6th International Conference on Kurdish Linguistics (ICKL-6)
Exploring Structure, Variation, and Contact in Kurdish
The 6th International Conference on Kurdish Linguistics (ICKL-6) was held on 4–5 September 2023 at Goethe University Frankfurt, hosted by the Faculty of Linguistics, Cultures and Arts. The conference was organized by Saloumeh Gholami, Sophie Schmitt, Cemile Celebi, Songül Gündoğdu, and Ergin Öpengin. It continued the ICKL tradition as a biennial forum for the empirical and theoretical study of Kurdish and its linguistic surroundings.
The program featured a broad range of contributions from researchers working on Kurdish linguistics across subfields such as phonology, morphosyntax, sociolinguistics, language contact, language ideology, and lexicography.
At the Intersection of Typology and History
The conference hosted two keynote speakers. Prof. Geoffrey Khan (University of Cambridge) presented on contact-induced change in Neo-Aramaic as a result of prolonged interaction with Iranian languages. Prof. Geoffrey Haig (University of Bamberg) offered a critical overview of the imperfective aspect, sound change, and areal convergence in Northern Kurdish. Both keynotes underscored the relevance of Kurdish linguistics within wider typological and historical debates.
Bringing Together Projects and People
A lively poster session on the second day complemented the main panels, highlighting ongoing projects in corpus development, language documentation, and dialect perception.
The event was marked by a collegial and engaged atmosphere, facilitating productive discussions across generations of scholars.
