| Southern Kurdish | |
|---|---|
| Xwarin | |
| کوردی خوارین | |
| Native to | Iran,Iraq |
| Region | Kurdistan |
| Ethnicity | Kurds |
Native speakers | (6 million cited 2000–2023)[1] |
Indo-European
| |
| Dialects | |
| Kurdish alphabet (Perso-Arabic script) | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | sdh |
| Glottolog | sout2640 |
| Linguasphere | 58-AAA-c |
 | |
 | |
Southern Kurdish,[a] also known by itsendonymXwarin, is aKurdishlanguage variety, spoken predominantly in northeasternIraq and westernIran.[3] The Southern Kurdish-speaking region spans fromKhanaqin in Iraq toDehloran southward andAsadabad eastward in Iran.[4]
'Southern Kurdish' is a linguistic term for a group of related dialects in Western Iran. Speakers are not familiar with the term and do not refer to the language as such. They generally identify the kind of Kurdish they speak as a local dialect (the Kurdish of a given village), or as a regional variety such as "Garūsi".[5][6]
Xwarin basically means "Southern" in Southern Kurdish. As Northern Kurdish is called Kurmanji, Central Kurdish Sorani, the Southern Kurdish is called Xwarin. Some wrongly use Kalhuri to define this dialect, but Kalhuri it's a part of this dialect itself. Fayli, Kalhuri and Laki (including other tribal and regional accents) make Xwarin.Link
Southern Kurdish has many variants, as linguist Fattah divides them into 35 varieties. These include:
Other variants include: Bîstûnî, Çihrî, Hersîn, Payrawend, Kirmaşanî, Sencabî, Xalesa, Çemçemal, Qesri Şîrînî, Serpuli Zehawî, Harasam, Kelhurrî, Îwan, Erkewazî, Şêrwanî, Îlamî, Salihabadî, Rîka, Bedreyî, Melikşahî, Mêxasî, Mihran, Xaneqînî, Mendilî, Duşêxî, Kaprat, Warmizyar, Zurbatiya and Feylî.[13]
The Southern Kurdish alphabet is very similar to theCentral Kurdish (Sorani) alphabet, which is a derivation of theArabic alphabet.Southern Kurdish has one additional letter "ۊ"; the Arabic letter waw with two dots above.
| ع | ش | س | ژ | ز | ڕ | ر | د | خ | ح | چ | ج | ت | پ | ب | ا | ئـ |
| 17 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 13 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| ێ | ی | ۊ | ۆ | و | ە | ھ | ن | م | ڵ | ل | گ | ک | ق | ڤ | ف | غ |
| 34 | 33 | 32 | 31 | 30 | 29 | 28 | 27 | 26 | 25 | 24 | 23 | 22 | 21 | 20 | 19 | 18 |
