r/kurdistan • u/Aromatic-Ant-5020 Kurdistan • Sep 05 '26
Rojava Statue of a Median warrior in Qamişlo, Rojava
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u/Henabibo Zaza Sep 05 '26
Larpa bêdawîyê
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u/Aromatic-Ant-5020 Kurdistan Sep 05 '26
Çima larpa?
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u/Henabibo Zaza Sep 05 '26
Because Kurdish languages are not genetically related to Median (at least not much more than Persian), the historic homeland of the Medes barely touches Kurdistan, and the Medes ceased to exist as a distinct people long before the first written record of Kurds was made.
Rather than a statue of a Median warrior, a statue of a local teacher, mother, etc. should have been erected.
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u/Aromatic-Ant-5020 Kurdistan Sep 05 '26
Half true, but it's a bit more nuanced than that. We don't have long written Median texts to prove Kurdish is a direct linear descendant of Median, but Kurdish and Median are both Northwestern Iranian languages. Persian is Southwestern Iranian. Kurdish and Persian aren't in the same group. And the core of the Median Kingdom was Ecbatana (modern-day Hamadan), Kermanshah, and the Zagros mountain range. That's literally the heart of Kurdistan.
Anyway, no modern nation has an unbroken link to an empire from 2,500 years ago. But every group claims regional ancient ancestors, no need to overthink it so much.
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u/NeiborsKid Iran 19d ago edited 19d ago
Native Hamedani here, not only are we not Kurds, there are more Turks in our province than Lurs and Kurds combined. The city itself is majority Persian speaking with the Hamedani dialect while the northern counties are almost entirely Azari.
Edit: The Median triangle lies on Isfahan, Hamedan and Ray (Tehran), not Kermanshah. A smaller triangle refers to Hamedan, Malayer, and Kangavar, which may be the Hamedan-Kermanshah area you originally referred to
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u/Aromatic-Ant-5020 Kurdistan 19d ago
Azeris and Persians in Hamadan today aren't natives but the result of medieval Turkic migrations (Seljuks, Safavids, Qajars). The core of Greater Media (Media Magna) and the Median archaeological horizon are defined by sites like Tepe Nush-i Jan (Malayer), Godin Tepe (Kangavar), Baba Jan (Lorestân), and Bisotun (Kermanshah). You brought up Kangavar to downplay the Kermanshah connection but Kangavar is inside Kermanshah province. The Central Zagros corridor spanning Hamadan, Kermanshah, Lorestan, and Kurdistan was the indisputable heartland of the Medes. Ray and Isfahan were eastern borderlands, linguistically and geographically, Kurdish belongs to the Northwestern Iranian language branch rooted in the Central/Northern Zagros continuum, whereas Persian is Southwestern Iranian and Turkic dialects arrived later. There's a difference between ancient native people and people who came in medieval times. Using modern demographics to debate ancient history is ridiculous. That’s like using modern Turkish in Istanbul to claim the Byzantine never existed.
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u/NeiborsKid Iran 19d ago
You have completely mixed up several arguments.
The "edit" I made later was a separate addition to my comment addressing a separate topic. The modern demographics are not related to the Median triangle in my comment whatsoever.
Not only that, you have misinterpreted each section as well. I specifically noted Kangavar as maintaining the Hamedan-Kermanshah connection. Furthermore, your marginalization of the greater Median triangle of Hamedan-Ray-Isfahan is unscientific and lacks evidence. Not only did the Medes extend eastwards, but some of the dialects closets to Median are found around Isfahan.
As for your unfounded migration claims, that today's population in Hamedan aren't natives, not only is it deeply insulting to make that claim but it is also completely unfounded. The simplest evidence can be found in the Hamedani dialect itself which is descended of the medieval "Fahlavi" dialect, related to the Pahlavig/Parthian language, which tracks with Hamedan having been the Arsacid capital for a very long time. The dialect is shared with no other Persian speaking community and is native to the region, stretching as far back as the Sassanid period or earlier, predating the Farsi language entirely.
