Kurdish is the most spoken language in Iraqi Kurdistan and belongs to the Indo-European family of languages. Additionally, many people will understand basic Arabic or English, the latter being compulsory in schools so many young people will usually understand some English.

The two most widely spoken dialects of Kurdish are Sorani and Kurmanji. Sorani is spoken in Erbil and Sulymaniyah, while Kurmanji is spoken in Duhok. It is important to note that many people can either speak or at least understand both of the major dialects and like most cultures of the world would appreciate any traveller expressing a few key phrases, the rough Latin equivalents which we have given below.

We have produced a typical scenario, played by Alan - a tour guide with Kurdistan Adventures and Shannon, an Australian guest about to join the escorted tour - click play to listen.

The accompanying script (PDF) to the scenario is available here.

The complete set of the MP3 files (0.4 MB) is available free for download here.