sentences:  David Neil MacKenzie, an authority on the Kurdish language, said Kurdish was closer to Persian and questioned the “traditional” view holding that Kurdish, because of its differences from Persian, should be regarded a Northwestern Iranian language.Garnik Asatrian stated that "The Central Iranian dialects, and primarily those of the Kashan area in the first place, as well as the Azari dialects (otherwise called Southern Tati) are probably the only Iranian dialects, which can pretend to be the direct offshoots of Median...In general, the relationship between Kurdish and Median is not closer than the affinities between the latter and other North Western dialects — Baluchi, Talishi, South Caspian, Zaza, Gurani, etc."