Southern Kurdish
Kurdish: ? , ‎
Native to	Eastern Iraq, Western Iran
Native speakers	3,000,000 in Iran (2000)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Northwestern Kurdish Southern Kurdish
Dialects	Bayray Feyli Garrusi (Bijari) Kermanshahi Kolyai Kordali Malekshahi Sanjabi Laki Kalhori Zangana
Writing system	Perso-Arabic (Sorani alphabet)
Language codes
	sdh
Glottolog	sout2640
Linguasphere	58-AAA-c
Geographic distribution of Kurdish and other Iranian languages spoken by Kurds   Kurmanji   Sorani   Southern   Zaza   Gorani   mixed areas

Southern Kurdish (Kurdish: ? , ‎, romanized: Kurdîy ba?ûrî, Kurdiy xwarig),^[2] also known as Kurdiy xwarîn is a Kurdish dialect predominantly spoken in Eastern Iraq and Western Iran.^[3] In Iran, it is spoken in the provinces of Kermanshah and Ilam. In Iraq, it is spoken in the region of Khanaqin, all the way to Mandali. It is also the dialect of the populous Kurdish Kakayî tribes near Kirkuk and most Yarsani Kurds in Kermanshah Province. There are also populous diasporas of Southern Kurdish-speakers found in the Alburz mountains.

Native speakers use various different alphabets to write Southern Kurdish, the most common ones are extensions of the standard Kurdish alphabets.

Dialects

The subdialects of Southern Kurdish are:^[4]

• Kermanshahi is spoken mostly in Western Iran, in and around the city of Kermanshah.
• Feyli: referring to the Feyli tribe; also known as Ilami, after Ilam Province. It is spoken in Eastern Iraq in the Khanaqin region of Diyala Governorate near the Iranian border and in Western Iran in Ilam province and parts of Kermanshah province, by the Feyli Kurds. Mahaki is a sub-dialect. It is spoken by the tribe of Ali Sherwan (Beyrey) in Ilam and by almost all Feyli Kurds in Baghdad, Mandali, Badrah and Zorbatiah in Iraq. It shares many features with Sorani.^[5]
• Garrusi
• Malekshahi
• Sanjâbi: referring to the language of the Sanjâbi tribe.
• Laki
• Kalhori referring to the Kalhor tribe.

See also

• Gorani
• Kurmanji

Sources

• Kamandar Fattah, Les Dialectes kurdes méridionaux: étude linguistique et dialectologique. Louvain, Peeters, 2000, p. 55-62.

References

External links

• Information regarding Southern Kurdish
• Kurdish Academy of Language describing Southern Kurdish
• Audio recordings of wordlists and narratives in Southern Kurdish, archived with Kaipuleohone
• southern Kurdish Wikipedia