📄 Neo-Aramaic Studies: A Survey of Recent Publications

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@inproceedings{mengozzi2026neo,
  title = {{Neo-Aramaic Studies: A Survey of Recent Publications}},
  author = {Mengozzi, Alessandro},
  booktitle = {Folia Orientalia 48},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://wydawnictwo.pan.pl/index.php/fo/article/view/6719}
}

References

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1. 4 On the etymology of qa-, k- prefixes, see A.D. Rubin, Studies in Semitic Grammaticalization, Harvard Semitic Studies 57 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005), pp. 130-133, including further references. find
2. Central (Turoyo, MlaJ::iso ... ) and South-Eastern (Mandaic) NA, and is per se a useful geographical term to label a sub-group of NA dialects. Nevertheless, it should be treated more carefully as a reconstructive tool. The very idea of a proto-(North-Eastern) Neo-Aramaic language is highly questionable and the NA territory can be better described as a dialect continuum, where NENA varieties share common innovations with Central and even Western dialects, sometimes in contrast with other NENA varieties. 5 Yona Sabar (177-195) publishes here a shortened English version of the introduction to his Five Scrolls in Jewish Neo-Aramaic Translations, Edah ve-Lashon 26 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2006; in Hebrew), in which he collects 'almost all available manuscripts and recordings' of NA Targums to the Ketuvim, including the works by Avidani of Amedia, Elyahu of Dihok, Yishay ofUrmi and other Zakho, Nerwa andAmedia translators. The Israeli publication and Sabar's remarks on translation technique will certainly be of interest to Biblical scholars. As the concluding paragraph explains: 'The JNA translations of the Five Scrolls are usually literal translations of the Masoretic Text [ ... ] When the Hebrew text presented unusual difficulties, the translators would resort directly or indirectly to traditional commentaries and the old Targums, according to the degree of the learning of the translator. This may be compared to the way Christian translations derived help from the Septuagint or the Vulgate' ( 194). 1.2. Geoffrey Khan, The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Urmi, Gorgias Neo-Aramaic Studies 2, Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN: 978-1-59333-425-3, 2008, Pages: 644, $157.00 6 find
3. On the basis of his original fieldwork on this dialect, Geoffrey Khan integrates with this publication Irene Garbell, The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Persian Azerbaijan (The Hague: Mouton, 1965), which is a complete and detailed description of the dialect cluster to which J. Urmi belongs. Where Garbell is highly formalized and difficult to read and consult, Khan's volume is much clearer and reader-friendly. Moreover the author adopts an up-dated descriptive approach especially as far as phonetics and syntax are concerned. The J. NA dialect of Urmia differs from the Chr. NA dialect of the same town 'not only because of the social separation of the two religious communities but also on account of their different settlement history [ ... ] most Christians moved to the town from the surrounding countryside in relatively recent times' R.I. Kim, 'Stammbaum or Continuum? The Sub-grouping of Modem Aramaic Dialects Reconsidered', JAOS 128.3 (2008), pp. 505-532. 6 On the cover spine, font, font-size and positions oflogo, series abbreviation and number differ from those used in Gorgias Neo-Aramaic Studies (GNAS) 1 and 3. The series abbreviation GNAS is doubly erroneous: GAAs. find
