Southern Kurdish Alphabet

Southern Kurdish, the Kurdish of Kermanshah and Ilam in western Iran and of the Feyli Kurds across the border in Iraq, is written right to left, but it has no standardized orthography; Sorani-based Arabic-script adaptations are not widely used, and many speakers rely on Persian or Arabic writing systems in practice. CLDR's main-letter list is: ئ ا ب پ ت ج چ ح خ د ر ڕ ز ژ س ش ع غ ف ڤ ق ک گ ل ڵ م ن ھ ە و ۆ ۊ ی ێ. This CLDR set contains 34 main letters, among them ۊ, used for /ü/ in some Southern Kurdish dialects.

Most of the shapes come from Arabic and Persian: پ p, چ ch, ژ zh (the s in measure) and گ g are the Persian additions, ڤ v is an extra Kurdish letter, and ڕ ڵ ێ ۆ ە are Kurdish letters, although ۆ is also used in Uyghur, Kazakh, Azerbaijani and Bosnian. If you know the Latin Kurdish (Hawar) letters, ا is a, ج c, چ ç, خ x, ژ j, ش ş, ق q, ە e, ێ ê, ۆ o, و w or u, ی y or î.

The letters join, and each takes a different shape at the start, middle or end of a word, but you never pick those shapes yourself: copy the plain letters from this page and the font joins them. ا د ر ڕ ز ژ و ۆ ۊ ە never join to the letter after them.

ۊ, an /ü/ letter used in some Southern Kurdish dialects

ۊ, Unicode's ARABIC LETTER WAW WITH TWO DOTS ABOVE (U+06CA), is used in some, but not all, Southern Kurdish dialects. In dialects that have it, it represents the front-rounded vowel /ü/ [y] or [yː], close to German ü or French u, and is usually romanised as ü. It sits in the alphabet right after the other waw letters: و w or u, ۆ o, ۊ ü.

Do not confuse it with ۆ (a small v above, the vowel o), ۉ (an upside-down v above, used in Kyrgyz) or ۏ (a dot above, used in Jawi), which look alike at small sizes. A word typed with the wrong one looks right but will not be found by a search.

Kurdish letters ڕ ڵ ێ ۆ ە and the two h letters

ڕ is a rolled, trilled r, while plain ر is a single tap; words that begin with an r sound take ڕ, as in ڕۆژ (day). ڵ is a heavy, dark l, like the l at the end of English full. The vowels have their own letters: ە e, ێ ê (like the vowel in day), ۆ o, and a word cannot begin with a bare vowel letter, so it starts with the silent seat ئ, as in ئیلام (Ilam) and ئاو (water).

Southern Kurdish takes the Persian ک and ی, not the Arabic ك and ي, which look almost identical but have different codes. For h, CLDR lists ھ (heh doachashmee), but Microsoft's Central Kurdish layout types the ordinary ه; text written with Persian-influenced spelling uses it too, so both forms occur and both are on this page.

Many Southern Kurds went to school in Persian and write the language with Persian spelling, leaving short vowels unwritten and often using ه for a final e. Southern Kurdish has no standardized orthography, and its adapted Kurdish scripts are not widely used; many speakers rely on Persian or Arabic writing systems in practice.

Punctuation, numbers and currency

Southern Kurdish uses the right-to-left Arabic comma ،, semicolon ؛ and question mark ؟, with the ordinary full stop and exclamation mark. Quotations go between the guillemets « », which in right-to-left text open on the right.

In Iran numbers are usually written with the Persian digits ۰ ۱ ۲ ۳ ۴ ۵ ۶ ۷ ۸ ۹, always left to right, so 2026 is ۲۰۲۶; the percent sign is ٪, the decimal separator ٫ and the thousands separator ٬. Feyli Kurds in Iraq more often use the Arabic-Indic digits ١ ٢ ٣ of the Sorani page.

Iran's rial has the sign ﷼, though prices are mostly written out as ریال or in tomans. The Iraqi dinar has no sign of its own; it is written IQD or د.ع.

How to type the Southern Kurdish alphabet on a keyboard and phone

There is no widely used keyboard made just for Southern Kurdish, so many people use a Kurdish (Sorani) layout, which has ڕ ڵ ێ ۆ ە ڤ, or a Persian one, which has پ چ ژ گ ک ی but none of the Kurdish vowel letters. On Windows, add Central Kurdish under Settings, Time & language, Language & region, and switch with Windows + Space; on Android, Gboard offers Kurdish (Sorani). ۊ is missing from many keyboards: copy it from this page.

To type ۊ by code: in Microsoft Word type 06CA and press Alt + X; on a Mac switch to the Unicode Hex Input source and hold Option while typing 06CA; in HTML write ۊ. Mark Southern Kurdish on web pages with lang="sdh" dir="rtl".

If pasted text comes out as separate letters running left to right, the program is not shaping right-to-left script; browsers, word processors and phones handle it, while some design and video apps need a Middle Eastern text setting or a font that has ۊ and the other Kurdish letters.

Where Southern Kurdish is spoken, and the Kurdish flag emoji

CLDR estimates about 4 million speakers, all counted in Iran 🇮🇷, where Southern Kurdish is the everyday language of much of Kermanshah province (Kurdish کرماشان, Kirmaşan) and Ilam, with dialects such as Kalhori, Kermanshahi and Feyli; Laki is sometimes counted with it. Across the border in Iraq 🇮🇶 it is spoken around Khanaqin and Mandali and by the Feyli Kurds of Baghdad, a community that estimate does not count separately. Its neighbours have their own collections: Sorani (Central Kurdish), the Kurdish of Iraqi Kurdistan, written in the same alphabet without ۊ; Kurmanji in Latin letters (the Kurdish collection); Southern and Northern Luri; and Persian, the language of school and state for most of its speakers.

There is no Kurdistan flag emoji, and no Feyli flag either: Unicode flags follow country codes. People build the red, white and green Kurdistan flag with its golden sun from other emoji, ❤️🤍💚☀️ or 🟥⬜🟩☀️, or paste ☀️, 🌞 or the text sun ☼ alone.

Newroz on 21 March is celebrated with bonfires 🔥, picnics in the mountains ⛰️ and line dancing 💃🕺, and Kermanshah's own landmarks, the Bisotun inscription and the rock reliefs of Taq-e Bostan, are two of the best-known sights of western Iran.