The Kurdish Alphabet: All 31 Letters of Kurmancî (With Pronunciation)

Quick answer: The Kurmancî Kurdish alphabet has 31 letters. It is the 26 letters of the English alphabet plus five extra ones — ç, ê, î, ş and û. It was built in the 1930s by Celadet Alî Bedirxan on one simple principle: one sound, one letter. There are no silent letters and no spelling exceptions to memorise. Once you know the 31 sounds, you can read any Kurmancî word out loud correctly — including words you have never seen before. Most learners get there in an afternoon.

That last point is the part people underestimate. English makes you learn a word's spelling and its pronunciation as two separate facts (though, through, tough). Kurmancî does not. The alphabet is the whole pronunciation system, and it is small.

The 31 letters of Kurmancî

Here is the full alphabet in order:

a b c ç d e ê f g h i î j k l m n o p q r s ş t u û v w x y z

Eight of those are vowels — a, e, ê, i, î, o, u, û — and the remaining 23 are consonants.

Compared to English, Kurmancî adds five letters (ç, ê, î, ş, û) and re-uses a handful of familiar ones for different sounds (c, j, q, x). Nothing is removed. That is the entire difference.

The full alphabet table, with an example word for every letter

Every example below is a real word from our Kurmancî A1 e-book, so you are learning vocabulary at the same time as the alphabet.

Letter	Sound	Example	Meaning
A a	like a in father	dar	tree
B b	as in English	bav	father
C c	like j in jam — not like English c	ciwan	young
Ç ç	like ch in church	çav	eye
D d	as in English	dê	mother
E e	like e in bed	kevn	old
Ê ê	long closed e, like ey in they	hêvî	hope
F f	as in English	fêkî	fruit
G g	always hard, as in go	goşt	meat
H h	as in English, always pronounced	heft	seven
I i	short, like i in bit	kî	who?
Î î	long, like ee in see	nîv	half
J j	like s in measure — not like English j	jin	woman, wife
K k	as in English	keç	daughter
L l	as in English	lamba	lamp
M m	as in English	mezin	big, tall
N n	as in English	nan	bread
O o	like o in not	dost	friend
P p	as in English	penîr	cheese
Q q	a k made deeper in the throat	qehwe	coffee
R r	tapped, closer to Spanish or Italian r	roj	day
S s	as in English, always voiceless	sêv	apple
Ş ş	like sh in shoe	şev	night
T t	as in English	tav	sun
U u	short, like u in put	gur	wolf
Û û	long, like oo in food	bûn	to be
V v	as in English	av	water
W w	like w in water — round and soft, never a v sound	çawa	how
X x	a ch from the throat, as in Scottish loch	xwarin	food
Y y	like y in yes	yek	one
Z z	as in English	zivistan	winter

The five letters English does not have

If you only learn five things from this page, learn these. They carry most of the sounds that make Kurmancî sound like Kurmancî.

Letter	How to say it	Example	Meaning
ç	ch in church	çav	eye
ê	long closed e	hêvî	hope
î	long i	nîv	half
ş	sh in shoe	şev	night
û	long u, like oo in cool	bûn	to become

Notice the pattern in ê, î and û: the little hat is not decoration. It marks a long vowel, and the length changes the word.

The four traps for English speakers

These are the four places where your English reading habits will actively work against you. Fix them early and most of your pronunciation problems disappear.

1. C is not a C

Kurmancî c is the sound in jam. So ciwan ("young") begins like jew-, not like see- or kew-. The ch sound you expected from c belongs to ç instead.

2. J is not a J

Kurmancî j is the soft sound in measure or French je. Jin ("woman") is not jin as in English gin — it is closer to zhin.

3. The length of a vowel changes the word

This is the one that catches diaspora learners who grew up hearing Kurdish but never reading it. Two examples straight from our A1 book:

Short	Long
min — my, me	mîn
ser — head	sêr — full

If you swallow the hat, you have said a different word. Holding the vowel a beat longer is not "speaking carefully" — it is the grammar of the sound.

4. W is a W, never a V

Kurmancî keeps v and w strictly apart, the way English does in vet and wet. Speakers coming from German or Turkish often merge them. Av is water; çawa is how.

Two rules that make reading easy

Every letter is pronounced. Kurmancî has no silent vowels and no silent endings. What is written is said. This is why the alphabet is worth one focused afternoon: after it, written Kurmancî stops being a guessing game.

Most words are consonant + vowel (+ consonant). Look at çav (eye), şev (night), dar (tree) — all one tidy syllable. Longer words stack the same block: xwa-rin, zi-vis-tan.

On stress: in Kurmancî it often falls on the last syllable, but not always, and it varies by region. At the start, clear and complete sounds matter more than perfect stress. Nobody will misunderstand you for stressing the wrong syllable; they will misunderstand you for turning î into i.

Does the alphabet change by dialect?

Yes — and this is worth knowing before you invest time in the wrong script.

