Eastern Aramaic languages

Last updated
Eastern Aramaic
Geographic
distribution		 Fertile Crescent (Iraq, northwestern Iran, northern & eastern Syria, Southeastern Anatolia), Eastern Arabia [1] [2]
Linguistic classification Afro-Asiatic
Subdivisions
Glottolog east2680

Eastern Aramaic refers to a group of dialects [3] that evolved historically from the varieties of Aramaic spoken in the core territories of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq, southeastern Turkey and parts of northeastern Syria) and further expanded into northern Syria, [4] [5] eastern Arabia [6] [7] and northwestern Iran. This is in contrast to the Western Aramaic varieties found predominantly in the southern Levant, encompassing most parts of modern western Syria and Palestine region. Most speakers are Assyrians, although there is a minority of Mizrahi Jews and Mandaeans who also speak modern varieties of Eastern Aramaic. [8]

Contents

Speakers

Numbers of fluent speakers range from approximately 575,000 to 1,000,000, with the main languages being Assyrian Neo-Aramaic (235,000 speakers), Chaldean Neo-Aramaic (216,000 speakers) and Surayt/Turoyo (250,000 speakers), [9] together with a number of smaller closely related languages with no more than 5,000 to 10,000 speakers between them.

Despite their names, they are not restricted to specific churches; Chaldean Neo-Aramaic being spoken by members of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church, Assyrian Protestant churches, and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Turoyo being spoken by members of the Chaldean Catholic Church etc. [10] [11]

In addition, there are approximately 25,000 speakers of Jewish varieties, and some 5,000 fluent speakers of the Mandaic language [12] among the some 50,000 Mandaeans, an ethno-gnostic minority in Iraq and Iran.

Students of the Talmud will also have a passive mastery of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, adding hundreds of thousands of users with varying levels of Aramaic mastery.

History

Historically, eastern varieties of Aramaic have been more dominant, mainly due to their political acceptance in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Achaemenid Persian empires. With the later loss of political platforms to Greek and Persian, Eastern Aramaic continued to be used by the population of Mesopotamia.

During the Late Middle Aramaic period, spanning from 300 B.C.E. to 200 C.E., Aramaic diverged into its eastern and western branches. [13]

In Edessa, present-day Urfa in southeast Turkey, the local variety of Eastern Middle Aramaic known as Classical Syriac had emerged. Between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, it became a liturgical language among the Eastern Rite Syriac Christians throughout the Middle East. [14] It was used in the Peshitta and by the poet Ephrem the Syrian, as well as in the schools of Edessa and Nisibis. Later, it was adopted by the Saint Thomas Christians in India.

In the region of Babylonia (modern southern Iraq), rabbinical schools flourished, producing the Targumim and Talmud, making the language a standard of religious Jewish scholarship.

Among the Mandaean community in the Khuzestan province of Iran and Iraq, another variety of Eastern Aramaic, known as Mandaic, became the liturgical language of Mandaeism.

These varieties have widely influenced the less prominent Western Aramaic languages of the southern Levant, and the three classical languages outlined above have also influenced numerous vernacular varieties of Eastern Aramaic, some of which are spoken to this day, largely by the Assyrians, Mizrahi Jews and Mandaeans (see Neo-Aramaic languages). Since the Muslim conquest of Persia of the seventh century, most of the population of the Middle East has undergone a gradual but steady language shift to Arabic.

However there are still between some 550,000 – 1,000,000 fluent Eastern Neo-Aramaic speakers among the indigenous Assyrians of northern Iraq, northeast Syria, southeastern Turkey and northwestern Iran, as well as small migrant communities in Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Armenia, Georgia, southern Russia and Azerbaijan. Most of these are members of the Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, Ancient Church of the East, Assyrian Pentecostal Church and Assyrian Evangelical Church. A further number may have a more sparse understanding of the language, due to pressures in their homelands to speak Arabic, Turkish, Persian or Kurdish, and as a result of the diaspora to the Western World.

See also

Related Research Articles

Aramaic is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, southeastern Anatolia, Eastern Arabia and the Sinai Peninsula, where it has been continually written and spoken in different varieties for over three thousand years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Semitic languages</span> Branch of the Afroasiatic languages

The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Aramaic, Hebrew, and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Malta, and in large immigrant and expatriate communities in North America, Europe, and Australasia. The terminology was first used in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history, who derived the name from Shem, one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis.

