Kurdish Voice Over Agency

Working with translation and production companies

Adding audio visual services to your mix will create many new sales opportunities for your team.

Matinée has over 40 years of experience working alongside translation and production companies. So you can be sure our project managers are fully at home with the technical process of supervising and delivering localised material, in a professional and timely manner. We can add translation, voiceover and subtitling to your company’s offering, which will appear seamless to your clients and yet mesh easily with the processes in your own departments.

If you are a translation company, we will send you some helpful guidelines when providing us with copy or scripts, and we can either work from your translations or handle the whole project for you, including translation. If you are a production company, we will provide translations or subtitles in your preferred format; whether that’s subtitle-ready files (XML or PNG), or burnt in as fully-subtitled videos. Voiceover recordings can be supplied as edited files, or we can remix with the original music and effects and provide a finished video, ready to go.

Working seamlessly with your team, we can take on all or part of the process, according to your needs, and help widen your service offering.

A short history on the Kurdish language

Kurdish belongs to the Western Iranian group of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It is related to Persian and Pashto and is spoken by the Kurds, an ethnic group living in parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Armenia – a loosely defined region generally referred to as Kurdistan.

Written Kurdish began to appear in the 7th century, when the Kurds converted to Islam. The first well-known Kurdish poet was Ell Herirl (1425 – 1495), and Kurdish literature began to become popular in the 16th century.

There is no unified version of Kurdish, but three standardised versions – Northern, Central and Southern. Northern Kurdish, or Kurmanji, is spoken in Turkey, Syria and the northern parts of Kurdish-speaking areas of Iran and Iraq. Around three quarters of Kurds speak this version. Central Kurdish, or Sorani, is spoken in northeast Iraq and west Iran. Southern Kurdish, or Kermanshahi, is spoken in the Kermanshah province of Iraq.

Which countries have Kurdish as a national language?

Sorani, or Central Kurdish, is an official language of Iraq. Kurmanji, or Northern Kurdish, is recognised as a minority language in Armenia.

How many people speak Kurdish as their first language?

It is estimated that around 26 million people speak Kurdish as their first language. As well as the Kurdish populations in Turkey, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Armenia, there are significant Kurdish communities in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan.

Did you know…

• In Turkey, Syria and Armenia, Kurdish is written using the Latin alphabet. In Iraq and Iran it is written using the Cyrillic alphabet.
• The official status of Kurdish varies hugely from country to country. For example, in Iraq it is one of two official languages, but in Syria it is illegal to publish any material in Kurdish. In Iran it is used in some local media, but not in public schools, while in Turkey strict Kurdish broadcasting restrictions have only recently been relaxed.