The Kurdish people, or Kurds (Kurdish: کورد, Kurd), are an Iranic people native to West Asia, 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 West Asia, 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 the countries of the Kurdistan region, although they have enjoyed partial autonomy in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991. An irredentist movement pushes for the creation of a Kurdish nation state.
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Famous quotes containing the word people:
“The people needed to be rehoused, but I feel disgusted and depressed when I see how they have done it. It did not suit the planners to think how they might deal with the community, or the individuals that made up the community. All they could think was, “Sweep it away!” The bureaucrats put their heads together, and if anyone had told them, “A community is people,” they would not have known what they were on about.”
—May Hobbs (b. 1938)