The Syriac language, also known as Syriac Aramaic and Classical Syriac ܠܫܢܐ ܥܬܝܩܐ, is an Aramaic language. The language is a dialect that emerged during the first century AD from a local Aramaic dialect that was spoken in the ancient region of Osroene, centered in the city of Edessa. During the Early Christian period, it became the main literary language of various Aramaic-speaking Christian communities in the historical region of Ancient Syria and throughout the Near East. As a liturgical language of Syriac Christianity, it gained a prominent role among Eastern Christian communities that used both Eastern Syriac and Western Syriac rites. Following the spread of Syriac Christianity, it also became a liturgical language of eastern Christian communities as far as India and China. It flourished from the 4th to the 8th century, and continued to have an important role during the next centuries, but by the end of the Middle Ages it was gradually reduced to liturgical use, since the role of vernacular language among its native speakers was overtaken by several emerging Neo-Aramaic dialects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assyrian people</span> Ethnic group indigenous to the Middle East

Assyrians are an indigenous ethnic group native to Mesopotamia, a geographical region in West Asia. Modern Assyrians descend directly from Ancient Mesopotamians such as ancient Assyrians and Babylonians. Modern Assyrians may culturally self-identify as Syriacs, Chaldeans, or Arameans for religious, geographic, and tribal identification.

The Arameans, or Aramaeans, were an ancient Semitic-speaking people in the Near East that was first recorded in historical sources from the late 12th century BC. The Aramean homeland, sometimes known as the land of Aram, encompassed central regions of modern Syria.

Turoyo, also referred to as Surayt, or modern Suryoyo, is a Central Neo-Aramaic language traditionally spoken in the Tur Abdin region in southeastern Turkey and in northern Syria. Turoyo speakers are mostly adherents of the Syriac Orthodox Church, but there are also some Turoyo-speaking adherents of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church, especially from the towns of Midyat and Qamishli. The language is also spoken throughout diaspora, among modern Assyrians/Syriacs. It is classified as a vulnerable language. Most speakers use the Classical Syriac language for literature and worship. Turoyo is not mutually intelligible with Western Neo-Aramaic, having been separated for over a thousand years; its closest relatives are Mlaḥsô and western varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic like Suret.

Mlaḥsô or Mlahsö, sometimes referred to as Suryoyo or Surayt, is an extinct or dormant Central Neo-Aramaic language. It was traditionally spoken in eastern Turkey and later also in northeastern Syria by Syriac Orthodox Christians.

Suret, also known as Assyrian refers to the varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) spoken by Christians, namely Assyrians. The various NENA dialects descend from Old Aramaic, the lingua franca in the later phase of the Assyrian Empire, which slowly displaced the East Semitic Akkadian language beginning around the 10th century BC. They have been further heavily influenced by Classical Syriac, the Middle Aramaic dialect of Edessa, after its adoption as an official liturgical language of the Syriac churches, but Suret is not a direct descendant of Classical Syriac.

Senaya or Sanandaj Christian Neo-Aramaic is a dialect of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic originally spoken by Christians in Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province in Iran. Most speakers now live in California, United States and few families still live in Tehran, Iran. They are mostly members of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Senaya is significantly different from Sanandaj Jewish Neo-Aramaic.

Hertevin is a dialect of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic originally spoken by Chaldean Catholics in a cluster of villages in Siirt Province in southeastern Turkey. Speakers of Hértevin Aramaic have emigrated mostly to the West, and are now scattered and isolated from one another. A few speakers remain in Turkey. The closest related language variety is Bohtan Neo-Aramaic. Hertevin also shares many similarities with Turoyo.

Bohtan Neo-Aramaic is a dialect of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic originally spoken by ethnic Assyrians on the plain of Bohtan in the Ottoman Empire. Its speakers were displaced during the Assyrian genocide in 1915 and settled in Gardabani, near Rustavi in Georgia, Göygöl and Ağstafa in Azerbaijan. However it is now spoken in Moscow, Krymsk and Novopavlosk, Russia. It is considered to be a dialect of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic since it is a northeastern Aramaic language and its speakers are ethnically Assyrians.

Beth Nahrain ; "between (two) rivers") is the name for the region known as Mesopotamia in the Syriac language. Geographically, it refers to the areas between and surrounding the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The Aramaic name also refers to the area around the rivers, not only literally between the rivers.

The Neo-Aramaic or Modern Aramaic languages are varieties of Aramaic that evolved during the late medieval and early modern periods, and continue to the present day as vernacular (spoken) languages of modern Aramaic-speaking communities. Within the field of Aramaic studies, classification of Neo-Aramaic languages has been a subject of particular interest among scholars, who proposed several divisions, into two, three or four primary groups.