4. (3). J. Urmi shares the characteristic features of the so-called 'Trans-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic' dialects: 7 interdental land d. shift to /, although less extensively than in other Trans-Zab J. dialects (Urmi be/a 'house' and ela 'festival', but Arbel 'ila 'hand' and hula'a 'Jew' correspond to ida and hudaa in Urmi); the stress is usually in word final position, but it may be retracted in words in non-pausal position ( 46) and in other contexts; gender distinction collapses in the 3rd sg. independent pronoun in favour of the masculine form. Instrumental tests form the basis for a precise description of the phonetic phenomenon called 'flatting' by Garbell and defined as 'velarization' by Khan. Velarization may affect an entire word or part of it. When only part of the word is velarized, this is usually an a, o or u vowel (realized with a back quality clearly distinct from the fronted realization in non velarized words) and/or a sonorant r, n or I ( 19). Historically, velarization derives from the presence of an emphatic t or$ in the etymon of the word (+metra 'rain', +mys 'to suck'). The sonants r, m, /, the voiced labial b, the post-velar fricative x and the pharyngals l:z and c may also yield velarization (+raba 'much', + dmx 'to sleep'). Velarization, however, is a lexically specific feature and is not systematically determined by the historical phonological structure of the word (37). The impact of contact languages (Azeri Turkish and Kurdish) affects all levels of the linguistic structure. Khan reports Garbell 's statistic~ on the lexicon (383-384: 68,96% of the nouns are of foreign origin, 28% of the verbal roots, 54, 11 % of the particles) and lists examples in various lexical groups (385-392: human body, kinship, natural phenomena, basic attributes, colours, basic verbs, verbs of movement and perception, etc.). For a Semitist, it is perhaps astonishing to discover that the conjunction w- virtually disappeared in J. Urmi, its use being confined as an enclitic -w to connect tens and units in numerals (185) and in the form wa- to mark a closing section in a discourse unit (346-347). A particle ki - an old friend in northwestern Semitic, but here in fact a borrowing of Iranian origin - replaces Aramaic d- in almost all of its uses as subordinator, introducing relative clauses, cleft sentences, and subordinated sentences of most kinds. Which shows the need to integrate internal historical reconstruction with contact linguistics. The primary goal of the volume is descriptive and accordingly the bibliography ( 441-442) is rather limited. On specific domains, such as phonology, one wonders why the author includes K. Tsereteli, 'The velar spirant gin Modern East Aramaic dialects', in W. Heinrichs (ed.), Studies in Neo-Aramaic, Harvard Semitic Studies 36 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars, 1990), pp. 35-42, while he does not mention H. Younansardaroud, Der neuostaramiiische Dialekt von Siirdii:ryd, Semitica Viva 26 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2001 ), with a long chapter on 'velarization' in Chr. Urmi and an insightful status quaestionis. The comparative H. Mutzafi, 'Trans-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic', BSOAS 71.3 (2008), pp. 409-431. excursus could have been a little broader in scope. For example, the survey on NA verbal systems which have two past tense bases, variously inflected for various categories of transitive and intransitive verbs and used to express a preterit or a resultative perfect (73-7 5) could have included the language of Chr. poetry of the Mosul region and Turoyo neutrischen Verben. 8 The texts transcribed and translated on pp. 394-439 will be included in the web-site of the Cambridge project (see 4.2, below) and includes traditional stories and accounts on the life and history of the Jews in Urmia: weddings, festivals, schools, war-time, relations with the Christians. The glossary is organized in two sections: verbal roots (445-477) and general (479-624). 1.3. Margo Rees, Lishan Didan, Targum Didan. Translation Language in a Meo-Aramaic Targum Tradition, Gorgias Neo-Aramaic Studies 3, Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN: 978-1-59333-426-0, 2008, $98.00. find
