Kurdish is spoken by around 40.5 million people (although this number is widely disputed), mainly in parts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
Kurdish is a member of the Indo-Iranian language group, which is a branch of the Indo-European family -- the largest language family in the world. Kurdish (like Persian) is grouped under the Western Iranian branch of Indo European languages; the Eastern branch of Iranian languages consists of languages such as Scythian, Avestan and, more recently, Pashto, spoken by Afghans. The language has its history in northwestern Iranian languages and is thought to be related to Hurrian, an ancient language of Mesopotamia. However, little is known of Kurdish before the arrival of Islam.

Kurdish has two main dialects: Kurmancî (Kurmanji) (spoken in the north and west) and Soranî (spoken in the east and south), although there are more minor dialects. Although known as dialects, the different forms of the language are so different that they are often mutually unintelligible! Kurdish is also an official language of Iraq.
The biggest group, as regards the number of people who speak it, is Kurmancî, spoken by the Kurds living in Turkey, Syria, and by some of the Kurds living in Iran and Iraq. This language is also spoken by 200,000 Kurdophones settled around Kabul in Afghanistan.
Soranî is the language spoken in north-east Iraq and belongs to the 'central group', along with the dialects of the neighbouring areas, beyond the Zagros, in Iranian Kurdistan. This group also gave birth to a literary language.

Kurdish can be written in a variety of scripts: modified Arabic (Soranî), modified Cyrillic (in Kurdish parts of the ex-Soviet Union) and modified Latin (Kurmancî). Recently, a common alphabet (based on the Latin script) has been introduced to bring unity amongst the language (the alphabet's name, 'Yekgirtú', means 'unified'). The script is well suited to a language rich in vowels (traditionally, the Arabic alphabet is an abjad) and is easier to reproduce on a computer.

Kurmancî (Kurmancî): 

A, B, C, Ç, D, E, Ê, F, G, H, I, Î, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, , T, U, Û, V, W, X, Y, Z  

This 31-letter alphabet contains seven vowels: three long and four short. Long vowels are indicated with a circumflex. As Turkish does not contain the letters Q, W and X, some Kurdish names can prove problematic!

Kurds in Iraq and Iran usually use this script, although the Kurmancî script is sometimes used. Unlike Arabic, Soranî has vowels, making it much easier to read. This alphabet contains 33 letters.

This alphabet is used solely by the few Kurmancî speaking Kurds in ex-Soviet Union states. It contains 32 letters.

Yekgirtú:

A, B, C, D, E, É, F, G, H, I, Í, J, Jh, K, L, ll, M, N, O, P, Q, R, rr, S, Sh, T, U, Ú, Ù, V, W, X, Y, Z

Yekgirtú was created to accommodate all Kurdish dialects and is not particular to one specific form of the language. There are 34 letters.

Nouns and Pronouns:

Unmarked or bare nouns can have "singular, generic, or indefinite plural meaning." Nouns are marked, usually by morphemes suffixed to the noun, for number and definiteness. Both nouns and pronouns are inflected. The cases are as follows: nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, locative, ablative and vocative.

Kurmancî nouns have two genders: masculine and feminine. Pronouns are distinguished for number and person and exist independently or as suffixes; independent pronouns are used for emphasis.
Pronouns have two forms: the 'ez' form and the 'min' form. The 'ez' form is used as the subject in present and future tenses, as well as in the past tense of an intransitive verb. It is used as the object in the past tense of a transitive verb. The 'min' form is used with prepositions and postpositions. It is also used as the object in present and future cases and the subject of a transitive verbs in past tenses.

Adjectives:

Adjectives are marked by suffixes for number and degree i.e. comparative and superlative, which are created by adding the suffixes -tir and -tirîn respectively. However, adjectives do not inflect relative to the noun they modify.

Verbs:

Kurdish has three main tenses: past, present and future and verbs have a past and present tense root. These can be simple (I went) or continuous (I was going).

Simple:
(1) Present simple tense : I go = Ez di çim
(2) Past simple tense : I went = Ez çum
(3) Future simple tense : I shall go = Ez dê çim
(4) Future simple in the past : I should go = Ez dê bi çim

Continuous:
(5) Present continuous tense : I am going = Ezê di çim
(6) Past continuous tense : I was going = Ez di çum
(7) Future continuous tense : I shall be going = Ezê dê çim
(8) Future continuous in the past  : I should be going = Ezê dê bi çim

Past tenses:
(9) Present perfect tense : I have gone = Ezê çuoym
(10) Pluperfect tense : I had gone =  Ez çuoym
(11) Future perfect tense : I shall be going = Ezê dê çuoy bim
(12) Future perfect in the past : I should be going = Ezê dê bi çim

Some forms of verbs do not have direct English equivalents:

Ez çuo buom
The action of this verbs takes place before the time of the pluperfect.

Ez çuoy
The action of this verb took place one step back in time still.

Ezê çuom
The action has just been started or it has just been decided that the action will start.

Ezê çuoy
This is another form of the past tense, called the indefinite past.

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