- published: 17 Jul 2014
- views: 555089
The Kurdish people, or Kurds (Kurdish: کورد Kurd), are an Iranic people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. They speak the Kurdish language, which is a member of the Iranian branch of Indo-European languages. The Kurds number about 30 million, the majority living in the Middle East, with significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities of western Turkey, in Armenia, Georgia, Israel, Azerbaijan, Russia, Lebanon and, in recent decades, some European countries and the United States. The Kurds are an indigenous ethnic minority in countries where the Kurdistan region is located, although they have enjoyed partial autonomy in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991. An irredentist movement pushes for the creation of a Kurdish nation state.
The exact origins of the name, "Kurd", are unclear. Reynolds believes that the term Kurd is most likely related to the ancient term Qardu. The common root of Kurd and Qardu is first mentioned in a Sumerian tablet from the third millennium B.C. as the "land of Kar-da." Qardu is etymologically related to the Assyrian term Urartu corresponding to Ararat. According to Asatrian, the most reasonable explanation of this ethnonym is its possible connections with the Cyrtii (Cyrtaei)
I've lived long enough to see the dead horse
I've lived long enough to cross swamps at night
I've lived long enough to chase a rat
I've lived long enough to take a jet ride
If you see me on an airplane
Just make sure and get out of my way
I lived long enough to know the sun will drop
And you ought to leave it lie
To see the dying of the pines
I've lived long enough to kill my first love
I've lived long enough to break in and do harm
I've lived long enough to fly an airplane
I've lived long enough to break a machine
If you see me on an airplane
Just make sure and get out of my way
I lived long enough to know the sun will drop
And you ought to leave it lie