5. In this volume Margo publishes the results of the research carried out for her PhD at the University of Cambridge. It is an excellent, important study on translation technique and Biblical tradition. In the introduction ( 1-17), the author presents the J. NA targum tradition and the extant manuscript witnesses. The study is based on the Barzani manuscript, attributed to the metargem Sason ben Zakay Barzani of Rewanduz, about 55 km northeast of Arbel near the Iranian border. The language is based primarily on the JNA dialect of the Arbel region, but it is distinct from the spoken language. The frequent insertion of shwa-like vowels, esp. in the orthography of verbal forms probably reflects a rhythmically intoned or chanted text. The dialectal position of the language is puzzling. It 'demonstrates significant similarities to the J. Urmia, Koy Sanjaq and Rustaqa dialects and, to a lesser extent, the J. Sulemaniyya dialect' ( 6). It does not contain the preverbial particle la- which is a vital component of the J. Arbel verbal system (10) and it might preserve older forms of a Trans-Zab dialect (11). The 1st pl. independent pronoun .,axlan (probably construed on the analogy of the oblique verbal ending -Ian) is not attested in J. dialects and would link the language ofthis targum to the Chr. dialect ofHarbole (22). Part I ( 19-96) is a grammatical sketch. Some historical explanations are unsatisfactory. The derivation of nosa 'soul' from * nabsa on p. 26, is questionable. The form nawsa, hence nosa, as correctly suggested by Khan, 9 8 0. Jastrow, Laut- und Formen/ehre des neuaramiiischen Dialekts von Midin in Tur 'Abdin, Semitica Viva 9 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1993), pp. 71-76; A. Mengozzi, A Story in a Truthful Language, CSCO 590 (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), p. 47. This is one of the isoglosses that suggests grouping Turoyo together with NENA. 9 G. Khan, A Grammar of Neo-Aramaic. The dialect of the Jews of Arbel, HdO I 47 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 87-88, quoted by Rees. has been known as customary East-Syriac pronunciation of the classical word nafta since Barhebraeus. 10 The explanation of the annexation ending -it as deriving from a combination of the Kurdish ezafe with the Aramaic particle d-(27 and 83) is not convincing. 11 It is true that in dialects such as J. Arbel -it is functionally equivalent to the Kurdish ezafe as a way to introduce a genitive modifier, an attribute or a relative clause. However, as I have tried to demonstrate elsewhere, 12 its origin can be understood as the outcome of a process of phonetic reduction and neutralization of late Aramaic morphologic oppositions: not only status emphaticus (-ii I -e) + d-, as mentioned by Rees (83), but also proleptic pronouns + d-. From a structural point of view, the latter construction is a much more suitable ancestor of NA annexation endings, when these are suffixed to prepositions, as consistently happens in the language analyzed by Rees (ibidem). The Hebrew relative particle 'aser is usually translated with 'ay, which is formally identical with the 3rd-person feminine pronoun and recalls the demonstrative elements ay or i used in J. Azerbaijan and J. Urmia as genitive markers (27-29). In J. Arbel an i element is sporadically added to the annexation ending -it. Kurdish influence is probably at work in the reinforcement, preservation or reconstruction of a morphosyntactic device which belongs to the plurimillenary history of Aramaic, 13 but this is not sufficient evidence to speak of adoption or borrowing from Kurdish or Persian. Khan's comment is prudently nuanced on this point: 'It may be more than a coincidence, however, that -i is also the ezafe particle in the Kurdish dialects of the region (MacKenzie 1961: 61-64) and this may have had an influence on the Neo-Aramaic form.' 14 In Part II the author describes the translation technique of the Barzani Targum, which follows the most traditional methodology, with a predominantly word for word rendering, and serves as a didactic tool for teaching Bible and Hebrew language in schools. Lexical elements such as the the relative particle ..,aser and the nota objecti ..,et are mechanically rendered with ..,ay and ..,ellet. Like in older Targums, the adverb 'now' is used to mark the presence of an imperative Th. Noldeke, Grammatik der neusyrischen Sprache am Urmia-See und in Kurdistan (Leipzig: T.O. find
