji Turkish ? Latin simple translations
17 Blau bilingual 1975 (Kurmanji-Sorani) French and English 2000* Latin translation, gender, POS
18 Gharib multilingual 1975 Arabic Sorani and English, 1000* Persian-Arabic and Latin illustrations
19 Keidane et al. bilingual 1977 Sorani Russian 2100 Persian-Arabic translation
20 Paşa & Bozarslan bilingual 1978 Kurmanji Turkish 7200* Latin simple translations, present stem of verbs
21 Izad-panah multilingual 1978 (Lori- Laki) * (Sorani-Persian) 4800* Persian-Arabic translations
22 Kurdoev & Yusupova bilingual 1983 Sorani Russian 25000 Persian-Arabic translations, POS, gender, expressions, variant forms
23 Gewranî bilingual 1985 Kurmanji Turkish 25000* Latin translations
24 Zîlan bilingual 1989 Swedish Kurmanji 5000 Latin translations, synonyms, illustrations
25 Sharafkandi multilingual 1991 Sorani (Sorani-Persian) 60000 ~Persian-Arabic translations, synonyms
26 Izoli bilingual 1992 Turkish Kurmanji 25000-30000 Latin translations, definitions, gender, POS
27 Rizgar bilingual 1993 Kurmanji English 15000 Latin translations, POS, gender, synonyms, expressions, variant forms
28 Darvishian bilingual 1997 Southern Kurdish Persian ? Persian-Arabic translation, pronunciation
29 Özcan bilingual 1997 Zaza Turkish Latin
30 Saadalla bilingual 1998 English Kurmanji 72000 Persian-Arabic translation, gender
31 Qazzaz bilingual 2000 Sorani English 10000* Persian-Arabic/Latin translation, synonyms, POS, idioms, proverbs
32 Saadalla bilingual 2000 English Kurmanji 72000 Latin translation, POS
33 Turgut bilingual 2001 Zaza Turkish ? Latin ?
34 Khalidgul bilingual 2002 Persian Kurmanji 4000 Persian-Arabic translations
35 Chyet & Schwartz bilingual 2003 Kurmanji English 59360* Persian-Arabic/Latin translations, POS, gender, expressions, synonyms, variant forms, etymology, example sentence
36 Demîrhan monolingual 2003 Kurmanji Kurmanji 19680* Latin ?
37 Nizameddin bilingual 2003 Sorani Arabic 13650* Persian-Arabic translations, synonyms
38 M. Amin multilingual 2003 English (Sorani-P-A) 35000* Persian-Arabic translation
39 Mukryani bilingual 2005 Arabic Sorani 25000 Persian-Arabic translations
40 Nanwazade monolingual 2005 Sorani Sorani 10000* Persian-Arabic definitions, etymology, idioms
41 Botî monolingual 2006 Kurmanji Kurmanji 15000* Latin gender, definition, synonyms
42 Arif bilingual 2006 Persian Sorani 36300 Persian-Arabic/Latin translations
43 Selma Abdallah bilingual 2006 Sorani English 3300* Persian-Arabic/Latin translations
44 Karadaghi bilingual 2006 English Sorani 44000 L and P-A translations
45 Mukryani monolingual 2007 Sorani Sorani 3000* Persian-Arabic ?
46 Abdollahpour bilingual 2008 Persian Sorani 28000 Persian-Arabic translations, synonyms
47 Ebrahimpour bilingual 2008 Sorani English 40800* Persian-Arabic/Latin translation
48 Turgut bilingual 2008 Turkish Zaza ? Latin ?
49 Jalilian multilingual 2009 Southern Kurdish (Sorani-Persian) 31600 Persian-Arabic/Latin translations, example sentences
50 Habiballah monolingual 2009 Hawrami Sorani 56000* Persian-Arabic synonyms
51 Mayi bilingual 2009 Kurmanji Arabic 20700* Persian-Arabic/Latin translation, definitions
52 Shawkat bilingual 2009 Sorani English 35000* Persian-Arabic/Latin Synonyms, POS, pronunciation
53 Kiani Kolivand bilingual 2011 Laki Persian 30000 ? translations, etymology
54 Nahid multilingual 2011 Sorani (Sorani-Persian) 21000* Persian-Arabic translation
55 Hakem bilingual 2012 Sorani French ? Persian-Arabic ?
56 Nawkhosh bilingual 2012 Sorani Arabic and English 3000* Persian-Arabic/Latin synonyms
57 M. Rohani bilingual 2012 Persian Sorani 18500 Persian-Arabic translation, pronunciation, POS, idioms, example sentences, variant forms, synonyms
58 Sohrabi & Sreshabadi multilingual 2012 Garusi (Sorani-Persian) 8000 Persian-Arabic translation, pronunciation
59 Ulumaskan bilingual 2016 Kurmanji German 25000 Latin ?
60 M. Rohani multilingual 2018 Sorani (Sorani-Persian) 93000 Persian-Arabic translation, POS, idioms, example sentences, variant forms
61 Chyet Bilingual 2020 Kurmanji English ? Persian-Arabic and Latin translation, POS, idioms, example sentences, variant spellings, synonyms, regional usage, etymologies
62 Chyet Bilingual 2020 English Kurmanji ? Persian-Arabic and Latin translation, POS, idioms, example sentences, variant spellings, synonyms, regional usage, etymologies
63 Malmîsanij Bilingual 1992 Zazaki Turkish ? Latin translation, POS, idioms, example sentences
64 Munzur Çem Bilingual 1994 Zazaki Turkish ? Latin translation, POS, idioms, example sentences
65 Çeko Kocadag Bilingual 2010 Zazaki Kurmanji ? Latin translation, POS, idioms, example sentences
66 Roşan Lezgîn Bilingual 2013 Zazaki Turkish ? Latin translation, POS, idioms, example sentences

List of Kurdish etymological dictionaries

# Author Name Link Year # Entries Resource language Script
1 Dr. Abdullah Ibrahimsadeh Raman Dictionary of Kurdish etymology link (Vol. 1, Vol. 2) 2014 ~1200 pages Sorani Kurdish Persian-Arabic/Latin
2 Ali Nanvazadeh The Kurdish etymological dictionary - 2017- - Sorani Kurdish Persian-Arabic/Latin
3 Ali Husein Kerim The Kurdish etymological dictionary (comparative) link (sample) 2019 ~640 pages Turkish Turkish
4 R. L. Tsabolov Etymological Dictionary of Kurdish link 689 pages 2001 Russian Cyrillic


If you are using these data in your research, please don't forget to cite the paper: 

@inproceedings{ahmadi2019kurdishlex,
  title = "Towards Electronic Lexicography for the {K}urdish Language",
  author = "Ahmadi, Sina and Hassani, Hossein and McCrae, John P.",
  booktitle = "Proceedings of the sixth biennial conference on electronic lexicography (eLex)",
  month = "10",
  year = "2019",
  address = "Sintra, Portugal",
  url = "https://elex.link/elex2019/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/eLex_2019_50.pdf",
  pages = "881--906",
  address= "Sintra, Portugal"
}

Last updated on 19 March 2020.