The Hurro-Urartian Substratum in Kurdish (3)

We have so far discussed two aspects of Hurro-Urartian substratum in Kurdish; the place-names and vocabulary.
 This time we will look into morphological traces of Urartian in Kurdish.

Nominal morphology:
Out of nine noun cases in Urartian six have nearly identical Kurdish equivalents:

1) Absolutive: In Urartian, subject of intransitive verbs, direct objects and predicate nouns take no suffixes as in Kurdish. In plural Urartian uses ''-le'' and Kurdish ''-êl''.

2) Ergative: In Urartian subject of transitive verbs take /-shê/ suffix. Similarly in Kurdish, subject of transitive verbs take /-ê/ suffix; note that according to Kurdish historical phonetic changes  /sh/ has regularly developed into /-h or nil/ ( hence we got: -shê>-ê). Under foreign languages influence (Turkish, Persian, Arabic) this ergative case ending is eroding in Kurdish, and it remains only in a few northern Kurdish variants.

3) Genitive: in Urartian /-i/-ie--ei/ was used. In Kurdish /-i/ is used especially in central Kurdish.

4) Dative: in Urartian -e/-ie/ was used. Similarly in Kurdish -ê is used, especially in northern Kurdish.

5) Locative: In Urartian /-a/ was used. Similarly in Kurdish /-a/ is used, especially in central Kurdish. In northern Kurdish, probably under influence of foreign languages /-da/ is used.

6) Comitative: in Urartian /-rani/ was used. The Kurdish equivalent is /-ra/, especially in northern Kurdish.

7) For directive cases Urartian used /-edi/, whereas Kurdish /-ê/ could be a later contraction of it.

8) and 9) for Urartian instrumental ablative and ablative, there does not remain any case endings in modern Kurdish.

Urartian and Kurdish agree in another morphological feature, called ''suffixaufnahme''.
Both languages follow SOV order in their syntax. Both use ya/ye as relative pronouns.

Verbal morphology:
In the verbal morphology, we find a very interesting archaism in central Kurdish. In order to create passive forms of transitive verbs, it uses a /-re-/-ra-/ morpheme, deriving from Hurrian /iri/ and Urartian /-auri/. Northern Kurdish uses an auxilary verb 'hatin' (Indo-Iranic feature?), and southern Kurdish uses /-iya-/ which is common in both Hurrian and old Iranic. However, the morpheme /iya/ is not limited only to south Kurdish, as it is also used more and less, in all other dialects.

Imperative: Both Urartian and Kurdish use an /-a/ suffix after verb roots to form imperative forms.

Jussive: Both Urartian and Kurdish (plural third person) take /-in/ after the verbal root.

Intransitive verbs in Urartian just as in Kurdish (and Iranic) take personal enclitics (identifying the subject) after the verbal root. But, what is more interesting is the use of personal suffixes after transitive verbal roots to identify direct objects; this  is typical for Kurdish, especially the northern Kurdish, where exactly like Urartian, it is only personal suffixes of direct objects that follow the verbal roots, while no personal suffixes for subjects are used.

Causative: in Hurrian ''-ann'' is used, as in Kurdish ''-an'' or ''-and''.

In Urartian, verbal roots of intransitive verbs are marked with / -a/ just as in Kurdish, while verbal roots of transitive verbs are marked with /-u/, where according to Kurdish historical phonology /u>i/, its modern Kurdish equivalent is /-i/.
In Hurrian perfect tens is made by adding /osh/ to verbal root. In central Kurdish, /u[h]/ is sused (sh>h).

As can be seen, Kurdish language appears to be a creole language formed after an amalgamation of Hurro-Urartian and Iranic languages. The Hurro-Urartian layer, showing itself as an older substratum in which Urartian is stronger, while the Iranic layer, which began undoubtedly with the Scytho-Cimmerian invasion of Urartu emerges as a superstratum. The Iranic layer was further intensified with a wave of clearly identifiable  middle Persian loanwords under the Sassanid period, during which, Iranic aristocrats played a prominent role in local affairs. The Islamic conquest of Kurdistan, resulting in collapse of the Sassanids, however, rescued Kurdish from further Iranicization, forever.