6. Weigel, 1868), p. 50; R. Duval, Traite de grammaire syriaque (Paris: F. Vieweg, 1881), pp. 29-30. 11 The internal reference '1.2.16' inn. 148 (83) should probably be corrected in '1.1.6'. 12 A. Mengozzi, 'Extended Prepositions in Neo-Aramaic, Kurdish and Italian', in Idem (ed.), Studi afroasiatici. XI Incontro Italiano di Linguistica Camitosemitica, Materiali linguistici 52 (Milano: FrancoAngeli), pp. 371-390 (380-382). 13 See the 'determinative pronoun' in F.A. Pennacchietti, Studi sui pronomi determinativi semitici, Pubblicazioni de! Seminario di Semitistica, Ricerche IV (lstituto Orientale di Napoli, 1968), p. 11. 14 G. Khan, A Grammar of Neo-Aramaic. The dialect of the Jews of Arbel, HdO I 47 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), p. 169. or jussive in the Hebrew original text, me~ebad (Onqelos and Jonathan la"/:, dii) to translate BH m~od. Up-dating of cultural realia such as place names also occurs: Mosul for Assur and Nineveh, Baghdad for Babylon, 'Persia, Cush and Put' in Ezekiel 38:5 are translated as 'Persia, Hindistan and Dagestan', keeping 'the geographical references focused on Kurdistan' (168, n. 259). Though with less frequency than in traditional Targums, anthropomorphism with reference to God tends to be avoided. In part III the translation technique of the Barzani Targum is compared with other Jewish Bible translations, 15 including Urmi and Zakho NA, Judaeo-Arabic, Ladino, Onqelos. The Peshitta could have been profitably included in the comparative essay. 16 Septuagint scholarship is taken as a methodological guide in the study of the translation technique(s), but Rees also refers to Murre-van den Berg on Bible translation in Chr. literary Urmi Aramaic ( 197-198) and uses sociolinguistic terms such as diglossia and bilingualism in a critical and original way. Rather than in describing the process of translation and the liturgical and pedagogical functioning of the Targum, Rees' study succeeds in pointing out the internal complexity and the multi-layer structure of its language, the result of the 'seemingly conflicting presence of three linguistic elements: 1) a (sometimes archaic) literary register of the language, 2) the vernacular or regional dialects and 3) Biblical Hebrew' (257). To what extent this may apply to earlier "classical" Targums is the open stimulating question that the author leaves to her readers: 'The study of msB [Barzani manuscript] and its history suggests the possibility that the language ofTOff J [Targums Onqelos and Jonathan] is not representative of a single, standardized language ( or even, of two distinct standardized languages). Rather it could be, more simply, that the language reflects the many layers ( chronological and linguistic) of a gradually emended textual tradition that ultimately became indistinguishable because it was written down' (260). The rich interdisciplinary bibliography (261-273) is followed by an essential glossary, divided into two sections: verbs (277-288) and general (289-306). A description of the Chr. dialects of Ha~~an by Alinda Damsma and of Telkepe by Eleanor Coghill are announced as forthcoming in the series, together with the much awaited reprint 12. Rudolf Macuch, Geschichte Rees raises the question of'howthe existence of Christian Neo-Aramaic may affect our understanding of Aramaic as a Jewish language' ( 185-186). In this connection many other varieties of Aramaic can be mentioned which are not Jewish, from Old Aramaic inscriptions to Classical Syriac, from Palmirene to Christian Palestinian Aramaic. The examples in Jewish languages quoted on pp. 191-192 should have been glossed and translated. 16 On textual and linguistic variation in the Peshitta, see recently W. van Peursen, 'Language Variation, Language Development and the Textual History of the Peshitta', in H. Gzella and M.L. Folmer (eds), Aramaic in its Historical and Linguistic Setting, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz, Veroffentlichungen der Orientalischen Kommission 50 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), pp. 231-256. der spat- und neusyrischen Literatur, 9. Samuel E. Fox, The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Bohtan and 10. Geoffrey Khan, The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Sanandaj, 2011. find
