The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Betanure (province of Dihok)The Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Betanure, which has hitherto remained unattested, is among the rarest and most seriously endangered varieties of Aramaic spoken at the present time. One of the most archaizing Jewish Neo-Aramaic varieties and a member of the Lishana Deni dialect cluster of northernmost Iraq, the dialect is currently spoken in Israel by no more than three dozen elderly people, of whom only a small minority are pro'cient speakers. The grammatical description of the dialect is synchronic, but it includes etymological and historical comments as well as several paragraphs dealing with diachronic processes. The large and variegated corpus of texts, based on narratives furnished by the last two superb speakers of the dialect, comprises, inter alia, descriptions of the village of Betanure and its history, the fauna and ?ora of the region, agriculture and other occupations of the Jewish villagers, customs and traditions, legends, folktales, anecdotes and amusing stories. The glossary is extensively etymological and offers much comparative data drawn from numerous Neo-Aramaic varieties, apart from recourse to Classical Aramaic lexical data. |
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Common terms and phrases
adjectives āhət allomorph āna Aramaic āwa ayya base baxta become bela Betanure bəd bring brought called Christian consonant copula deni denoting dialect dide ending enter Examples expressed ǝ0wa father final forms four gemǝr gemər gəmri give gyāne hādax hakan hand head həl inflections Jewish Jews kālo kill king Kurds lāzəm look māla māye mən Muslim nāše Neo-Aramaic night nouns object Oele particle past perfect person Plural prayer prec preceding prefix preposition present preterite pull remain replaces reš river says sg.f sg.m side Singular stem stones stress suffix syllable synagogue ṭāle tāma tell terebinth took tree verbal verbs village vowel wash wewa wife woman xət yalunke