2014/08/05 by Michiel Leezenberg · 2 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Families in Therapy and Culture #Islamic Studies and History #Historical and Linguistic Studies #Vernacular #Extant taxon #Grammar #Linguistics #History #Literature #Minor (academic) #Language acquisition #Philosophy #Art #Humanities
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/00210862.2014.934150
openalex publication_date 2014/08/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Eli Teremaxi's Serfa Kurmancî has not yet received the critical attention it deserves. It was dismissed by Auguste Jaba as a text of “minor interest,” but in fact it is of paramount importance both for the study of the Kurdish language and for the history of Kurdish learning. Not only does it contain the oldest extant detailed remarks on Kurdish grammar, in all likelihood preceding even Garzoni's 1787 Grammatica; it is also among the first examples of Kurdish-language prose writing. The rise of prose texts of learning in Kurdish in the eighteenth century is an aspect of so-called “vernacularization,” i.e. the use of a vernacular language for new purposes of written literature and learning. Vernacularization is, this article argues, a crucial prerequisite for the rise of a national language. The article also briefly discusses traces of a similar development in some of Teremaxî's near-contemporaries.