Introduction

 
Northern Zazaki is a language of Turkey spoken by about 184,000 in the Bingöl province: Karkiova and Kigi districts; Elazig province: Elazig merkez and Karakoqan districts; Erzincan province; Erzurum province: Cayirli district; Malatya province; Mus province: Varto district; Sivas province, Divrigi, Imranli, Kangal, and Zara districts; Tunceli province: Hozat, Nazmiye, Ovacik, Pulumur, and Tunceli merkez districts; at least 83 total villages.

The language is classified as Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Western, Northwestern, Zaza-Gorani. The ISO code is [kiu]. Alternate names include Alevica, Dersimki, Dimilki, Kirmanjki, Northern Zaza, So-Bê, Zaza, Zonê Ma. The people call their language Shar Ma.

There are two dialects of Northern Zazaki: Tunceli and Varto. Northern Zazaki has a 70% lexical similarity with Southern Zazaki [diq]. It is a member of the macrolanguage Zaza [zza].

Zazaki is an interesting language to research; some of its basic syntax structure including: SOV; prepositions and postpositions; genitives, articles, adjectives relatives after noun heads; numerals before noun heads; question word replaces content word in content questions; 2 prefixes, 2 suffixes, word order distinguishes subject, object, indirect object; noun affixes indicate case; verb affixes indicate person, number, gender; ergativity; passives; causatives; comparatives; V, VC, VCC, CV, CVC, CVCC; nontonal.

Zazaki is widely used by the ethnic group whether in the region or outside by both young and old. But, since Turkish [tur] is the language of education, many speak Turkish as a second language. There are newspapers written in Zazaki, using the Latin script, as well as radio and TV programs and videos