The plants of Kurdistan, by their Kurdish names.
Every plant with its names in each Kurdish dialect, when it blooms, and its story.
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Bellevalia kurdistanica is a spring-flowering bulb of the asparagus family (Asparagaceae), with dense spikes of small bell-shaped flowers that are lilac in bud and white when open. It grows in North Kurdistan (Bakur) and South Kurdistan (Başûr). The botanist Naomi Feinbrun named it after Kurdistan i
Articles
Essays on Kurdish names, language and the land.
The Importance of Names and the Kurds: Veering
Part 6 of 6 inThe Importance of Names and the KurdsThe word “varîbûn” is made up of two parts: “varî”, which means turning off the road and corresponds to the English word “veer”, and “-bûn”, which is the verb of this action…
Weysî Silêman Elî · 29 October 2026 · 6 min read
Part 5 of 6The Importance of Names and the Kurds: The War of Ideas
We have often read and heard that the clay (earth) from which human beings are made is a belligerent earth. But it is neither true nor just to say…
18 October 2026 · 5 min read
Part 4 of 6The Importance of Names and the Kurds: Character
On 05-08-1997, when I arrived in Europe as a refugee, the most painful question for me was this: “Which country have you come from?” I said: “I am…
13 October 2026 · 4 min read