Editorial

Kurdish Studies has no intention to regularly cover and comment on recent events. However, we are definitely interested in publishing studies, based on serious research and critical reflection, that provide important background or new insights relevant to understanding these events. We would specifically encourage colleagues who could contribute to deepening our understanding of the developments in Syria (or, for that matter, developments affecting the Kurds of Iran, who rarely if ever hit the headlines and who are the most seriously under-studied part of Kurdish society). This special issue of Kurdish Studies is dedicated to studies of the Kurdish language, the oldest branch of Kurdish studies, and the first to find a degree of academic institutionalisation. Compared to other major Middle Eastern languages, Kurdish has received relatively little serious investigation, but there is a gradually growing corpus of empirical and theoretical research, of which the guest editors give a useful overview in the introduction.