Translation Landscape

Existing Kurdish Bible translations

Kitêba Pîroz (the Kurdish Bible, Kurmanji dialect, Latin script) is the primary complete Kurdish Bible translation, developed with international Bible society involvement over recent decades - younger than Arabic’s or Persian’s translation traditions but more developed than Pashto’s. This Language Package follows its precedent for established terms (Îsa, Mesîh, Xwedê, Mizgînî) rather than introducing new renderings.

Where existing translations fall short for this curriculum

• No developed vocabulary for the political-overlap risk: existing Kurdish Bible translations render “salvation” and “kingdom of God” accurately as vocabulary, but do not address how those same words function as the defining language of Kurdish political nationalism. This Language Package’s translation_memory.json and doctrine_risk_registry.json are the first to document this specific risk systematically.
• No treatment of Sufi/Yazidi-specific risk: existing translations were not produced with explicit attention to how Kurdish Sufi mystical philosophy or Yazidi theology could reshape reception of Christological doctrine; this Language Package fills that gap.
• Dialect and script fragmentation: because a comparably complete Sorani (Arabic-script) Bible translation has a separate, less mature history, and Kurmanji/Sorani are different enough to be considered by some linguists as separate languages, this Language Package’s Kurmanji-specific choices do not automatically transfer to Sorani-speaking populations, primarily concentrated in Iraqi Kurdistan and Iranian Kurdistan.

Readiness assessment

Kurdish occupies a middle position in this pipeline’s readiness spectrum: a complete, reasonably well-established Kurmanji Bible translation exists, and Kurdish has genuine native-vocabulary assets (Xwedê, Bav, Mizgînî) similar in kind to Persian’s and Pashto’s. What existing translation work has not yet done is document the specific political and mystical-religious risk landscape this Language Package addresses, making disciplined doctrinal framing, not vocabulary invention, the primary task here.