Mandaic is a southeastern

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated i ...

variety in use by the Mandaean community, traditionally based in southern parts of

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

and southwest

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkm ...

, for their religious books. Classical Mandaic is still employed by Mandaean priests in liturgical rites. The modern descendant of Classical Mandaic, known as Neo-Mandaic or Modern Mandaic, is spoken by a small section of Mandaeans around Ahvaz and

Khorramshahr Khorramshahr ( fa, خرمشهر , also romanized as ''Khurramshahr'', ar, المحمرة, romanized as ''Al-Muhammerah'') is a city and capital of Khorramshahr County, Khuzestan Province, Iran. At the 2016 census, its population was 170,976, ...

in the southern Iranian

Khuzestan province Khuzestan Province (also spelled Xuzestan; fa, استان خوزستان ''Ostān-e Xūzestān'') is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is in the southwest of the country, bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf. Its capital is Ahvaz and it cover ...

. Liturgical use of Classical Mandaic is found in

(particularly the southern portions of the country), in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesipho ...

and in the

diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews afte ...

(particularly in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, Sweden, Australia and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

). It is an Eastern Aramaic language notable for its abundant use of vowel letters (''mater lectionis'' with ''aleph'', ''he'' only in final position, ''‘ayin'', ''waw'', ''yud'')) in writing, so-called ''plene'' spelling ( Mandaic alphabet) and the amount of Iranian and

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform, early writing system * Akkadian myt ...

Stephen A. Kaufman, ''The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic'' (Assyriological Studies 19; Chicago: The University of Chicago: 1974). language influence on its lexicon, especially in the area of religious and

mystical Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...

terminology. Mandaic is influenced by

Jewish Palestinian Aramaic Jewish Palestinian Aramaic or Jewish Western Aramaic was a Western Aramaic language spoken by the Jews during the Classic Era in Judea and the Levant, specifically in Hasmonean, Herodian and Roman Judea and adjacent lands in the late first ...

Samaritan Aramaic Samaritan Aramaic, or Samaritan, was the dialect of Aramaic used by the Samaritans in their sacred and scholarly literature. This should not be confused with the Samaritan Hebrew language of the Scriptures. Samaritan Aramaic ceased to be a ...

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

, in addition to

and Parthian.

Classification

Classical Mandaic belongs to the Southeastern group of Aramaic and is closely related to the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic dialect in the major portions of the

Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

, but less to the various dialects of Aramaic appearing in the incantation texts on unglazed ceramic bowls ( incantation bowls) found mostly in central and south

as well as the

. It is less related to the northeastern Aramaic dialect of Syriac.

Usage

This southeastern Aramaic dialect is transmitted through religious, liturgical, and esoteric texts, most of them stored today in the Drower Collection,

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the sec ...

(Oxford), and in the

Bibliothèque Nationale A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

(Paris), the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the Briti ...

(London) and in the households of various Mandaeans as

religious text Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They differ from literature by being a compilation or discussion of beliefs, mythologies, ritual prac ...

s. More specific written objects and of linguistic importance on account of their early transmission (5th – 7th centuries CE) are the earthenware incantation bowls and Mandaic lead rolls (

amulets An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amuletum, which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protect ...

) (3rd–7th centuries CE), including silver and gold specimens that were often unearthed in archaeological excavations in the regions of their historical living sites between Wasiṭ and

Baṣra Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is hand ...

, and frequently in central

, for example ( Bismaya, Kish, Khouabir, Kutha,

Uruk Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.H ...

, Nippur), north and south of the confluences of the Euphrates and

Tigris The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...

(Abu Shudhr, al-Qurnah), and the adjacent province of Khuzistan (

Hamadan Hamadan () or Hamedan ( fa, همدان, ''Hamedān'') (Old Persian: Haŋgmetana, Ecbatana) is the capital city of Hamadan Province of Iran. At the 2019 census, its population was 783,300 in 230,775 families. The majority of people living in Ham ...

Phonology

Consonants

* The glottal stop is said to have disappeared from Mandaic. * and are said to be palatal stops, and are generally pronounced as and , but are transcribed as /, /, however; they may also be pronounced as velar stops * and are noted as velar, but are generally pronounced as uvular and , however; they may also be pronounced as velar fricatives * Sounds , only occur in Arabic and Persian loanwords. * Both emphatic voiced sounds and pharyngeal sounds only occur in Arabic loanwords.

Vowels

* A short is often replaced by the short sound.

Alphabet

Mandaic is written in the Mandaic alphabet. It consists of 23 graphemes, with the last being a ligature. Its origin and development is still under debate. Graphemes appearing on incantation bowls and metal

amulet An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amuletum, which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protect ...

rolls differ slightly from the late

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced ...

signs.

Lexicography

Lexicographers of the Mandaic language include Theodor Nöldeke, Mark Lidzbarski, Ethel S. Drower, Rudolf Macúch, and Matthew Morgenstern.

