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The Kurds ((クルド語:کورد) ''Kurd'') are an ethnic group in the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a contiguous area spanning adjacent parts of southeastern Turkey (Northern or Turkish Kurdistan), western Iran (Eastern or Iranian Kurdistan), northern Iraq (Southern or Iraqi Kurdistan), and northern Syria (Western Kurdistan or Rojava).〔''Kurdish Awakening: Nation Building in a Fragmented Homeland'', (2014), by Ofra Bengio, University of Texas Press〕 The Kurds have ethnically diverse origins. They are culturally and linguistically closely related to the Iranian peoples〔 and, as a result, are often themselves classified as an Iranian people. Kurdish nationalists claim that the Kurds are descended from the Hurrians and the Medes, (the latter being another Iranian people) and the claimed Median descent is reflected in the words of the Kurdish national anthem: "we are the children of the Medes and Kai Khosrow". The Kurdish languages form a subgroup of the Northwestern Iranian languages.〔 The Kurds are estimated to number, worldwide, around 30–32 million, possibly as high as 37 million,〔Based on arithmetic from ''World Factbook'' and other sources cited herein: A Near Eastern population of 28–30 million, plus approximately 2 million diaspora gives 30–32 million. If the highest (25%) estimate for the Kurdish population of Turkey, in Mackey (2002), proved correct, this would raise the total to around 37 million.〕 with the majority living in West Asia; however there are significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities of western Turkey, in particular Istanbul. A recent Kurdish diaspora has also developed in Western countries, primarily in Germany. The Kurds are the majority population in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan and in the autonomous region of Rojava, and are a significant minority group in the neighboring countries Turkey and Iran, where Kurdish nationalist movements continue to pursue greater autonomy and cultural rights. ==Name== (詳細はtoponym is recorded in Assyrian as ''Qardu'' and in Middle Bronze Age Sumerian as ''Kar-da''. Assyrian ''Qardu'' refers to an area in the upper Tigris basin, and it is presumably reflected in corrupted form in Arabic (Quranic) ''Ǧūdī'', re-adopted in Kurdish as ''Cûdî''.〔Ilya Gershevitch, William Bayne Fisher, The Cambridge History of Iran: The Median and Achamenian Periods, 964 pp., Cambridge University Press, 1985, ISBN 0-521-20091-1, ISBN 978-0-521-20091-2, (see footnote of p.257)〕 The name would be continued as the first element in the toponym ''Corduene'', mentioned by Xenophon as the tribe who opposed the retreat of the Ten Thousand through the mountains north of Mesopotamia in the 4th century BC. There are, however, dissenting views, which do not derive the name of the Kurds from ''Qardu'' and ''Corduene'' but opt for derivation from ''Cyrtii'' (''Cyrtaei'') instead.〔G. Asatrian, Prolegomena to the Study of the Kurds, Iran and the Caucasus, Vol.13, pp. 1–58, 2009: "Evidently, the most reasonable explanation of this ethnonym must be sought for in its possible connections with the Cyrtii (Cyrtaei) of the Classical authors."〕 Regardless of its possible roots in ancient toponymy, the ethnonym ''Kurd'' might be derived from a term ''kwrt-'' used in Middle Persian as a common noun to refer to "nomads" or "tent-dwellers", which could be applied as an attribute to any Iranian group with such a lifestyle.〔''Karnamak Ardashir Papakan and the Matadakan i Hazar Dastan''. G. Asatrian, Prolegomena to the Study of the Kurds, Iran and the Caucasus, Vol.13, pp. 1–58, 2009. Excerpt 1: ""Generally, the etymons and primary meanings of tribal names or ethnonyms, as well as place names, are often irrecoverable; Kurd is also an obscurity" "It is clear that kurt in all the contexts has a distinct social sense, "nomad, tent-dweller". It could equally be an attribute for any Iranian ethnic group having similar characteristics. To look for a particular ethnic sense here would be a futile exercise." P. 24: "The Pahlavi materials clearly show that kurd in pre-Islamic Iran was a social label, still a long way off from becoming an ethnonym or a term denoting a distinct group of people."〕 The term gained the characteristic of an ethnonym following the Muslim conquest of Persia, as it was adopted into Arabic and gradually became associated with an amalgamation of Iranian and Iranicised tribes and groups in the region.〔McDowall, David. 2000. ''A Modern History of the Kurds''. Second Edition. London: I.B. Tauris. p. 9.〕〔G. Asatrian, Prolegomena to the Study of the Kurds, Iran and the Caucasus, Vol.13, pp. 1–58, 2009〕 It is also hypothesized that ''Kurd'' could originate from the Persian word ''gord'' , because the Arabic script lacks a symbol corresponding uniquely to ''g'' (گ). Sherefxan Bidlisi in the 16th century states that there are four division of "Kurds": ''Kurmanj'', ''Lur'', ''Kalhor'' and ''Guran'', each of which speak a different dialect or language variation. Paul (2008) notes that the 16th-century usage of the term ''Kurd'' as recorded by Bidlisi, regardless of linguistic grouping, might still reflect an incipient Northwestern Iranian "Kurdish" ethnic identity uniting the Kurmanj, Kalhur, and Guran.〔 Writes about the problem of attaining a coherent definition of "Kurdish language" within the Northwestern Iranian dialect continuum. There is no unambiguous evolution of Kurdish from Middle Iranian, as "from Old and Middle Iranian times, no predecessors of the Kurdish language are yet known; the extant Kurdish texts may be traced back to no earlier than the 16th century CE." Ludwig Paul further states: "Linguistics itself, or dialectology, does not provide any general or straightforward definition of at which point a language becomes a dialect (or vice versa). To attain a fuller understanding of the difficulties and questions that are raised by the issue of the 'Kurdish language,' it is therefore necessary to consider also non-linguistic factors."〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kurds」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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