7. Qaraqosh, Baghdeda in Aramaic, is a small town in the Mosul plain, about 20 km to the East ofMosul. Almost all its inhabitants are Christians, the majority belong to the Syrian Catholic, the remainder to the Syrian Orthodox Church. The dialect is spoken on the south-western border of the NENA group. The Christian communities thus speak a variety of a-Aramaic, but congregate in churches in which the a-reading tradition of Classical Syriac was reportedly introduced at the end of the 19th century. The local dialect did not develop a literary form, although texts belonging to the folk and oral tradition (songs, popular dramas) are occasionally written down in Arabic script. Similarly, liturgical hymns composed in the prestigious Alqosh dialect are used in Qaraqosh, either learnt and preserved by heart or written down in Arabic script. Reading from what presumably is the Peshitta text, the ministering priests occasionally proclaim the Gospel in the vernacular. The resulting Targum, however, is not recorded in written form (8). This practice appears to be rather common among NA speaking Christians, even in the diaspora, and should be accurately described and investigated. Friends of the informants managed to record oral texts in Qaraqosh (a play by Talal Wa<;lr', poems by Talal 'Acam, a nursery rhyme, proverbs, and selections from the Gospel) and Geoffrey Khan transliterated and translated them (650-707) in addition to the customary corpus of spontaneous narratives of the informants on daily life, agriculture, professions, food, festivals, autobiographical stories, etc. (540-650). Qaraqosh NA belongs to the dialect cluster of the Mosul region. Recent research on the dialects of Alqosh, Telkepe (by Eleonor Coghill, so far unpublished), Telesqof, 17 Zakho, 18 and Mangesh 19 have shown a great deal of J. Rubba, 'Forms derived from Verbal Roots in Tisqoopa Modem Aramaic', in R. Contini, F.A. Pennacchietti and M. Tosco (eds.), Semitica: Serta philologica Constantino Tsereteli dicata (Torino: Silvio Zamorani, 1993), pp. 273-287. 18 R.D. Hoberman, 'ChaldeanAramaic ofZakho', in R. Contini, F.A. Pennacchietti and M. Tosco (eds.), Semitica: Serta philologica Constantino Tsereteli dicata (Torino: Silvio Zamorani, 1993), pp. 115-126. 19 S. Sara, A Description of Modern Cha/dean, Janua Linguarum, Series Practica 213 (The Hague: Mouton, 1974). diversity in this group which was described as a kind ofunified regional tongue in pioneering publications by Ignazio Guidi, Edward Sachau and Jacques Rhetore, who mainly focused on the Alqosh-based literary language ( 19). Qaraqosh is characterised by a number of conservative features, some of which are attested in the early Alqosh poetic language. Post-vocalic interdentals (e.g., .,ida 'hand') and the glottal stop ., deriving from Aramaic *c or *g < g are preserved (10). Distinct sets of plural suffix pronouns are attached to the masculine nouns that take the plural ending -e: kt.awan 'our book' vs. k[awenan 'our books', kt.awxun 'your book' vs. kt.awexun 'your books' (11). A process of levelling led most NA dialects, including Neo-Mandaic, to lose this distinction. In early Alqosh poetry distinct forms are attested only for the 3rd person pl.: marhin - miirhon 'their Lord' vs. pagrayhin - pagrayhon 'their bodies', with no apparent gender opposition between -(ay)hon and -(ay)hin. However, the pl. form -ayhin is also occasionally attached to singular nouns ( e.g., ye$rayhin gumdana 'their bold inclination'), as an indication of the incipient process of levelling. The emergence of this levelling process may be traced back to Aramaic varieties of the Sasanian period. 