• Kurmancî (Northern Kurdish) uses the 31-letter Latin alphabet on this page. It is the standard in Turkey, Syria and across the European diaspora, and it is what you see on Kurdish social media.
• Soranî (Central Kurdish) is normally written in an adapted Arabic script, read right to left. Same language family, different writing system entirely.
• Badinî is a regional form of Kurmancî spoken around Duhok, Zaxo and Amêdî. It has no separate writing system — it uses the Kurmancî alphabet.

There are also two older systems still in use for Kurmancî: an Arabic script (rare) and a Cyrillic one, used by Kurdish communities in the former Soviet Union, especially Armenia. Neither is where a beginner should start.

If you are not yet sure which dialect is yours, read Which Kurdish dialect should I learn? before you start memorising anything.

A short history: why the alphabet is only 90 years old

Kurdish was carried for centuries mostly by mouth — in songs, fairy tales, proverbs and storytelling. A unified written standard came late, and under difficult conditions.

In the 1930s, Kurdish intellectuals around Celadet Alî Bedirxan built a Latin-based alphabet designed specifically for Kurdish sounds, which is why it has ç, ê, î, ş and û rather than English-style letter combinations. His magazine Hawar, published in Syria, is considered the milestone of modern written Kurdish.

That history explains something learners feel but rarely name: in many of these countries Kurdish was politically suppressed, and Kurds were not allowed to learn their mother tongue at school. It was passed on at home or not at all. If you are a heritage speaker who can hear the language but never learned to read it, that gap is not your failing — it is the design of the systems you grew up in. The alphabet is the fastest thing you can take back.

How to actually learn the 31 letters this week

1. Day 1 — the five extra letters. Just ç, ê, î, ş, û, with the words çav, hêvî, nîv, şev, bûn. Say each one out loud three times.
2. Day 2 — the four traps. c, j, q, x. These are the letters your eyes will lie to you about.
3. Day 3 — the eight vowels as pairs. i/î, u/û, e/ê. Say min and mîn back to back until you hear the difference yourself.
4. Day 4 — read, do not translate. Take any Kurmancî sentence and read it aloud without looking up a single word. Ez baş im. Tu çawa yî? The point is the sound, not the meaning.
5. Day 5 — write. Copy out ten words by hand with their hats and cedillas. Typing them comes later; the hand remembers the diacritics.

Then move straight into words. The alphabet is a key, not a destination — and the people who stall are almost always the ones who spend three weeks on letters instead of three days. Our guide on how to learn Kurmancî Kurdish lays out what comes next, and if you already understand more than you can say, this one is for you.

Where the alphabet leads

The alphabet chapter in our Kurmancî A1 e-book is chapter 2 of 12, and it is deliberately short — because the moment you can read the letters, you can start on greetings, the present tense, numbers, family and everyday life, which is where the language actually lives. The book ends with a 100-point final test and a certificate of completion.

If you already know you want to go further than A1, the Kurmancî A1 & A2 bundle is the set most learners start with.

Frequently asked questions

How many letters are in the Kurdish alphabet?

The Kurmancî (Northern Kurdish) Latin alphabet has 31 letters: 8 vowels (a, e, ê, i, î, o, u, û) and 23 consonants. It is the 26 English letters plus ç, ê, î, ş and û. Soranî, written in an adapted Arabic script, is a different system with a different letter count.

Is Kurdish written in Arabic or Latin script?

Both, depending on the dialect and the region. Kurmancî is normally written in Latin script today — in Turkey, Syria and the European diaspora. Soranî is normally written in an adapted Arabic script in Iraq and Iran. A Cyrillic script is still used by some Kurdish communities in the former Soviet Union.

How long does it take to learn the Kurdish alphabet?

For an English, German or Turkish speaker, an afternoon is enough to read every letter, and about a week of short daily practice to read fluently without stopping to think. There are no silent letters and no spelling exceptions, so there is far less to memorise than in English.

What is the difference between i and î?

Length, and it changes the meaning. i is short, like the i in bit; î is long, like ee in see. Min and mîn are not the same word. The same applies to u/û and e/ê.

How do you pronounce x and q in Kurdish?

x is a ch made in the throat, as in Scottish loch — it appears in one of the most common words in the language, xwarin (food). q is a k produced deeper and harder in the throat than an English k, as in qehwe (coffee). Neither exists in English, and both are worth practising out loud rather than reading about.

Do I need to learn the alphabet before I start speaking?

You do not need to finish it, but you should not skip it. Every learning resource you will use — books, subtitles, song lyrics, messages from family — is written in it. Learners who skip the alphabet end up guessing at spellings for months and quietly building in pronunciation errors that take much longer to remove than three days of upfront work. Our complete beginner's guide to learning Kurdish puts it in the wider order of things.

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Written by The Kurdish Academy · Language reviewed by a native Kurmancî speaker on our team · Last updated 20 September 2026