Southern Kurdish

Southern Kurdish (کوردی خوارگ; kurdîy xwarig, also called Pałewanî; پاڵەوانی) 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 Kirkuk and most Yarsani kurds in Kermanshah province. There are also populous diasporas of Palewani-speakers found in the Alburz mountains.

Native speakers use various different alphabets to write Pałewani, 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.