Feyli

Feyli (also Fayli or Faili) can refer to:

Feyli Kurds

Feylis (also Faylis, Failis or Faylees) are a group of Shia Muslim Kurds or Lurs, whose heartland is divided between Ilam, Kermanshah provinces in Iran and Diyala Governorate in Iraq. They speak the Feyli dialect of Southern Kurdish.

In his book "Ameroir of Baghdad" issued by Al-Rais publishing house, in Cyprus in 1993. The ex minister Mosa Al-Shabandar describes the life of the Feylis. It is very difficult to give an accurate estimate of the Feyli Kurdish population, as many of them in Iraq have been deported and ethnically cleansed; however, some estimate that about 2.5 millions lived in Iraq and 3 million in Iran. The Iraqi Minorities Council and Minority Rights Group International estimate that before the current war there were 1,000,000 Feylis in Iraq.

Etymology of the name

Southern Kurdish

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.

Subdialects

The subdialects of Southern Kurdish are: