Southern Kurdish

Southern Kurdish
Pehlewani
پەهلەوانی، کوردی خوارگ
Native to	Eastern Iraq, Western Iran
Native speakers	3 million in Iran (2000)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Northwestern Kurdish Southern Kurdish
Dialects	Bayray Feyli Garrusi (Bijari) Kalhori Kermanshahi Kolyai Kordali Laki Malekshahi Sanjabi
Writing system	Hawar alphabet, Perso-Arabic (Sorani alphabet)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sdh
Glottolog	sout2640
Linguasphere	58-AAA-c

Southern Kurdish (کوردی خواریگ; kurdîy xwarîg), also called Pehlewani (پەهلەوانی; Pehlewanî) or Pahlawanik, is a Kurdish dialect predominantly spoken in western Iran and eastern Iraq. In Iran, it is spoken in the provinces of Kermanshah (Kirmaşan) and Ilam. In Iraq it is spoken in the region of Khanaqin (Xaneqîn), all the way to Mandali, Pehle. It has more than one million speakers in the city of Baghdad. It is also the dialect of the populous Kurdish Kakayî-Kakavand tribe near Kerkuk and most Yarsani kurds in Kermanshah province. There are also populous diasporas of Pehlewani-speakers found in the Alburz mountains.

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

The extension consists of an extra vowel, "ۊ" for the Arabic-based Sorani script and "ü" for the Latin-based Kurmanji script.

IPA	Latin letter	Arabic letter
yː	ü	ۊ

Subdialects

The subdialects of Southern Kurdish are:

• Kermanshahi (Kirmaşanî) is spoken mostly in western Iran, in and around the city of Kermanshah (Kirmaşan).
• 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 province 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.
• Garrusi (Gerrûsî) (Bijari)
• Malekshahi (Melikşayî)
• Sanjâbi (Sincawî) referring to the language of Sanjâbi people. It is closely related
• Laki is spoken in the central Zagros region of Iran (provinces of Lorestan, Kermanshah, Ilam, and in much smaller numbers in Qazvin, Hamedan, and Khuzestan).

See also

• Kermanshahi
• Kalhor
• Gorani
• Hawrami dialects
• Central Kurdish
• Northern Kurdish

External links

• Information regarding Southern Kurdish
• Kurdish Academy of Language describing Southern Kurdish

Additional sources

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

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