Northern Kurdish (; ), also called
Kurmanji (; ), is a group of Kurdish dialects predominantly spoken in southeast
Turkey, northwest
Iran, northern
Iraq and northern
Syria. It is the most widespread dialect group of the
Kurdish languages. While Kurdish is generally categorized as one of the Northwestern Iranian languages along with
Baluchi, it also shares many traits with Southwestern Iranian languages like
Persian, apparently due to longstanding and intense historical contacts, and some authorities have gone so far as to classify Kurmanji as a Southwestern or "southern" Iranian language.