A Study in the Language Games of Kurdish oral Literature (Ilam)

Apart from the important role of playing in a child’s life which, according to Mili Champ, helps him to become a man (person) and in spite of the very important roles of playing in the child’s body, treatment (therapy), cultivation, and social and moral development, literary value and role are appeared only in some games called word play. These games linked with the minds of children, teenagers and even adults are found in the scope of didactic literature because such games, while maintaining entertainment and recreation aspects, are effective in their mental and language training as well.
Word play’s main genres include riddle, wordplay, so called oral literature. In this study, in addition to classifying the important genres of Ilamians oral literature into riddle, wordplay, song-game, fable, and long and short narratives, some literary aspects of Ilamian-Kurdish song-gams and wordplay have been analyzed and described to illustrate the literary significance of these genres.
Results of the study show that ancient syllabic meter, Alliteration, pun and considering natural elements of their authors’ environment are among the most important literary characteristics of these word plays.