[11][12] The term Sorani, named after the Soran Emirate, refers to a variety of Central Kurdish based on the dialect spoken in Slemani.

Central Kurdish is written in the Kurdo-Arabic alphabet, an adaptation of the Arabic script developed in the 1920s by Sa’ed Sidqi Kaban and Taufiq Wahby.

[15] The oldest written literature in Central Kurdish is reported to have been Mehdîname (the book of Mahdi) from 1762 by Mulla Muhammed ibn ul Haj.

Central Kurdish thus only emerged as a written language after the decline of the Gorani vernacular, the Ardalan state and the rise of Baban around Silêmanî.

[16] Contemporaries of Nalî like Salim and Mustefa Bêgî Kurdî also wrote in Sorani and their writings would become the foundation for the standard variety of Central Kurdish.

When the Baban dynasty was overthrown in 1850, the golden era of Sorani ended and poets including Nalî left the Silêmanî region.

[18] Prior to the 20th century, only three non-poetic Central Kurdish works are known to exist being Mewlûdname by Şêx Husên Qazî (1793-1871), a glossary of Arabic-Kurdish by Ehmedî from 1795 and a translation of the introduction to Gulistan by Saadi Shirazi.

Later, in 1903, Ely Bannister Soane published a learner textbook and vocabulary list on Sorani for British personnel in Kurdistan, while Oskar Mann wrote Die Mundart der Mukri Kurden containing a grammar sketch of the Central Kurdish variety of Mukriyan in 1906.

Lastly, Ludvig Olsen Fossum published a grammar book in 1919 based on the Central Kurdish variety spoken around Mahabad.

Central Kurdish subsequently became the language for prose, media, and journalism, and a distinct alphabet was created for the vernacular.

The British began publishing periodicals in the language to mobilize Kurds, since the Central Kurdish-speaking contingent of Iraq was more urbanized, better educated, and more inclined towards Kurdish nationalism than the Kurmanji-speaking population around Duhok.

To this end, the first government press in Sorani was established in Sulaymaniyah in 1920, which propelled Central Kurdish into becoming a language of media, education, and administration.

This pushed the British to implement the law themselves in May 1931, which made Kurdish an official language in the governorates of Sulaymaniyah, Kirkuk, and Erbil.

Kurds were, however, dissatisfied, since Kurdish was only allowed to be used in elementary schools and Iraq had fully arabized the education and administration systems in Kirkuk and Mosul.

Only a dozen handwritten poetic manuscripts in Central Kurdish exist from this period, including works by Hassan Saifulquzzat, Said Kamil Imani, and Khalamin Barzanji.

Iran thus allowed for limited radio broadcasting in Mahabad, Sanandaj and Kermanshah which legitimized and popularized Central Kurdish further.

[26] The Kurdish Scientific Academy was established in Baghdad in 1968 which devoted a significant part of their job to develop neologisms, grammar books, writing style guide-lines, a modified orthography and research in linguistics subjects.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party and its media also used Central Kurdish as their official language despite its leader Mustefa Barzanî being a Kurmanji-speaker.

Despite the deterioration of relations between the Kurds and Iraq in the 1970s, the state still sponsored the implementation of Central Kurdish as language in secondary schools.

'Kurdish' would refer to Central Kurdish which also became the language of instruction in Kurmanji– and Gorani–speaking areas until these linguistic communities demanded education in Kurmanji and Gorani, respectively.

In Iraq, Central Kurdish orthography is moving towards being based on a single morpheme while Sorani-speakers in Iran make longer words.

In 2011, two journalism professors from Salahaddin University criticized the state of Central Kurdish in Kurdistan Region which could affect its use among the people.

They also expressed dismay over the method of the Parliament in using the language, since the institution wrote their bills and laws in Arabic and then translated to Central Kurdish.

Nonetheless, the use of Central Kurdish in the public school system is not supported by Iranian nationalists and conservatives who believe it could damage the unity of the nation-state.

Kurdish media outlets in Iraq mushroomed during the 1990s, spurred by the semi-autonomous status the region has enjoyed since the uprising against the Saddam regime in 1991.

Similar to certain other languages of the region (e.g. Turkish and Persian), these consonants are strongly palatalized before the close and mid front vowels (/i/ and /e/) in Central Kurdish.

[57] Primary stress always falls on the last syllable in nouns,[58] but in verbs its position differs depending on tense and aspect.

[citation needed] Others, however, have cast doubt on this claim, noting that the Central Kurdish past may be different in important ways from a typical ergative-absolutive arrangement.

In the following example, the transitive verb نووسین / nûsîn ("to write") is conjugated in the past tense, with the object "name" ("letter").

Unlike standard Sorani but similar to Kurmanji, Hewlêrî Kurdish employs oblique case and utilizes different personal pronouns.