Kurdish people, , Gelê Kurd), are an Iranian[1][2][3] ethnic group in the Middle East. They have historically inhabited the mountainous areas to the south of Lake Van and Lake Urmia, a geographical area collectively referred to as Kurdistan. Most Kurds speak Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) or Sorani, which both belong to the Kurdish languages. There are various hypotheses as to …

Hittite (natively 𒉈𒅆𒇷 nešili / “the language of Neša“, or nešumnili / “the language of the people of Neša”), also known as Nesite (Nešite / Neshite, Nessite), was an Indo-European language that was spoken by the Hittites, a people of Bronze Age Anatolia who created an empire centred on Hattusa, as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia.[1] The language, now long extinct, is attested in cuneiform, in …

Abu’l-Aswar or Abu’l-Asvar Shavur ibn Fadl ibn Muhammad ibn Shaddad was a member of the Shaddadid dynasty. Between 1049 and 1067 he was the eighth Shaddadid ruler of Arran (today in western Azerbaijan) from Ganja. Prior to that, he ruled the city of Dvin (in what is now Armenia and …