Gurani, Hawrami

The Hawrami and Gurani speak Gorani, a group of Northwestern Iranian dialects of the Zagros borderlands of western Iran and northeastern Iraq. Its sounds link it to Parthian and the dialects of central Iran rather than to Kurdish or Persian, and Hawrami, the most archaic variety, still keeps masculine and feminine gender in nouns, adjectives and verbs. Gorani speakers probably came from the Caspian region at an early date and once held a much wider area, much of which later turned Kurdish-speaking; the Guran tribe of Gahvareh, which gave the language its name, had become Kurdish-speaking by the mid-20th century, and Gurani proper survives only in a few Yarsan villages near Gahvareh, at Zarda and at Kandula. The living varieties are Hawrami of the Hawraman mountains (the Luhon, Takht and Zhawaro dialects and that of Paveh), Gurani proper, and Bajalani, Sarli and Shabaki in Iraq. Estimates of speakers range from 23,000 for Hawrami alone to about 300,000 for all Gorani. Linguists debate whether Gorani is a separate language or a divergent Kurdish dialect, but its speakers identify as Kurds. From the 16th to the 19th century Gorani was the poetic koine of the Ardalan princes of Sanandaj and of much of southern Kurdish literature, with poets such as Khana Qubadi and Mawlawi, and it is the original language of the Yarsan scriptures. The name Hawraman is popularly derived from Ahura, giving 'land of Ahura'.

Hawrami life is shaped by steep mountains: villages such as Uraman Takht, Palangan and Dolaw rise in tiers up the slopes, with the flat roof of each house serving as the yard or lane of the one above. Families tend walnut, mulberry, pomegranate and fig gardens on stone terraces and move flocks to high summer pastures. Men wear felt jackets and the wide Kurdish trousers with white klash shoes, and women wear long layered dresses and headscarves. Hawrami song is sung without instruments: siyaw chemane, a melancholic, melismatic style in two to four voices thought to reach back to Zoroastrian times, and bazmi chapla, songs kept in time by clapping; the daf accompanies Sufi gatherings and dances. The Pir Shalyar wedding festival in Uraman Takht each winter, with walnuts carried to every household, communal sacrifice, a centuries-old porridge and three weeks of rites, is the region's great communal event.

Most Hawrami are Sunni Muslims of the Shafi'i school, and the Naqshbandi sheikhs of Tawella and Biyara on the Iraqi side of Hawraman have shaped religious life on both sides of the border for two centuries. The Pir Shalyar festival blends Islamic devotion, with Sufi singing at saints' tombs, and older traditions. The Gurani-speaking villagers near Gahvareh and at Zarda in Iran and the Kaka'i of Iraq follow Yarsan, for which Gorani is the sacred language: its kalam hymns are sung to the tanbur in jam ceremonies, and Zarda holds the tomb of Dawud, one of the faith's holiest sites.

A new Hawrami translation is being made from the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek and published book by book, with text and audio, in the Horami Bible app (Kalaam Media, first released in 2020). By December 2025 it held the five books of Moses, Matthew, Mark, John, Acts and Romans, so Scripture exists in portions, not as a complete Bible. The full JESUS film, a video of the prophets' stories and Global Recordings Network audio Bible lessons are also available in Hawrami. Most speakers also understand Sorani or Southern Kurdish and Persian, which have complete Bibles and Christian media. Known believers are very few.

Gurani proper, the dialect that gave the language its name, was once the speech of the powerful Guran tribe of Gahvareh, west of Kermanshah. The tribe itself had become Kurdish-speaking by the mid-20th century, and Gurani now survives in a handful of villages: Gawraju and its neighbours about 10 km from Gahvareh, Zarda near Kerend and Sarpol-e Zahab, and Kandula north of Kermanshah. Their people, at most about 1,500 speakers, are Yarsan (Ahl-e Haqq), and their speech is close to the Gorani of the Yarsan sacred hymns. Zarda, with 1,087 people in 2016, holds the tomb of Dawud, one of the holiest Yarsan sites, and was bombed with chemical weapons by Iraq on 22 July 1988. Gawraju is being emptied by a government dam that will flood it, and linguists who documented these villages expect the dialect to vanish within one or two generations.

The Kaka'i are Iraq's Yarsan community, estimated at 110,000-200,000 people, most of them in Daquq and the villages south-east of Kirkuk, in al-Hamdaniya on the Nineveh Plains, in Khanaqin and in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah. Their name is said to come from the Kurdish 'kaka', brother. Many speak a Gorani dialect called Macho, the language of their sacred kalam hymns, collected in the Saranjam and attributed to Sultan Sahak, the 14th-century founder of the faith; others speak Sorani, Arabic or Turkmen. They believe in one God who manifests himself in successive incarnations and in the reincarnation of souls toward purity, and they revere Imam Ali. Worship takes place in the jam khana, where initiates sing hymns to the tanbur and share sacrificial food (niyaz). Instead of Ramadan they keep a three-day winter fast, and they celebrate Nowruz, the Khawandkar feast and the Qoltas fast. Men traditionally leave their moustaches uncut. Leadership passes in hereditary sayyid families, and the Ibrahimi branch predominates in Iraq. The Ba'athist state displaced Kaka'i villages repeatedly between 1970 and 1987; the Islamic State threatened them with death and destroyed their shrines in 2014, and attacks on Daquq-area villages continued after 2017. Yarsan is not recognised in Iraq's constitution.

Each year in mid-Bahman (late January to early February) the village of Uraman Takht holds the wedding of Pir Shalyar, a festival said locally to be more than 900 years old. Legend tells that Pir Shalyar, called the son of Jamasp, healed a deaf, mute and troubled princess, Shabaram Khatun, and her grateful father married her to him in the village; scholars debate whether he was a Sasanian-era Zoroastrian priest or a Sufi contemporary of Abd al-Qadir Gilani. The festival runs in three phases over three weeks. Elders announce it and walnuts from the gardens are carried to every household, which gives grain and flour in return; young men of the Charchi clan spread the news to neighbouring villages. Masked youths go door to door in kote kote pranks, sheep, goats and calves are sacrificed and the meat shared equally, and a sour herb stew, chashte tashe, is cooked with pomegranate syrup. Men dance in ecstatic circles to the daf with mystical poetry, and on the following Thursday pilgrims carry walnut bread and yoghurt to the saints' tombs. A second, spring round takes place in Ordibehesht.