Inter-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic, or ''Lishanid Noshan'', is a modern Jewish-Aramaic dialect, a variant of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic. It was originally spoken in

Kurdistan Region Kurdistan Region (KRI) is a semi-autonomous Federal regions of Iraq, federal region of the Iraq, Republic of Iraq. It comprises four Kurds, Kurdish-majority governorates of Arabs, Arab-majority Iraq: Erbil Governorate, Sulaymaniyah Governorate ...

of Iraq, in and around Hewler between the

Great Zab The Great Zab or Upper Zab (; or ; ; ) is an approximately long river flowing through Turkey and Iraq. It rises in Turkey near Lake Van and joins the Tigris in Iraq south of Mosul. During its course, the river collects water from many tributar ...

and

Little Zab The Little Zab or Lower Zab (, ''al-Zāb al-Asfal''; or '; , ''Zâb-e Kuchak''; , ''Zāba Taḥtāya'') is a river that originates in Iran and joins the Tigris just south of Al Zab in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The Little Zab is approximatel ...

rivers, it was also spoken in Turkey in the city of

Cizre Cizre () is a city in the Cizre District of Şırnak Province in Turkey. It is located on the river Tigris by the Syria–Turkey border and close to the Iraq–Turkey border. Cizre is in the historical region of Upper Mesopotamia and the cultura ...

and its environs and in the Hakkari Mountains. Most speakers now live in

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

Phonology

Lishanid Noshan has 40

phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...

s. 34 of them are

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

s, and 6 of them are

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

Laryngeals Laryngeal may refer to: * Laryngeal consonant, in phonetics * Laryngeal theory of the Proto-Indo-European language * Larynx The larynx (), commonly called the voice box, is an organ (anatomy), organ in the top of the neck involved in breathing, ...

and pharyngeals originally found in Lishanid Noshan have not been preserved. In

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

, ''*ʕ'', a voiced pharyngeal fricative is prominent in words. However, it has weakened in Lishanid Noshan to /ʔ/ or zero. Regarding interdental fricatives, there has been a shift seen with ''*t'' and ''*d''. ''*h'', the original unvoiced pharyngeal fricative, has fused with the velar fricative /x/ in Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialects. This is not the case for Lishanid Noshan. ''*h'' can still be seen in some words such as ''dbh'', which means "to slaughter." Word stress often occurs on the final syllable of stems of nominals and verbs.

Grammar

Word Order

Subjects in Lishand Noshan often come before the verb when they are full nominals. The referent of subject nominals in this canonical order can be identified from the prior discourse or through assumed shared information between the speakers. Sometimes, it can also be used when the referent of the subject nominal has not been entered into the discourse yet and is not identifiable by the hearer. :''ʔiyyá kābrá qìmle.'' :This man got up. Nominals that function as direct objects in verb clauses are normally positioned before the verb.

Articles

Definite articles

In Lishanid Noshan, ''-ake'' is the definite article. According to Khan, this affix is another sign of how Kurdish dialects have influenced this language; the Kurdish dialects have ''-aka'' for the direct case and ''-akay'' in the oblique case. When ''-ake'' is added to a noun, the singular and plural endings ''-a'' and ''-e'' are taken off.

Indefinite articles

Definiteness is expressed if the speaker assumes the hearer has background knowledge on the nominal being inserted into the conversation.

Negation

Regarding negative copular clauses, Lishanid Noshan differentiates constructions that use the negative present versus the negative past.

Negative present copula

Negative present copula is often inserted before or after the predicate. This particular copula usually contains the main stress of the intonation group. This phenomenon can happen in the middle of a predicate phrase. :''ʔiyyá mewānid didì lewé?'' :Is he not my guest?

Negative past copula

This particular type of copular comes before the predicate in Lishanid Noshan very often. The main stress is inserted either on the predicate phrase or on ''la'', the negator in Lishanid Noshan. Subject nominals are seen either before or after the copula. :''lá-wela mga-làxxa''. :It was not like here.

Interrogative clauses

Interrogative clauses that can be answered with a yes or a no are differentiated from non-interrogative clauses solely by intonation. The yes-no type of interrogatives has an intonation pattern that rises in pitch where the main stress is; there is no drop in pitch in any of the syllables that come after the part where the main stress is. :''gbát xa-čày?'' :Do you want a tea? :''lā la-ġzèlox mallá?'' :Have you not seen the mullah?

Prepositional case

Certain verbs in Lishanid Noshan mark their complement with the preposition ''b-''. :''badéniwa bi-xlulá.'' :They began the wedding. :''tqèle-bbeu.'' :He pleaded with him.

References

* Heinrichs, Wolfhart (ed.) (1990). ''Studies in Neo-Aramaic''. Scholars Press: Atlanta, Georgia. . *

External links

Semitisches Tonarchivrecordings of Lishanid Noshan from Koy Sanjak
{{Neo-Aramaic Endangered Afroasiatic languages Languages of Iraq Languages of Iran Languages of Israel Jewish Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialects Languages of Kurdistan Severely endangered languages Endangered diaspora languages