We asked our own system for Sorani, which is written in a version of the Arabic script and runs right to left. What came back was written in Latin letters, in the alphabet used for a different Kurdish variety. A Sorani reader would have looked at their screen and seen something that was not their language and not their script. We would rather tell you that here than let you find out on a Sunday.
Every language page in this section either shows real sentences from the real system or explains why it does not. This one explains.
We asked for Sorani and got the other variety, in the wrong alphabet. Not a mistranslated word: a different form of Kurdish, written in letters a Sorani reader does not read their own language in. On top of that, the word it used for one of the central terms in Romans was not the standard term. Two failures in one, and the second would have been invisible under the first.
A clumsy sentence can still be read. A sentence in an alphabet somebody does not use is simply a wall.
Somebody who reads Kurdish in the Arabic based script may never have learned the Latin one, and the reverse is just as common. They are not different fonts of the same thing. They are two separate literacies, and a person is usually fluent in one of them.
There is also the human part. A guest handed the wrong Kurdish will not usually complain. They will look at the screen, work out that it is not for them, put the phone away, and sit through the hour without saying anything. Nobody in the room will know it happened, and the church will believe the problem is solved.
So the verdict on Kurdish is: not yet. Captions exist and you can use them with your eyes open. What we will not do is put a confident tick beside Kurdish and let you assume it behaves like Arabic or Ukrainian, because it does not.
At least three things, and often more. This is the section to read before you print anything.
Spoken across parts of northern Iraq and western Iran. Written in a version of the Arabic script, running right to left. This is the entry in our language list, marked ku, and the one whose own name reads کوردیی ناوەندی.
The most widely spoken variety, and the one most Kurds in Europe grew up with, particularly those whose families came from Turkey and Syria. Written in a Latin alphabet with its own accented letters. Not currently a separate entry in our list, which is part of the problem this page describes.
Southern Kurdish, and the related Zazaki and Gorani, which many linguists count as separate languages rather than as Kurdish at all. Speakers of these do not necessarily follow either of the two above, and are used to being lumped in with them.
Sorani and Kurmanji are related the way Danish and German are related. A patient speaker can pick out familiar words. Nobody follows an hour of theology that way.
One of three directions, and the one that is available comes with the caution above attached to it.
Speak it: not yet. MulingStream cannot listen to a talk given in Kurdish, so a Kurdish speaking preacher cannot be followed through us.
Read it: yes. Captions work, with the variety and script caveat that this whole page is about.
Hear it: not yet. There is no Kurdish voice, so nobody can close their eyes and listen.
Kurdish sits in the list as ku, marked as written right to left. See all 183 languages and what each one can actually do.
Kurdish is an Iranian language, a distant relative of Persian rather than of Arabic or Turkish. The scripts it is written in were decided by which country a community happened to live in, not by anything in the language itself.
Because it is an Iranian language, a Kurdish speaker from Iran often reads Persian comfortably, and a Kurdish speaker from Iraq often reads Arabic. Neither is a safe assumption, and both are worth asking about.
Kurdish speakers are among the longest established newer communities in northern Europe, and among the least well served by anything built for churches.
Kurdish speaking families have been settling across Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Denmark and elsewhere for decades. Some arrived a generation ago and have children who speak the local language natively and Kurdish only at home. Some arrived recently.
Kurdish backgrounds are not uniform in religion either. There are Kurdish Christians of long standing, Kurds who came to faith in Europe, and people from Yazidi and other communities for whom the assumptions a European church makes are frequently wrong. As with every other page in this section, the working rule is to offer and not to assign.
The pattern churches notice most is generational. The adult children interpret for their parents, every week, for years, and nobody ever names it as a burden. Taking that job off a twenty year old on a Sunday morning is a real and specific kindness, and it is most of what this technology is for.
Because of everything above, the first step here is a question rather than a setting.
None of this costs extra. Every pass and every membership carries as many languages as your guests need, so trying two and keeping the one that works is not a commercial decision. It is just an afternoon.
No dates, because a date we might miss is worth less than an honest order of work.
Sorani and Kurmanji become distinct entries rather than one line called Kurdish, each locked to its own script, so that asking for one can never quietly deliver the other. This is the fix that matters most and it is the one we are least willing to fudge.
By Kurdish speaking believers who know which word their congregation uses for grace, for the Spirit, for baptism, for salvation. Written down, correct, and then held in place the way your own church terms already are through Keywords.
So that a Kurdish speaking preacher or a Kurdish testimony can be followed by the rest of the room. Genuinely intended, dependent on things not entirely in our hands, and therefore without a date beside it.
Not any voice. One somebody can listen to for a full service without it becoming work. A bad voice is worse than none, because people try it once and never come back.
When this is fixed, this page will change. The honest section comes down and real sentences go up, the way they are on the Arabic and Persian pages. We are not going to improve it quietly and leave the warning here to look humble.
Because captions do work, and for some rooms a rough caption is better than nothing so long as everybody knows what they have. What we will not do is list it with a confident tick and let you assume it behaves like the languages we have tested and are happy with.
You can try it, and you should expect to be disappointed some of the time. The entry in our list is Sorani, and the system does not yet reliably keep those apart. Ask your guest whether Turkish, Arabic, Persian or the local language would serve them better in the meantime, and let them decide.
Not yet. MulingStream cannot listen to a talk given in Kurdish. If your service is in Danish, English or Arabic and the Kurdish speakers are the ones following, that direction is available today, with the caveats on this page.
No, and most Kurdish speakers will be pleased you knew to ask. The rude version is deciding for them and handing them a screen in an alphabet they do not read. Ask once, quietly, note the answer, and never ask again.
Send us what came out wrong, with one line about what it should have said. And if you have a member who would go through the church vocabulary of Sorani or Kurmanji with us, that is the single thing standing between this page and a much better one. Get in touch.
The languages a Kurdish speaking guest may read instead, and the pages where we are confident.
A relative of Kurdish, often read comfortably by Kurdish speakers from Iran, and a page about vocabulary that is not neutral.
Often read comfortably by Kurdish speakers from Iraq, and a language where we do show real sentences because we are confident in them.
Another page written the honest way, for a congregation that European church software has almost never been asked to think about.
What each one can do: spoken from the stage, read as captions, heard as a voice. Three different questions, three different answers.
Not to sell you anything. To find out which variety and which script your people actually read, so that the next version of this page can say something better.