| Languages of Iraq | |
|---|---|
 Sign near Eradina with text in Aramaic, Kurdish and Arabic | |
| Official | Arabic and Kurdish |
| Vernacular | Mesopotamian Arabic |
| Minority | Iranian, [1] Turkmen, Aramaic, Armenian and Domari |
| Foreign | English |
| Signed | Iraqi Sign Language |
| Keyboard layout | |
There are a number of languages spoken in Iraq, but Mesopotamian Arabic (Iraqi Arabic) is by far the most widely spoken in the country. Arabic and Kurdish are both official languages in Iraq.
The most widely spoken language in Iraq is the Arabic language (specifically Mesopotamian Arabic); the second most spoken language is Kurdish (mainly Sorani and Kurmanji dialects), followed by the Iraqi Turkmen/Turkoman dialect of Turkish, and many Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialects. [2] [3]
Standard Arabic is written using the Arabic script but Mesopotamian Arabic is written with a modified Perso-Arabic script and so is Kurdish (see Sorani alphabet). In 1997 the Iraqi Turkmen/Turkoman adopted the Turkish alphabet as the formal written language [4] [5] and by 2005 the community leaders decided that the Turkish language would replace traditional Turkmeni (which had used the Arabic script) in Iraqi schools. [6] In addition, the Neo-Aramaic languages use the Syriac script.
Other smaller minority languages include Shabaki and Armenian.
Official languages of Iraq are defined by the Constitution of Iraq, that was adopted on September 18, 2005 by the Transitional National Assembly of Iraq. [7] It was confirmed by constitutional referendum, held on October 15, 2005. [8] Official text of the Constitution was published on December 28, 2005 in the Official Gazette of Iraq (No. 4012), in Arabic original, [9] and thus came into force. The official translation (in English, for international use) was produced in cooperation between Iraqi state authorities and the United Nations' Office for Constitutional Support. [10] [11]
According to the Article 4 of the Constitution, Arabic and Kurdish are the official languages of Iraq, while three other languages: Turkish, Aramaic and Armenian, are recognized as minority languages. In addition, any region or province may declare other languages official if a majority of the population approves in a general referendum. [12]
The oldest recorded languages of Iraq were Sumerian language and Akkadian language (including ancient Assyrian and Babylonian). Sumerian was displaced by Akkadian by 1700 BCE, and Akkadian was gradually displaced by Aramaic, from 1200 BCE to 100 CE. Sumerian and Akkadian (including all ancient Assyrian and Babylonian dialects) were written in the cuneiform script from 3300 BCE onwards. The latest positively identified Akkadian text comes from the first century CE. [13]
The language with the longest recorded period of use in Iraq is Aramaic, which has a written tradition dating back for more than 2000 years, and survives today in its descendants, the Neo-Aramaic languages. [14] [15]
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 Sinai Peninsula, where it has been continually written and spoken in different varieties for over three thousand years.
The Iraqi people are people originating from the country of Iraq.
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.
Kurdish is a group of languages, or a single language, spoken by Kurds in the geo-cultural region of Kurdistan and the Kurdish diaspora. Kurdish varieties constitute a dialect continuum, and many of these varieties are not mutually intelligible, belonging to Western Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. The main three dialects or languages of Kurdish are Northern Kurdish, Central Kurdish, and Southern Kurdish.
Akkadian is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia from the third millennium BC until its gradual replacement in common use by Old Aramaic among Assyrians and Babylonians from the 8th century BC.
The culture of Iraq or the culture of Mesopotamia is one of the world's oldest cultural histories and is considered one of the most influential cultures in the world. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, historically known as Mesopotamia, is often referred to as the cradle of civilisation. Mesopotamian legacy went on to influence and shape the civilizations of the Old World in different ways such as inventing writing, mathematics, law, astrology and many more fields. Iraq is home to diverse ethnic groups who have contributed to the wide spectrum of the Iraqi Culture. The country is known for its poets، architects، painters and sculptors who are among the best in the region, some of them being world-class. The country has one of the longest written traditions in the world including architecture, literature, music, dance, painting, weaving, pottery, calligraphy, stonemasonry and metalworking.
Sorani Kurdish, also known as Central Kurdish, is a Kurdish dialect or a language that is spoken in Iraq, mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the provinces of Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan in western Iran. Sorani is one of the two official languages of Iraq, along with Arabic, and is in administrative documents simply referred to as "Kurdish".
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.
Trans-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic, also known as Hulaulá, is a grouping of related dialects of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic originally spoken by Jews in Iranian Kurdistan and easternmost Iraqi Kurdistan. Most speakers now live in Israel.
Mesopotamian Arabic or Iraqi Arabic is a group of varieties of Arabic spoken in the Mesopotamian basin of Iraq, as well as in Syria, Kuwait, southeastern Turkey, Iran, and Iraqi diaspora communities.
Barzani Jewish Neo-Aramaic is a modern Jewish Aramaic language, often called Neo-Aramaic or Judeo-Aramaic. It was originally spoken in three villages near Aqrah in Iraqi Kurdistan. The native name of the language is Lishanid Janan, which means 'our language', and is similar to names used by other Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects .
Minorities in Iraq include various ethnic and religious groups.
Iraqis are people who originate from the country of Iraq.
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.
Baghdad Jewish Arabic or autonymhaki mal yihud or el-haki malna is the variety of Arabic spoken by the Jews of Baghdad and other towns of Lower Mesopotamia in Iraq. This dialect differs from the North Mesopotamian Arabic spoken by Jews in Upper Mesopotamian cities such as Mosul and Anah. Baghdadi and Northern Mesopotamian are subvarieties of Judeo-Iraqi Arabic.
Arabic is the official language of Syria and is the most widely spoken language in the country. Several modern Arabic dialects are used in everyday life, most notably Levantine in the west and Mesopotamian in the northeast.
In epigraphy, a multilingual inscription is an inscription that includes the same text in two or more languages. A bilingual is an inscription that includes the same text in two languages. Multilingual inscriptions are important for the decipherment of ancient writing systems, and for the study of ancient languages with small or repetitive corpora.
North Mesopotamian Arabic, also known as Moslawi, Mardelli, Mesopotamian Qeltu Arabic, or Syro-Mesopotamian Arabic, is one of the two main varieties of Mesopotamian Arabic, together with Gilit Mesopotamian Arabic.
Old Aramaic refers to the earliest stage of the Aramaic language, known from the Aramaic inscriptions discovered since the 19th century.
Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples or Proto-Semitic people were speakers of Semitic languages who lived throughout the ancient Near East and North Africa, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula and Carthage from the 3rd millennium BC until the end of antiquity, with some, such as Arabs, Arameans, Assyrians, Jews, Mandaeans, and Samaritans having a continuum into the present day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Languages_of_Iraq&action=edit§ion=4
| Official languages | |
|---|---|
| Official minority languages | |
| Other minority languages | |
| Sign languages | |
| Sovereign states |
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| States with limited recognition | |
| Dependencies and other territories | |
