Studies in Literature and Language

At this part, some Kurdish cursing and blessing speech acts will be analyzed. Some of them are cursing and the other blessing. For each example a table is drawn. Then different theta roles will be distinguished.

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

Table 4

Table 5

Table 6

Table 7

Table 8

Table 9

Table 10

Table 11

Table 12

Table 13

Table 14

DISCUSSION

Analyzing the above tables gives us some information about the theta roles, the functions, goals and causes of the cursing and blessing utterances in Ilami dialect. Here we points out some of these findings:

a. Agent and Patient

In most of the examples above, agent, the person who utters a curse or bless, invokes good or evil for other people to express pleasure or displeasure about their behavior. Nonetheless, it is possible to utter a curse or bless with a reflexive impact too. “təf bət͡ʃu dæ tewəɭəm” (shame on me) can be called a “self-cursing”. Sad about a topic, the agent blames himself/herself through a self-cursing. In this example agent and patient are the same. As it can be seen agent in all of the instances mentioned above is singular and plural agent is not very common. Unlike agent, patient can be either singular or plural as in the following examples:

æli pɑjɑrət bəke (a boy-singular patient)

æli d͡ʒɑmɑɭətɑn sijæ bəke (a family-plural patient)

b. Function

Cursing and blessing have many functions. From the examples above, several momentous functions can be elicited.

Blessing: affective, thanking, encouraging and wishing, etc..

Cursing: affective, objective, joking, etc..

It is worth mentioning that more than one function may be served by a single curse or bless. For example, a bless can have encouraging and thanking functions at the same time, as in example 2.

c. Goal and Medium

We should know each cursing or blessing is uttered to achieve a specific goal. These goals can be related to success, health, protection in blessing and death, illness, misery and calamity in cursing. Speakers use some holy names like the name of God or Imams’ as intermediators to achieve those given aims through, xɔdɑ, æli to be mentioned here.

The meaning of cursing and blessing can be intensified by adding some items like adjective, possessive case, reflexive pronoun, etc..

Adjective:

xɔdɑ t͡ʃæmə (eye) wætɑn dɑʃtu

xɔdɑ t͡ʃæmə xere (good eye) wætɑn dɑʃtu

xer is an adjective used to fortify the effect of blessing.

Possessive case:

1. xɔdɑ (God) ʃær dæt bəxegæ lɑ

xɔdɑj æli(God of Ali) ʃær dæt bəxegæ lɑ

2. særætɑn (cancer) buwæ tʊ̈ʃətɑw

særætɑnə xʊn (Blood cancer) buwæ tʊ̈ʃətɑw

æli and xʊ̈n are added to the above examples, consequently meanings are more intensified.

Reflexive pronoun:

æli (Ali) d͡ʒɑmɑɭətɑn sijæ bəke

æli xwe (Ali himself) d͡ʒɑmɑɭətɑn sijæ bəke

d. Cause

Every speech act is expressed due to a range of reasons. In example 13 the curse “bəpet͡ʃəgæ dæwɑr” is uttered due to several unsaid reasons: personal characteristics of the woman (she is jealous), a success (marriage) unachievable for woman’s daughter and so forth.

It must be hinted that most of cursing and blessing expressions studied in Kurdish are not literally understood. In fact they should be considered as idioms. For example, “bəpet͡ʃəgæ dæwɑr” or “kərə dɑwəd wæ dɑwrətɑw (bu)” are not understood literally. So in order to understand the intended meaning of such idioms, one must be well aware of the deep and fundamental concepts defined in Kurdish culture.

e. Grammatical Structure of Cursing and Blessing

As it can be guessed cursing and blessing are structurally similar. The “tense” used in these structures is often present, however the use of other forms is also probable:

kɔrəm bəməre (present)→(kɑʃkɑ) kɔrəm bəmərdijɑ (past)

my son die (I wish) my son would die

bær nægəre (present) → (kɑʃkɑ) bær nægərtijɑ (past)

fruit not bear (I wish) fruit would not bear

It is worth noting that Ilami dialect does not have any specific structure to show the future tense. So no cursing or blessing is seen in the future tense. The only aspect used in these rigid structures is potential. “bə” is a prefix used to show potential aspect. It is attached to the verbs in all of the instances mentioned thus far. It should be noted that “person” in such expressions can be 1st (as in self-cursing or self-blessing), 2nd or 3rd person. If the listener is simultaneously the addressee too, second person is used otherwise third person will be used to refer to the addressee(s) indirectly:

gəlaraw bəkej1→ When the listener is addressed 2nd person is used

(illness)

tərki bəke2→when the addressee(may be absent) is indirectly addressed 3rd person is used

(heart attack)

Albeit the examples above are used in the form of sentences, they can also be expressed in the form of interjections. As we will see, interjections lack overt verb, and they are made of a noun phrase:

Blessing:

1.sæɭæwɑt wæ dinə æli!

Praise to religion of Ali

When a person has some good qualities or has done something perfectly, well done.

2. nɑmə xɔdɑ!

Name of God

May God preserve you/him.

Cursing:

1. særætɑn !

Cancer

No Equivalent

2. zæqnæbut!

Something with a bitter taste like snake’s posion

No equivalent

3. mɑfætæ!

Illness

May you choke on it?

Some of cursing expressions can change to form a bless by negating the main verb:

nɑnət buwəre (curse)→ nɑnət næwəre (bless)

kɔrət bəməre (curse)→ kɔrət næməre (bless)

The reverse is also true. When a bless is negated, it may form a curse:

səxɑnət ɑzɑ bu (bless) → səxɑnət ɑzɑ næw ( curse)

This rule is totally relative. A curse like “særætɑn buwæ tʊ̈ʃətɑw” cannot be negated to form a bless, because it contains a word like “særætɑn” which has a negative meaning and cannot be neutralized when sentence is negated.

*3særætɑn næwæ tʊ̈ʃətɑw

CONCLUSION

We saw that cursing and blessing are widely used in Kurdish. This variety roots in beliefs and culture of Ilami people. In this article we could compare the structure of Kurdish cursing and blessing. It was seen that these structures share common features both syntactically and semantically. In a syntactic point of view, cursing and blessing are usually used in the present time and less commonly the past time with a potential aspect. They can be uttered in either second or third person and semantically, they seem to be idiomatic in nature. In a social viewpoint, Kurdish examples serve different functions like affective, thanking, wishing, objective and so forth. Obviously, every curse or bless is uttered to achieve a specific goal. Death, misery and health are the most important goals followed in Kurdish cursing and blessing speech acts. Speakers get help from some mediums like God or Imams names and some illnesses (e.g., cancer) to achieve what they want from the curse or bless. It was also distinguished Kurdish cursing and blessing are used metaphorically, in other words the intended meaning cannot be understood word by word. Since these expressions are very various in Ilami dialect, a comparative work can lead to some interesting results and findings.

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