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Studies in the Grammar and Lexicon of Neo-Aramaic - cover image

Book Series

Copyright

Geoffrey Khan; Paul M. Noorlander;

Published On

2021-01-15

ISBN

Paperback978-1-78374-947-8
Hardback978-1-78374-948-5
PDF978-1-78374-949-2
HTML978-1-80064-617-9
XML978-1-78374-952-2
EPUB978-1-78374-950-8
MOBI978-1-78374-951-5

Language

  • English

Print Length

540 pages (xxvi+514)

Dimensions

Paperback156 x 28 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.09" x 9.21")
Hardback156 x 30 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.19" x 9.21")

Weight

Paperback1658g (58.48oz)
Hardback2055g (72.49oz)

Media

Illustrations1

OCLC Number

1233023312

LCCN

2020447270

BIC

  • CFF
  • CFP

BISAC

  • REL006020
  • LAN009010

LCC

  • PJ5282

Keywords

  • Neo-Aramaic dialects
  • Aramaic
  • Middle East
  • migration
  • language typology
  • historical linguistics

Studies in the Grammar and Lexicon of Neo-Aramaic

The Neo-Aramaic dialects are modern vernacular forms of Aramaic, which has a documented history in the Middle East of over 3,000 years. Due to upheavals in the Middle East over the last one hundred years, thousands of speakers of Neo-Aramaic dialects have been forced to migrate from their homes or have perished in massacres. As a result, the dialects are now highly endangered. The dialects exhibit a remarkable diversity of structures. Moreover, the considerable depth of attestation of Aramaic from earlier periods provides evidence for pathways of change. For these reasons the research of Neo-Aramaic is of importance for more general fields of linguistics, in particular language typology and historical linguistics.

The papers in this volume represent the full range of research that is currently being carried out on Neo-Aramaic dialects. They advance the field in numerous ways. In order to allow linguists who are not specialists in Neo-Aramaic to benefit from the papers, the examples are fully glossed.

Endorsements

The volume makes a major contribution to the field of Neo-Aramaic and significantly advances research. The articles present new analyses and new primary data from several endangered dialects, many of which have so far not been systematically documented, and in some cases have not been documented at all. It is good to see that the examples have been given glossing, so that this important material will be accessible more widely by general linguists. Many of the articles are written by leading scholars of the field. Particularly commendable is the fact that the authors include also early career scholars and native speakers of Neo-Aramaic dialects who are based in universities in Iraq and Europe. The volume, therefore, represents also a major stimulus to research in the future.

Prof Hezy Mutzafi

Tel Aviv University

Reviews

This volume is a fine contribution to Semitic linguistics, in its presentation of new data, new analyses and engagement with the general linguistic literature. Including significant contributions from both established Neo-aramaicists and relative newcomers, it demonstrates that the field of Neo-Aramaic continues to flourish, against the odds.

Eleanor Coghill

Brill’s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics, vol. 14, 2022.

Contents

A History of the Intransitive Preterite of TÌ£uroyo: From a Property Adjective to a Finite Tense

(pp. 1–28)
  • Eugene Barsky
  • Sergey Loesov

Towards a Typology of Possessors and Experiencers in Neo-Aramaic: Non-Canonical Subjects as Relics of a Former Dative Case

(pp. 29–94)
  • Paul M. Noorlander

The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Dohok: Two Folktales and Selected Features of Verbal Semantics

(pp. 95–142)
  • Dorota Molin

Verbal Forms Expressing Discourse Dependency in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic

(pp. 143–194)
  • Geoffrey Khan

Conditional Patterns in the Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Zakho

(pp. 195–220)
  • Eran Cohen

Language Contact and TÌ£uroyo: The Case of the Circumstantial Clause

(pp. 221–234)
  • Michael Waltisberg

The Morphosyntactic Conservatism of Western Neo-Aramaic despite Contact with Syrian Arabic

(pp. 235–286)
  • Ivri Bunis

On the Afel Stem in Western Neo-Aramaic

(pp. 287–300)
  • Steven E. Fassberg

The Re-Emergence of the Genitive in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic

(pp. 301–318)
  • Ariel Gutman

Modelling Variation in the Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Azran with Articulatory Phonology

(pp. 319–334)
  • Lidia Napiorkowska

On the Origin of Some Plant Names in Ṣūrayt/Ṭūrōyo in Ṭūr ʿAbdīn

(pp. 335–352)
  • Aziz Tezel

Remarks on Selected Exponents of the 208-Swadesh List in TÌ£uroyo

(pp. 353–388)
  • Eugene Barsky
  • Yulia Furman

Neo-Aramaic Animal Names

(pp. 389–314)
  • Hezy Mutzafi

A Corpus-Based Swadesh Word List for Literary Christian Urmi (New Alphabet Texts)

(pp. 415–442)
  • Alexey Lyavdansky

Lexical Items relating to Material Culture in the NENA Dialects of the Aqra Region

(pp. 443–468)
  • Aziz Emmanuel Eliya Al-Zebari

Arabic Loanwords in the Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Ankawa

(pp. 469–486)
  • Salam Neamah Hirmiz Hakeem

Language Loss in the Ṣūrayt/Ṭūrōyo-speaking Communities of the Diaspora in Sweden

(pp. 487–504)
  • Sina Tezel

Preface

(pp. xvii–xx)
  • Geoffrey Khan

Contributors

Geoffrey Khan

(editor)
Regius Professor of Hebrew at University of Cambridge
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2550-9896

Geoffrey Khan (PhD, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 1984) is Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge. His research publications focus on three main fields: Biblical Hebrew language (especially medieval traditions), Neo-Aramaic dialectology, and medieval Arabic documents. He is the general editor of The Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (Brill, 2013) and is the senior editor of Journal of Semitic Studies. His recent publications include The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, Cambridge: University of Cambridge & Open Book Publishers, 2020, Performance of Sacred Semitic Texts (editor, with co-editor Hindy Najman), Dead Sea Discoveries 29, Brill. 2022, and Language Contact in Sanandaj (co-authored with Masoud Mohammadirad), Berlin, de Gruyter, 2024.

Paul M. Noorlander

(editor)
Rubicon Fellow at Leiden University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9407-1453

Dr. Paul Noorlander obtained his doctorate in linguistics at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, and is the author of Ergativity and Other Alignment Types in Neo-Aramaic: Investigating Morphosyntactic Microvariation (2021, Brill: Leiden). He has published widely in the field of Semitic languages and linguistics and contact between Semitic and Iranian, in particular the areal-diachronic typology of the East Anatolian and Mesopotamian regions of West Asia. His main research areas are the endangered Neo-Aramaic languages and their documentation, typology and history. Dr Noorlander teaches at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, and Divinity at the University of Cambridge.