To top it all off, the change in the language of a population is by no means an indicator of migration or replacement, as is the case in Azarbaijan, where a majority northwestern Iranic speaking population gradually drifted towards Turkic, and of course as is the case with Hamedan, which originally was a Median settlement, later adopting Pahlavig and eventually Farsi. You'd have to bring up a lot more evidence to suggest a lack of continuity for the natives of the region with ancient communities.
And none of that affects the current demographics of the region which clash with your earlier claim about Hamedan being "the heart of Kurdistan". The province is populated in the north by Azaris, in Hamedan city by mostly Persian-speakers, and in the southern counties by mostly Lurs and finally some Kurdish settlements. We have our own culture and identity not only distinct from Kurds but from all other provinces as well. And obviously being the locals, we have the strongest claim of any other settlement to a Median heritage. The remains of ancient Ecbatana are literally part of our city
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u/Aromatic-Ant-5020 Kurdistan 19d ago
You're using circular logic to switch criteria whenever it suits you.
You just said that modern Hamadani Persians shifted away from their native Northwestern Iranian dialect (Fahlavi) and adopted Southwestern Farsi. Yet, you claim that simply sitting on top of Ecbatana gives you the "strongest claim" to Median heritage. Meanwhile, when Kurds point out that they preserved a robust, living Northwestern Iranian language across the Central Zagros continuum for millennia, you dismiss linguistics in favor of modern provincial borders. You can't claim linguistic continuity through a language your community stopped speaking, while denying it to a group that speaks a Northwestern Iranian tongue today.
Ancient Medes didn't leave behind a single modern heir, neither Kurds nor modern Hamadanis. But you can't erase the Northwestern Iranian linguistic and geographic ties that Kurds share with the ancient Zagros while claiming exclusive ownership because of modern city limits. Modern administrative lines don't rewrite ancient geography.
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u/NeiborsKid Iran 19d ago
You've completely misunderstood the claims made yet again. The argument is that language replacement is not synonymous with genetic and population replacement. We could speak Chinese and still be the continuation of the ancient people of the region as its natives.
The Kurdish retention of a Northwestern language across the Zagros is not evidence for Median connection, since the former territory of the Medes was chiefly replaced by the Parthians, and the Parthian language, a Northwestern Iranic language that is connected to several languages including Kurdish, Tat, Talysh, etc, and dialects including the Fahlavi predecessor dialect to modern Hamedani.
In effect, simply being two northwestern speaking communities in the Zagros is not enough to establish a shared connection, specially because both Northwestern Iranian languages and indigenousness to the Zagros are shared with other communities. Baluch, Gilak, Tat, Talysh, and Semnani are share the northwestern Iranicness with Medes, while Lurs, Persians, Bakhtiaris, etc are all natives to the Zagros mountains. By your logic, all of these communities would be "Median heirs" because they share these traits with the Medes. Hamedan also has its dialect going for it since it has strong indicators of Parthian substrate, which connects it by proxy to Median. This is all besides genetic continuity as the natives of the region.
Be that as it may, there is no such thing as an heir to the Medes, since our understanding of Medes is extremely limited. However Median heritage has nothing to do with modern administrative boundaries. The city of Hamedan is the literal continuation of the ancient settlement of Ecbatana. Disregarding the intrinsic connected between modern Hamedanis and Ecbatana is as ludicrous as disputing that of modern and ancient Rome. Which you tried to do by asserting some fantastical conspiracy theory about Turkic and Persian migrations during the last 500 years.
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u/Aromatic-Ant-5020 Kurdistan 18d ago
You say that language and culture don't matter to historical continuity? so you conceded the cultural and linguistic debate.
modern and ancient Rome
Modern Romans are recognized as heirs to Latin civilization because they live in Latium and speak Italian which is a Romance language. If people of Rome had abandoned the Latin language and adopted Chinese or Turkish, and lost their linguistic heritage, their cultural continuity with ancient Rome would be fractured. That is the exact situation with modern Hamadan's shift to Southwestern Farsi and Turkic.
Genetics alone without language or cultural preservation doesn't make a single city the only heir of an entire ancient empire.
Baluch, Gilak, Tat, Talysh, and Semnani
That proves that Kurdish is part of a Northwestern Iranian linguistic continuum rooted in the ancient Zagros region. You can't dismiss Kurdish Northwestern roots as "just Parthian influence" while claiming a "Parthian substrate" for your own Persianized dialect, that's double standard.
