Hello!
I'm Zachariah Hopkins

The Archive of Afrin

An archive dedicated to preserving the fragile history of Afrin Syria. The archive currently holds information about 320 villages. This is the first time any of this history has been written in English - and much of it has never been put into writing before.

Articles مقالات

Every week I write and publish a new article related to my research on Afrin, Syria. Each article is written in English and translated into Arabic.

كل أسبوع أكتب وأنشر مقالًا جديدًا يتعلق ببحثي عن عفرين، سوريا. كل مقال يُكتب بالإنجليزية ويُترجم إلى العربية.

Kurdish Research Archive

A collection of preliminary research studies on Kurdish culture, history, and language. These are primarily made for my PhD work, but would be interesting for anyone interested in Kurdish studies or anthropology in general.

History Charts and Posters

Charts and posters about Afrini history, created from sources that have never been translated into English until now.

Timeline of Afrin

The Timeline of Afrin is a detailed timeline from 2700 BCE until 2010 AD, for both Afrin, Syria and the greater surrounding region. The timeline is in English and translated into Kurmanji Kurdish and Arabic. Phase one of the timeline is complete but it will be updated on a regular basis as I continue my research on Afrin.

Sources for Researching Afrin

Browse the sources behind the Kurdish Research Archive, grouped by type and reliability. Explore academic studies, books, research reports, and other materials about Afrin.

Afrini Dialect Project

The Afrini dialect of Kurdish has had no written form... until now! The Afrini Dialect Project seeks to collect and document Afrini proverbs, and make them accessible in written form to both native speakers and the world in general. After collecting and illustrating 70 proverbs, the project is currently on hold, but likely enter a new phase in the future.

Kurmanji Lessons

I'm currently teaching an online Kurmanji Kurdish class, and this companion website will be 10 lessons to teach the basics of Kurmanji. It's currently in five languages, and includes practice exercises.

Interactive Reader

Read in Farsi, Dari, and Kurmanji with clickable vocabulary, English translations, and audio. Explore readings from The Conference of the Birds, Dari school texts, and Siya Evînê.

Learn Ottoman Turkish

Let's bring a dead language back to life! Every lesson comes with three sections: the lesson, an exercise section and a vocabulary section. There are also Anki decks for each lesson. There will be a total of 60 lessons.

Learn Persian

Play Onion Skins and Uncle Night, two Dari story games built around searchable character recordings. Listen, explore vocabulary, and follow the connections between recordings.

Learn Ukrainian!

A personal project to help myself learn the language of my favourite country in the world. There are two separate sections to this program: The Lesson section for learning grammar, and the Most Common Ukrainian Words section for learning vocabulary. If it works for me, it will work for you too!

Hopkins Method Language Learning

A language learning method I developed to help absolute beginners become familiar with their target language by focusing on 50 sentences a day with related vocabulary. Currently in Arabic, Kurdish, Spanish, Turkish, and Ukrainian.

Cuneiform Practice

A web-app I made to practice Babylonian Akkadian Cuneiform. It focuses on a few of the first laws in the Law Code of Hammurabi, and the famous bricks of Nebuchadnezzar II. It's best used on a phone.

Laga

An immense language learning game allowing the player to practice 28 different languages. The initial goal of Laga was to help children of refugees to learn the language of their host country - although it seems like it's reached a much greater demographic range. Laga puts the player on a journey into a fantastical world set after the fall of the Tower of Babylon. The game is playable but still in its "proof of concept" stage. Future work on Laga is planned.

Other Language Learning Projects

Try an interactive dialogue game with audio in five languages, or practice reading Modern Standard Arabic through stories.

Deep Time

Walk through human history from the present back to 300,000 BCE. Explore the scale of time through dates, generations, places, and historical events.

History and Peoples of Baghdad تاريخ بغداد وشعوبها

A couple of websites about the history and peoples of Baghdad that I made for my "Baghdad: Center of the World" lecture.

موقعان إلكترونيان عن تاريخ بغداد وشعوبها، أعددتهما لمحاضرتي "بغداد: مركز العالم".

Endlessly Now Youtube Channel

My Youtube channel dedicated to the history of Afrin and more. Videos are both in Kurmanji Kurdish and English.

Hijri / Gregorian Converter

A simple Hijri to Gregorian / Gregorian to Hijri converter.