Central Neo-Aramaic languages represent a specific group of Neo-Aramaic languages, that is designated as Central in reference to its geographical position between Western Neo-Aramaic and other Eastern Aramaic groups. Its linguistic homeland is located in northern parts of the historical region of Syria. The group includes the Turoyo language as a spoken language of the Tur Abdin region and various groups in diaspora, and Mlahsô language that is recently extinct as a spoken language.

Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) is a grouping of related dialects of Neo-Aramaic spoken before World War I as a vernacular language by Jews and Assyrian Christians between the Tigris and Lake Urmia, stretching north to Lake Van and southwards to Mosul and Kirkuk. As a result of the Assyrian genocide, Christian speakers were forced out of the area that is now Turkey and in the early 1950s most Jewish speakers moved to Israel. The Kurdish-Turkish conflict resulted in further dislocations of speaker populations. As of the 1990s, the NENA group had an estimated number of fluent speakers among the Assyrians just below 500,000, spread throughout the Middle East and the Assyrian diaspora. In 2007, linguist Geoffrey Khan wrote that many dialects were nearing extinction with fluent speakers difficult to find.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asoristan</span> Sasanian province in Assyria and Babylonia (226–637 CE)

Asoristan was the name of the Sasanian province of Assyria and Babylonia from 226 to 637.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terms for Syriac Christians</span>

Terms for Syriac Christians are endonymic (native) and exonymic (foreign) terms, that are used as designations for Syriac Christians, as adherents of Syriac Christianity. In its widest scope, Syriac Christianity encompass all Christian denominations that follow East Syriac Rite or West Syriac Rite, and thus use Classical Syriac as their main liturgical language. Traditional divisions among Syriac Christians along denominational lines are reflected in the use of various theological and ecclesiological designations, both historical and modern. Specific terms such as: Jacobites, Saint Thomas Syrian Christians, Maronites, Melkites, Nasranis, and Nestorians have been used in reference to distinctive groups and branches of Eastern Christianity, including those of Syriac liturgical and linguistic traditions. Some of those terms are polysemic, and their uses have been a subject of terminological disputes between different communities, and also among scholars.

Western Aramaic is a group of Aramaic dialects once spoken widely throughout the ancient Levant, predominantly in the south, and Sinai, including ancient Damascus, Nabatea, Judea, across the Palestine Region, Transjordan, Samaria as well as Lebanon in the north. The group was divided into several regional variants, spoken mainly by the Nabataeans, Mizrahi Jews, Melkites of Jewish descent, Samaritans and Maronites. All of the Western Aramaic dialects are considered extinct today, except for the modern variety Western Neo-Aramaic, which is still spoken by the Arameans (Syriacs) in the towns of Maaloula and Jubb'adin in Syria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hatran Aramaic</span> Classical Age dialect of Middle Aramaic

Aramaic of Hatra, Hatran Aramaic or Ashurian designates a Middle Aramaic dialect, that was used in the region of Hatra and Assur in northeastern parts of Mesopotamia, approximately from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century CE. Its range extended from the Nineveh Plains in the centre, up to Tur Abdin in the north, Dura-Europos in the west and Tikrit in the south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aramaic studies</span> Academic field

Aramaic studies are scientific studies of the Aramaic languages and literature. As a specific field within Semitic studies, Aramaic studies are closely related to similar disciplines, like Hebraic studies and Arabic studies.

