🇮🇶 What Language Do They Speak in Iraq?
The short answer
Iraq's official languages are Arabic and Kurdish. Iraqi Arabic — the Mesopotamian dialect — is spoken by the large majority, while Kurdish (mainly Sorani) governs daily life in the autonomous Kurdistan Region. Turkmen, Syriac and other minority languages are constitutionally recognised.
Worth knowing
- ●Iraqi Arabic preserves sounds and words from ancient Aramaic and Akkadian layers of Mesopotamia
- ●Kurdish is co-official nationwide — rare status for a minority language in the region
- ●'Shlonak?' for 'how are you' links Iraqi speech with the Gulf dialects
Going to Iraq? Say your first words before you land.
Yap gives you a real 30-second spoken conversation in Arabic every day — role-play the café, the taxi and the market with an AI tutor that listens and gently corrects. Four weeks of that beats any phrasebook.