Dimili

Dimili, also known as Dimili-Zazaki or Northern Zazaki, is a variety of the Zazaki language spoken by the Dimili (Dımilî) people primarily in eastern Turkey. In linguistic usage, Dimili is often treated as the Northern dialect of Zazaki, though some researchers regard it as a distinct language within the Zazaki group. Zazaki itself is generally classified as a Northwestern Iranian language and is part of the wider Kurdish language area; classification varies among scholars and communities.

Dimili is spoken mainly in the Turkish provinces of Tunceli (Dersim), Erzincan, Bingöl and Elazığ, with diasporic communities in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and in several European countries including Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.

There is no single standard form of Dimili writing. Historically, Zazaki has been written in Arabic script in some contexts, but today most publications and media use a Latin-based orthography developed for Zazaki, with multiple local variations. Older texts and minority materials have appeared in other scripts as well.

Linguistically, Dimili shares core Zazaki features, including agglutinative morphology and a subject–object–verb (SOV) word order, with rich suffixation marking tense, aspect, mood, negation and case. It exhibits dialectal variation within Dimili and between Northern Dimili and Southern Zazaki varieties. In recent decades, language-rights movements and diaspora media have contributed to increased use and visibility of Dimili, though the language remains a minority language in its homeland.