Kurdish phonology

Kurdish phonology is the sound system of the Kurdish dialect continuum. This article includes the phonology of the three Kurdish languages in their respective standard descriptions. Phonological features include the distinction between aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops, and the large phoneme inventories.

Consonants

 * are laminal denti-alveolar, while are dentalized laminal alveolar , pronounced with the blade of the tongue very close to the back of the upper front teeth, with the tip resting behind lower front teeth.
 * Kurdish contrast plain alveolar and velarized postalveolar  lateral approximants. Unlike in English, the sounds are separate phonemes rather than allophones.
 * Postvocalic is lenited to an approximant . This is a regional feature occurring in other Iranian languages as well and called by Windfuhr the "Zagros d".
 * Kurdish has two rhotic sounds; the alveolar flap and the alveolar trill . While the former is alveolar, the latter has an alveo-palatal articulation.

Kurmanji
 * Distinguishes between aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops, which can be aspirated in all positions. Thus contrasts with,  with ,  with , and the affricate  with.
 * Although is considered an allophone of, some phonologists argue that it should be considered a phoneme.

Sorani
 * According to, are uvular.
 * Distinguishes between the plain and  and the velarized  and . These velarized counterparts are less emphatic than the Semitic emphatic consonants.

Xwarîn
 * is an allophone of, occurring in the about 11 to 19 words that have the consonant group $⟨nz⟩$. The word "yanze" is pronounced as.

Labialization

 * Kurdish has labialized counterparts to the velar plosives, the voiceless velar fricative and the uvular stop. Thus contrasts with,  with ,  with , and  with . These labialized counterparts do not have any distinct letters or digraph. Examples are the word "xulam" ('servant') which is pronounced as , and qoç ('horn') is pronounced as.

Palatalization

 * After, is palatalized to . An example is the Sorani word "galte" ('joke'), which is pronounced as.
 * and are palatalized before close vowels.
 * When preceding, are palatalized to . In the same environment,  also becomes.

Pharyngealization

 * In some cases, are pharyngealized to . For example, the word "sed/ṣed" is pronounced as
 * Furthermore, while and  are unique to Sorani, Kurmanji has.

Consonants in loanwords

 * is a phoneme that is almost exclusively present in words of Arabic origin. It is often replaced by in colloquial Kurdish. Thus the word "xerîb/ẍerîb" ('stranger', ) may occur as either  or.
 * mostly occurs in words of Arabic origin, mostly in word-initial position.
 * is mainly present in Arabic loanwords and it affects the pronunciation of adjacent vowels. The use of the glottal stop in everyday Kurdish may be seen as an effort to highlight its Arabic source.

Vowels
The vowel inventory differs by language, some languages having more vowel phonemes than others. The vowels are the only phonemes present in all three Kurdish languages.

Vowels in loanwords

 * occurs in numerous dialects of Sorani where it is represented by wê/وێ as well as in Xwarîn, represented by $⟨i⟩$. In Kurmanji, it is only present in loanwords from Turkish, where it often merges with . The word  (from Turkish  meaning 'clayish mud') is pronounced as either  or.

Glides and diphthongs
The glides, , and appear in syllable onsets immediately followed by a full vowel. All combinations except the last four are present in all three Kurdish languages.