The impact of social media on Kurdish vocabulary

Volume 3 ,Issue 1 ,September 2026 ,Pages 315-332

Authors

آرام عبداللە محمد محمد 1,2 ; پ.د. شاخەوان جلال حاجی فرج حاجی فرج 1

1 بەشى کوردی، کۆلێژى زمان، زانکۆى سلێمانی

2 خوێندکاری ماستەر، بەشى کوردی، کۆلێژى زمان، زانکۆى سلێمانی

DOI logo 10.17656/jzsb.12576

Keywords

Abstract

In the contemporary era, social media, as a technological innovation, has become an essential and integral part of our daily lives, thereby exerting its influence across all modern domains—most notably language, which simultaneously serves as raw material, a determining agent, and a recipient of change within these networks. This study aims to investigate the impact of social media on language in general, and on morphology in particular. Furthermore, it examines the role of youth and language users under the influence of social media and the English language. Social media has played a novel role as a mechanism for introducing new vocabulary into the Kurdish language and integrating some of these terms into the morphological derivation processes (Word Formation) of Kurdish. This phenomenon is analyzed as part of the broader processes of language change and the renewal of morphological structures (word formation) within the Kurdish language.

To achieve this objective, the study is divided into two main sections: Section One explores "Kurdish Morphology," while Section Two investigates "The Applied Aspect of Kurdish Morphology from a Social Media Perspective," theoretically and empirically elucidating the structural impacts of social media. The researcher concludes that social networks constitute a powerful and contemporary communicative tool driving language change, effectively accelerating the trajectory of sociolinguistic variations. Moreover, social media has engendered novel patterns of word formation (e.g., the derivation of the verbal noun "ژیانکردن" [jiyankirdin]), which was previously unprecedented or extremely rare in the Kurdish language—a development driven by the structural influence of the English language and its amalgamation with Kurdish morphological configurations.

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  • First online30 September 2026
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