The official language of Iraq is Kurdish and Arabic.
Turkmen or Turkoman dialect and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic are recognized as regional languages.
There is a wide range of languages spoken in Iraq. Now let’s unpack this.
The most widely spoken language in Iraq is Mesopotamian Arabic and sometimes called Iraqui Arabic or South Mesopotamian Arabic.
The second most spoken language in Iraq is Kurdish.
Interestingly similar to how there are different dialects of the Arabic language, Kurdish also has various dialects.
Among them, Sorani and Kurmanji dialects are more popular, followed by The Iraqi Turkmen (branch of Turkic languages) and Neo-Aramaic language (particularly Assyrian and Chaldean).
Phew… I hope you are still following.
When we go back to the Iranian language history, the Iranian language can be grouped into different times.
1) Old Iranian – it dates back to 300 BC until 400 BC
2) Middle Iranian (400 BC – 900 AD)
3) New Iranian (Since 900 AD)
Ethnologue estimates, that there are a total of 86 Iranian languages.
Columbia University linguist predicts that only 600 languages will remain in 2115.
Many of the Iranian languages, like many thousands of languages, are at serious risk of extinction.
Iraqi language has lots of exciting history.
For example, during the 19th and 20th centuries, when Armenian immigrants moved to Iraq, the Armenian language is still spoken, particularly when visiting large cities in Iraq like Bagdad.
Similarly, Doms speaks Domari language, Iraqi Turkmens speaks the Turkmen language, Zaza-Gorani speaks Gorani.
Mainly the Persian language is also spoken in Iraq by a significant number of people.
In urban areas in Iraq, people widely speak English.
