Welcome to the Kurdistan Phonological Inventory Database Online
The Kurdistan Phonological Inventory Database (KPID) is an online database of sound systems of the languages of Kurdistan and the surrounding areas. It is intended to serve as a tool for studying areal sound patterns and, at a later stage, areal sound change patterns. The data have been collected from linguistic descriptions, with no recycling from other databases. The 2017 version includes data from 58 language varieties that are or were spoken in this area. Bibliographical references are provided for all data sources.
The data was collected by Dmitry Nikolaev, Eitan Grossman, and the members of the Jerusalem Phonological Typology Consortium, which includes Rammie Cahlon, Leshem Choshen, Yonatan Dovrat, Elad Eisen, Noa Goldblatt, Maya Inbar, Einav Levanon, Elena Luchina-Sadan, Dina Sender, and Shira Tal.
There are three views of the database: mapview, listview, and segment view. The mapview shows all the languages on the map with colours of the points corresponding to first-level groupings (see below). The entries on the languages can be accessed by clicking on the markers. The listview shows the languages organised according to their genealogical affiliation and in the alphabetical order. The two-tier description consisting of group (Arabic, Neo-Aramaic, Iranian, and Turkic) and group (~Kurdish, Jewish NENA, etc.) is used. The segment view presents all the segments that can be found in the languages in the database. The distribution of each segment can be accessed by clicking on it.
The family/group reports section provides some info on particular groups and subgroups.
There are three ways to query the database. The exact search returns the distribution of individual phonemes and combinations of phonemes (inluding phoneme gaps) in the covered languages. The fuzzy search finds all variants of a base phoneme and their distribution. The feature search finds inventories displaying a particular combination of IPA features (including feature gaps).
The latest version of the database can be downloaded as a JSON-file.
Nikolaev, Dmitry; Grossman, Eitan, and the Jerusalem Phonological Typology Consortium. 2017. The Kurdistan Phonological Inventory Database Online. (Available online at http://kurdistanphonology.info; accessed on April 25, 2024.)
To cite individual language descriptions, give the source provided in the database record followed by In: Nikolaev, Dmitry; Grossman, Eitan, and the Jerusalem Phonological Typology Consortium. The Kurdistan Phonological Inventory Database Online. (Available online at http://kurdistanphonology.info; accessed on April 25, 2024.)