Towards a dialectology of Southern Kurdish: Where to begin?

This contribution provides an overview of the current state of knowledge on the dialectology of Southern Kurdish (hereafter SK). The introductory paragraphs discuss the concept of SK, survey existing sources and briefly address core issues of terminology. The bulk of the study reviews Fattah’s (2000: 9) proposed dialect classification and complements it with the evaluation of language data from older sources, the author’s own research in Kermānshāh Province and other documentation activities recently carried out in the SK-speaking area, sketching possible directions for future research.