References

  1. ↑ "Mesopotamian Languages — Department of Archaeology". www.arch.cam.ac.uk. 9 August 2013.
  2. ↑ Mario Kozah; Abdulrahim Abu-Husayn; Saif Shaheen Al-Murikhi; Haya Al Thani (9 December 2014). The Syriac Writers of Qatar in the Seventh Century. Gorgias Press. p. 298. ISBN   9781463236649. The Syriac writers of Qatar themselves produced some of the best and most sophisticated writing to be found in all Syriac literature of the seventh century, but they have not received the scholarly attention that they deserve in the last half century. This volume seeks to redress this underdevelopment by setting the standard for further research in the sub-field of Beth Qatraye studies.
  3. ↑ Pereira, Rodrigues (17 July 2018). Studies in Aramaic Poetry (c. 100 B.C.E.-c. 600 C.E.). BRILL. p. 7. ISBN   9789004358645. It may just demonstrate that in the course of the evolution of the Aramaic dialects it removed itself from Western Aramaic to a lesser extent than the other Eastern dialects.
  4. ↑ Phan, Peter C. (21 January 2011). Christianities in Asia. John Wiley & Sons. p. 234. ISBN   9781444392609. Antioch was a major city and the capital of the Syriac-speaking region. From Antioch, the rest of the Syriac-speaking provinces received the Christian message,…
  5. ↑ Lee, Sang-Il (26 April 2012). Jesus and Gospel Traditions in Bilingual Context. Walter de Gruyter. p. 167. ISBN   9783110267143. On market days and festivals, Syriac-speaking peasants flocked to Antioch, which indicates that there was lively interaction between Syriac-speaking and Greek-speaking Syrians, thus allowing Antiochene inhabitants to continue to hear Syriac. Furthermore, adding to the general picture, it is thought that the Syriac Peshitta might have been used by Chrysostom (Krupp 1991:75). Based on this, three points can be summarized. (i) The linguistic milieu of Antioch was bilingualism in Aramaic and Greek. (ii) There may have been many bilinguals among both upper-status and lower-status Syrians. (iii) The inhabitants' competence in speaking Greek depends on their social status and, by and large, it is appropriate to assume that upper-status inhabitants spoke Greek as their matrix languages while lower-status inhabitants spoke Aramaic as their matrix languages.
  6. ↑ Thompson, Andrew David (31 October 2019). Christianity in Oman. Springer. p. 49. ISBN   9783030303983. The Persian location and character of the Metropolitan proved to be a source of friction between the Syriac-speaking Christians of Beth Qatraye who naturally looked to their co-linguists back in Mesopotamia.
  7. ↑ Raheb, Mitri; Lamport, Mark A. (15 December 2020). The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Christianity in the Middle East. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 134. ISBN   9781538124185. He was born in the region of Beth Qatraye in Eastern Arabia, a mixed Syriac- and Arabicspeaking region…
  8. ↑ Khan, Geoffrey; Noorlander, Paul M. (15 January 2021). Studies in the Grammar and Lexicon of Neo-Aramaic. Open Book Publishers. ISBN   9781783749508. The Neo-Aramaic dialects are clearly closely related to the written forms of Aramaic of earlier periods. The Neo-Aramaic subgroups can be correlated broadly with dialectal divisions that are reflected in pre-modern written Aramaic sources from the first millennium CE onwards particularly during Late Antiquity, which are sometimes referred to collectively as 'Middle Aramaic' or 'Late (Antique) Aramaic'. Central Neo-Aramaic, North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic and Neo-Mandaic are related to the eastern branch of premodern Aramaic, e.g. Classical Syriac, Classical Mandaic and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, whereas Western Neo-Aramaic is related to the western branch, e.g. Jewish and Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic. No Neo-Aramaic subgroup, however, could be considered a direct descendent of the attested forms of the literary pre-modern Aramaic varieties.
  9. ↑ "Did you know | Aramaic Online".
  10. ↑ Turoyo at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013)
  11. ↑
  12. ↑ Modern Mandaic at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
  13. ↑ McNamara, Martin (2011). Targum and New Testament. Mohr Siebeck. p. 186. ISBN   9783161508363. a) Old Aramaic from the beginning (through Biblical Aramaic, Nabataean, Palmyrene) down to the established eastern and western branches; b) Middle Aramaic, with two branches, eastern and western; c) Late Aramaic, with the contemporary western (Ma'alula) and eastern branches. This older terminology is still followed by M. Sokoloff in his recent work, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period.'1 A different division, now widely accepted, has been put forward by J. A. Fitzmyer.2 It is as follows: a) Old Aramaic, up to 700 B.C.E.; b) Official Aramaic, 700-300 .c.E.; c) Middle Aramaic, 300 ..E.-200 c.E.; d) Late Aramaic (= Middle Aramaic of Rosenthal's division), with two branches: the eastern branch consisting of Syriac, Mandaic, the Aramaic of the Talmud Babli, the Gaonic Literature and incantation texts found mainly in Nippur; and the western, consisting of Samaritan Aramaic, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Galilean Aramaic (which some, for example Sokoloff, prefer to call Jewish Palestinian Aramaic) found in the Aramaic portions of the Palestinian Talmud and haggadic midrashim and other sources; e) Modern Aramaic (in its eastern and western [Ma'alula] dialects).
  14. ↑ https://books.google.de/books?id=sCcMEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA36&dq=classical+syriac+emerged&hl=de&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiu8fWWy5KDAxWlhP0HHTNkCQEQ6AF6BAgIEAM#v=onepage&q=classical%20syriac%20emerged&f=false "The classical version of Eastern Neo-Aramaic, often called Syriac, emerged in the first centuries after Christ in the theological school of Edessa. It has its own alphabet and serves as a ritual language."
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.