As Celadet Bedrxan had once advised us, Kurds ''need to develop a writing system that allows all speakers hailing from every Kurdish dialect to use that writing system''. The Kurdish alphabet must be a means of unification of various Kurdish dialects and vernaculars. This means while every Kurd should feel comfortable to write and read in Kurdish according to his/her native dialect, still other Kurds too must be able to easily read and understand it.
One of annoying features of writing in Kurdish caused by various regional variations is the different renderings of izafe marker:
Northern Kurdish uses -a/-ê for grammatical masculine and feminine respectively.
Central Kurdish uses -i
Further south, no izafe marker is used
In southernmost regions of Kurdistan, -ê is used.
(all used for both possessive and descriptive cases).
Looking for powerful oriental languages, such as Arabic and Persian we see this problem has long being solved through an easy solution. Namely, by ''not indicating izafe marker''.
Thus while in Eastern Persian (Dari) ''-î'' is used, in western Persian (Farsi) ''-ê'' is used when reading an izafe compound, however Persian scholars has solved this distinction by a simple trick: They do not indicate the i/ê izafe when writing at all. Thus same compound may be read by an eastern Persian speaker as ''-i'' while a Western Persian speaker reads it as ''-ê''.
For example, زبان فارسی (transliteration: Zabân Fârsi), could be read ''zabâni fârsi'' by an eastern speaker, and ''zabânê fârsi'' by a western speaker.
Same method could be used even for Kurdish; While keeping regional spoken variations when reading a text, Kurds can at least when coming to writing, use a unified standard writing system as in Persian.
Some examples in Kurdish:
Kurmanci: Rojhelata Kurdistan, Xebata pîroz, Alaya rengîn
Current standard Sorani: Rojhelatî Kurdistan, Xebatî pîroz, Alay rengîn
Southern Sorani: Rojhelat Kurdistan, Xebat pîroz, Alay rengîn
Southern Kurdish: Rojhelatê Kurdistan, Xebatê pîroz, Alayê rengîn
Proposal: Rojhelat Kurdistan, Xebat piroz, Alay rengin (But the reader is free as to how he/she wishes to read it)
If this proposal is accepted, we have been able to put one more major step towards standardization of Kurdish and unification of its written variations. Furthermore, one my expect to use this method in other regional distinctions appearing in Kurdish such as case-markers which nowadays appear only in Kurmanji dialect.
It would not be impossible that in future, depending on strength of media, social, economical and other factors, a specific form of ''standard colloquial Kurdish'' will emerge which could even be chosen as ''official standard form of reading Kurdish'' texts.
(See part I)
