Who Speaks for Gorani?
Not I.
Though I walk this Kurdish land,
though my veins hum with the wind of our hills,
my voice does not carry Gorani.
Its words are not carved in my breath.
Its rhythm is not in my mother's mourning song.
Gorani stands apart —
a sacred language,
and not mine to claim.
Let truth speak:
It may belong to the Assyrians,
the ones who sang before empires,
whose prayers echo in forgotten stone,
who bore the weight of silence and still remembered how to speak.
Or to the Iraqi Kurds,
those of Hawraman, of ancient chants,
who held Gorani close
when others walked away.
But not all Kurds carry Gorani in their soul.
Some only touch its surface
and call it theirs —
but the roots don’t know their names.
Sorani belongs to the Iranian Kurds,
a tongue shaped by the east wind,
by fire-temples and borderlands,
proud and real — but not Gorani.
Gorani is not Sorani.
Gorani is not Kurmanji.
Gorani is not mine.
The land may be Kurdish —
but the language is not.
Let us speak with honesty.
Let those who cradle it in their blood
call it their own.
I stand with respect,
but I will not steal its voice.