20 Qaraqosh has imperatives and infinitives of the derived stems without the prefix m- ( 11-13, 86), that other dialects have extended from the subjunctive and past-tense bases ( deriving form active and perfect participles) to all other moods, as a marker of 'derivedness'. In early Alqosh poetry forms without m- are rather common (e.g., sab/:zu l-semmeh siibo/:ze 'praise His name!', with tautological infinitive and alliteration), but forms with m- are also attested (msabf:zu l-fallaha 'praise God!', mgarobe 'to put to trial') and they do not necessarily reflect later up-dating in the manuscript transmission. The precarious phonetic position of the prefixed m- might account for its loss. This at least is the explanation suggested by Rhetore, 21 who observed the 'suppression' of m- in all moods, not only in the infinitive and imperative, of stem II as a phenomenon regular in the dialects of the [Hakkari] mountains 22 and occasionally occurring in the dialects of the [Mosul] plain. As far as the infinitives of derived stems are concerned, the broader context of Aramaic dialectology offers a variegated picture. Like Qaraqosh NA, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic has forms without m-, whereas forms 20 M. Moriggi, 'S yriac Incantation Bowls and Linguistic Interference in Sasanian Babylonia', in A. Mengozzi (ed.), Studi afroasiatici. XI lncontro Italiano di Linguistica Camitosemitica, Materiali linguistici 52 (Milano: FrancoAngeli), pp. 313-323 (319). 21 J. Rhetore, Grammaire de la langue Soureth ou chaldeen vulgaire, selon le dialecte de la plaine de Mossoulet des pays adjacents (Mosul: Imprimerie des Peres Dominicains, 1912) pp. 113-114. 22 Sh. Talay, Die neuaramiiischen Dialekte der Khabur-Assyrer in Nordostsyrien (below, 3.2), p. 221, specifies in which dialects stem II can be conjugated without them-prefix. without or with m-, as in early Alqosh NA, are attested in Aramaic varieties of the Achaemenid period and Mandaic. 23 The dialect of Qaraqosh and the language of Alqosh and Telkepe religious poetry also share the allomorph 1- of the preposition 'el- < *cal 'upon, on, over', when it precedes a nominal: dax d-raxsi Par'a yvista 'as if they were walking on dry earth', frop l-$adrax 'beat on your breast!' (Peshitta of Luke 18:13: fiiref (h)wii cal l:zadyeh), merre matla 1-xarozuteh 'he told a parable on his preaching'. In both varieties, the suffixed form is/ el- and may yield the extended form 'elled, also used before nominals. The poetic language preserves the historical form , al. Thus 1- < *cal comes to merge with the functionally over-loaded preposition 1-, that can introduce direct and indirect objects (patient, dative, benefactive ... ) and the agent in the split ergative construction. Similarly the allomorph m- < cam '(comitative) with' (suffixed allomorph 'em- and extended form 'emmed) merges with m- < men 'from, by' in literary Alqosh and Telkepe. 24 Another late Aramaic feature preserved in Qaraqosh and in early religious poems 25 is the causative form with o < aw ofl-y verbs(< *'aFel; see Classical Syriac awteb 'to set, make dwell, appoint'). Compare, e.g., Qaraqosh gmoqed 'he kindles' (<yqd) with the l 7th-cent. form kmawrxi 'they prolong'(< yrx). Khan correctly suggests that 'archaisms may have been preserved in the Qaraqosh dialect on account of its location on the periphery of the NENA area' ( 17) and - I would add - the confessional border that separated them from the innovative centres of the Mosul plain, more or less like Syrian Orthodox Turoyo speakers in the northwestem periphery of the ENA area. The archaic features that the Qaraqosh dialect shares with the early religious poetry of the Mosul plain significantly weakens the second factor mentioned by Khan as a possible explanation of the conservative character of the dialect, i.e. the language of a large number of Orthodox Syrians who emigrated from Takrit to Qaraqosh in the 23 D. Boyarin, 'An Inquiry into the Formation of Middle Aramaic Dialects', in Y.L. Arbeitman and A.R. Bomhard (eds.), Bono Homini Donum. Essays in Historical Linguistics in Memory of J. Alexander Kerns, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 16 (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1981 ), pp. 613-649 ( 619-622); M.L. Folmer, The Aramaic Language of the Achaemenid Period. A Study in Linguistic Variation, Orientalia Lovanensia Analecta 68 (Leuven: Peeters, 1995), pp. 191-198. From Th. Noldeke, Mandiiische Grammatik (Halle: Waisenhaus, 1875) and R. Macuch, Handbook of Classical and Modern Mandaic (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1965), it is not clear whether the distribution of forms with m- is lexically determined in Mandaic, i.e. by root, or they are optional variants or allomorphs of the infinitives without m-. 