Neo-Mandaic

Neo-Mandaic represents the latest stage of the phonological and morphological development of Mandaic, a Northwest Semitic language of the

Eastern Aramaic The Eastern Aramaic languages have developed from the varieties of Aramaic that developed in and around Mesopotamia ( Iraq, southeast Turkey, northeast Syria and northwest and southwest Iran), as opposed to western varieties of the Levant (m ...

sub-family. Having developed in isolation from one another, most Neo-Aramaic dialects are mutually unintelligible and should therefore be considered separate languages. Determining the relationship between Neo-Aramaic dialects is difficult because of poor knowledge of the dialects themselves and their history.Charles Häberl, ''The Neo-Mandaic Dialect of Khorramshahr'', (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009). Although no direct descendants of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic survive today, most of the Neo-Aramaic dialects spoken today belong to the Eastern sub-family of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and Mandaic, among them Neo-Mandaic that can be described with any certainty as the direct descendant of one of the Aramaic dialects attested in Late Antiquity, probably Mandaic. Neo-Mandaic preserves a Semitic "suffix" conjugation (or perfect) that is lost in other dialects. The

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

of Neo-Mandaic is divergent from other Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialects. Rudolf Macuch, ''Neumandäische Chrestomathie'' (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1989). Three dialects of Neo-Mandaic were native to

Shushtar Shushtar ( fa, شوشتر; also Romanized as Shūshtar and Shūstar and Shooshtar) is a city and capital of Shushtar County, Khuzestan Province, Iran. Shushtar is an ancient fortress city, approximately from Ahvaz, the centre of the provin ...

, Shah Vali, and Dezful in northern

Khuzestan Province Khuzestan Province (also spelled Xuzestan; fa, استان خوزستان ''Ostān-e Xūzestān'') is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is in the southwest of the country, bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf. Its capital is Ahvaz and it cover ...

before the 1880s. During that time, Mandeans moved to Ahvaz and

to escape persecution. Khorramshahr had the most Neo-Mandaic speakers until the

Iran–Iraq War The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Counci ...

caused many people to leave Iran. Ahvaz is the only community with a sizeable portion of Neo-Mandaic speakers in Iran as of 1993. Rudolf Macuch, ''Neumandäische Texte im Dialekt von Ahwaz'' (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1993). The following table compares a few words in Old Mandaic with three Neo-Mandaic dialects. The Iraq dialect, documented by

E. S. Drower Ethel Stefana Drower ( Stevens; full name: Ethel May Stefana Drower; 1 December 1879 – 27 January 1972) was a British cultural anthropologist, orientalist and novelist who studied the Middle East and its cultures.Christa Müller-Kessler, Drowe ...

, is now extinct.

References

Literature

* Theodor Nöldeke. 1862. "Ueber die Mundart der Mandäer," ''Abhandlungen der Historisch-Philologischen Classe der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen'' 10: 81-160. * Theodor Nöldeke. 1964. ''Mandäische Grammatik'', Halle: Waisenhaus; reprint Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft with Appendix of annotated handnotes from the hand edition of Theodor Nöldeke by Anton Schall. * Svend Aage Pallis. 1933. ''Essay on Mandaean Bibliography''. London: Humphrey Milford. * Franz Rosenthal. 1939. "Das Mandäische," in ''Die aramaistische Forschung seit Th. Nöldeke’s Veröffentlichungen''. Leiden: Brill, pp. 224–254. * Ethel S. Drower and Rudolf Macuch. 1963. ''A Mandaic Dictionary''. Oxford: Clarendon Press. * Rudolf Macuch. 1965. ''Handbook of Classical and Modern Mandaic''. Berlin: De Gruyter. * Rudolf Macuch. 1989. ''Neumandäische Chrestomathie''. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz. * * Joseph L. Malone. 1997. ''Modern and Classical Mandaic Phonology,'' in ''Phonologies of Asia and Africa'', edited by Alan S. Kaye. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. * Rainer M. Voigt. 2007."Mandaic," in ''Morphologies of Asia and Africa,'' in ''Phonologies of Asia and Africa'', edited by Alan S. Kaye. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. * * * Charles G. Häberl. 2009. ''The Neo-Mandaic Dialect of

''.

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

: Harrassowitz. * *

External links

Mandaic lexicon online

Semitisches Tonarchiv: Tondokument "Ginza Einleitung"
— a recording of the opening of the ''Ginza Rabba'' spoken by a Mandaean priest.
Semitisches Tonarchiv: Tondokument "Ahwâz Macuch 01 A Autobiographie"
— a recording of autobiographical material by Sâlem Çoheylî in Neo-Mandaic.
Mandaic.org
Information on the Neo-Mandaic Dialect of Khorramshahr {{Authority control Eastern Aramaic languages Languages of Iran Languages of Iraq Sacred languages Gnosticism