Texts in the Zaza Dialect from the Region of Batumi Introduction, Publication and Commentary by Zare A. Yusupova
The publication presents transliterations of folklore texts in the Kurdish dialect of Zaza and their Russian translations. The texts are extracted from the manuscript of K.K. Kurdoyev’s unpublished work: “A Study in Zaza”, which is kept at the Archives of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts. They were recorded by the author in 1939 (during his trip to Soviet Ajaria) from native Kurdish Zaza-speakers, refugees from Turkey who at that time resided in the Western outskirts of Batumi. The publication of these new materials related to Zaza is highly important, since in scholarly literature, Zaza is not always classified among Kurdish dialects and considered a separate language.