24 See also H. Mutzafi, The Jewish Meo-Aramaic Dialect of Betanure (below, 3.1 ), pp. 123-124. 25 A. Mengozzi, 'Verba primae infirmae neoaramaice', in R. Voigt (Hrsg.), "From Beyond the Mediterranean". Akten des 7. internationalen Semitohamitistenkongresses (VII. /SHaK). Berlin 13. bis 15. September 2004, Semitica et Semitohamitica Berolinensia 5 (Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 2007), pp. 377-390 (387-389). Like literary J. NENA varieties, J. Sulemaniyya has /o/ only in the verbal rootymy 'to swear': mome 'he swears', mumele 'he swore'; see G. Khan, The Jewish Meo-Aramaic Dialect of Sulemaniyya and /falabja (below, 2.2), p. 119. eleventh and early twelfth centuries (2-3, 17). The Takritis certainly reinforced the confessional specificity of Qaraqosh (and Baqella), but their language, whether it was a form of Aramaic or Arabic, probably had little influence on an Aramaic Sprachtypus which since the 1 7th century is also attested in more northern East-Syrian villages, unaffected by their migration. 2.2. Geoffrey Khan, The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Sulemaniyya and If alabja, 2004, Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 44, ISBN: 978 90 04 13869 8, Number of pages: xxii, 626 pp. List price: € 183.00 / US$ 273.00 find
8. The linguistic profile of the Jewish community of Sulemaniyya reflects the history of the town and of the migration and settlement in it of Jews from the surrounding region, as well as the geographical position of the town in south eastern Iraqi Kurdistan close to the Iranian border. Founded in 1784, Sulemaniyya served as the capital of the Kurdish principality of Baban and became one of the most important economic and cultural centers of the ruling Sorani-speaking Kurds. It soon attracted Jews, Christians and Turkrnens, who in 1825 were reported to represent around 80% of the population. The Chr. NA dialect has not as yet been studied, but it would appear to be entirely different from the J. dialect. The Jews increased from 100-200 households in the 19th and early 20th centuries to 500 households in 1950-52, when they all emigrated to Israel. Geoffrey Khan describes here the J. NA dialect as spoken by informants interviewed in Israel. The texts published in transcription and translated contain autobiographical stories, some of them dealing with relations with Muslims, and accounts of every-day life: clothes, food, houses, festivals ... (462-577) They have been recorded by 4 speakers of Sulemaniyya and one ofHalabja, a smaller town located some 65 km to the south east of Sulemaniyya, closer to the Iranian border, whose dialect is practically the same as that of the capital (3). Like J. Urmia, J. Sulemaniyya belongs to the Trans-Zab group. Perfectly reflecting the geographical position of Sulemaniyya, a number of features of the verbal system bring the dialect close to that ofKerend and other J. NENA varieties of Iranian Kurdistan: 26 1. use of nominative-derived endings in the preterit of intransitive verbs (qfmna 'I stood up' vs. qimli in most NENA dialects, with dative-derived endings); 2. as in J. Azerbaijan and Iranian dialects, but also in 26 S. Hopkins, 'Neo-Aramaic Dialects and the Formation of the Preterite', JSS 34 ( 1989), pp. 413-432, and 'Preterite and Perfect in the Jewish Neo-Aramaic ofKerend', in W. Arnold and H. Bobzin (eds.), .,Sprich doch mit deinen Knechten aramiiisch, wir verstehen es!": 60 Beitriige zur Semitistik. Festschrift far Otto Jastrow zum 60. Geburtstag (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002), pp. 281-98. On p. 6, the reference to Hopkins (2000) should probably be corrected to Hopkins (2002). find

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