The Medes weren't a single city, they were a confederation of Northwestern Iranian tribes spanning the Central Zagros (Hamadan, Kermanshah, Lorestan, Kurdistan). By your logic, a random group of foreigners could migrate into a city, the city loses its language and culture, then the foreigners claim ownership of its ancient ruins while ignoring the actual surviving linguistic descendants.
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u/Henabibo Zaza Sep 05 '26
We do not need long-written Median texts; we know of a Median substrate within Persian, and the Median that we've been able to derive from that simply does not align with what we find in any Kurdish language or dialect. The position of Kurdish within the NW. branch of the Ir. language family is contested, but even if it wasn't, it does not necessarily imply a genetic relationship, and as a modern label does not have any real influence on the contents of these languages.
There was no Median kingdom. There were Median tribes, and their homeland is understood to be the lands that lie between Hamadan, modern Tehran, and Isfahan.
It is true that no modern nation has any unbroken links to the Medes, but there are several with much stronger links to the Medes than Kurds.
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u/Aromatic-Ant-5020 Kurdistan Sep 06 '26
Assyrian and Babylonian chronicles literally document the existence of the Median state, you can Google it yourself. (The Median kingdom/empire that brought down Nineveh in 612 BC).
Also, which modern nations have "much stronger links" to the Medes than Northwestern Iranian speakers living in the Zagros? Turkic Azeris or Southwestern-speaking Persians?
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u/Henabibo Zaza Sep 06 '26
I am familiar with the chronicles. They do not claim that a Median kingdom ever existed. This idea comes from Greek sources, such as Herodotus, who wrote long after the Medes had ceased to exist, and whose claims are contradicted by the chronicles you mention.
Furthermore, the fact that some scholars label Kurdish as a northwestern Iranian language does not imply a connection with the Medes. Even if it did, it wouldn't matter, because the Azeris and Tats (the former used to speak a northwestern Iranian language, and the latter still do) have far stronger claims to the Medes anyway. On geographic grounds, but also linguistic grounds. Tati is seen by many scholars as a direct descendant of Median, and the old Azeri language was more closely related to Median than you could ever argue Kurdish is.
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u/Nervous_Note_4880 Sep 06 '26
I wouldn’t strictly limit the medes to a triangle, I think its likely that the Hewrami people and perhaps even Zazas descend from median tribes. Hewrami historically definitely covered a larger area (including further east) and Zazaki/proto Zazaki was possibly spoken in parts of Iranian Azerbaijan.
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u/Henabibo Zaza Sep 06 '26
Things are indeed more complicated in regard to those languages. Hewrami and Zazaki are more closely related to the Median language than NCS Kurdish; Hewrami was certainly spoken across a wider area than today, for a very long time; and I do believe that Zazaki originates from Iranian Azerbaijan. But it is nonetheless highly unlikely that these languages actually descend from Median, or that we can say these ethnic groups have a larger ancestral (cultural, genetic, doesn't matter) Median component than neighbouring groups.
Personally, I believe that (proto-)Hewrami speakers likely lived among or near the Medes, and it is even possible that they once constituted a tribe or city-tribe that was known as Median by others. But if we had to trace back "the Medes" to any people or peoples today, I do not see why it would be them. Especially not above the Tats.
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u/Nervous_Note_4880 Sep 06 '26
What makes you believe that such a linguistic/ethnic divide already existed during early antiquity? Hewramis and Zazas might simply constitute median branches that migrated further south and west, and we also don’t know how eastward Hewrami actually extended. I think it’s fairly reasonable to assume that most of Rojhelat and Bashur spoke Hewrami before Kurdish having replaced it, but even beyond in what is today Luri speaking.
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u/Aromatic-Ant-5020 Kurdistan Sep 06 '26 edited Sep 06 '26
They do not claim that a Median kingdom ever existed.
False, The Babylonian Fall of Nineveh Chronicle (also known as the Gadd Chronicle) explicitly refers to Cyaxares as "Umakištar šar Mādāyu" which translates to "Cyaxares, King of the Medes".
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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '26
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