Kurdish in the hierarchy of languages

Shamʿī, a translator at the Kurdish court of Palu, wrote about the hierarchy of languages in the seventeenth century. Although his account simplifies a far more complex historical reality, it represents an important early stage in the elevation of Kurdish as a language of literary and cultural prestige among the world's languages.

Much of what Shamʿī writes is drawn directly from the literary tradition with which he was familiar. It was entirely conventional within that tradition to place Arabic in first place and Persian in second. What is noteworthy, however, is that Shamʿī composed this passage in Ottoman Turkish, addressing an Ottoman audience. Rather than assigning Ottoman Turkish the third position, he marshals respected Kurdish authorities and established literary conventions to secure that place for Kurdish itself.

This strategy captures a distinctive feature of the first phase in the elevation of Kurdish. At the time, two languages stood as major obstacles to the widespread use of Kurdish as a literary medium: Arabic and Persian. Their dominance would be challenged only gradually as more works were composed in Kurdish.

In the second phase, Kurdish authors increasingly sought to place Kurdish on an equal footing with Persian, and in some cases even above it. Persian posed the greater challenge, both symbolically and practically. Since the Iranian Intermezzo, it had served as the principal court language of Kurdish dynasties and remained the dominant literary language of much of the Kurdish learned elite. The effort to establish Kurdish as the equal of Persian persisted in many aspects into the early 20th-century.

Shamʿī writes: 

It shall be known that the variety of tongues refers to the various languages spoken among the creatures, some of which are Arabic, Persian, Kurdish, Turkish and Greek, Hindi, Afghani and, in addition to these, many more strange tongues and wonderful languages that cannot be counted. However, the most eminent and elegant of these tongues is Arabic, in which the noble Qur'an was revealed, and after it, Persian, the sweetest of languages. Then, each people has considered their own language to be the highest, but Imam Muhammad Barqal'i, Mulla Jaziri, and many more great scholars and noble literati, have chosen the Kurdish language, making it the most agreeable. Furthermore, the bravest and most generous peoples of the aforementioned Islamic community are the Arabs, and then the Kurds.