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Neo-Aramaic
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 (western and eastern), three (western, central and eastern) or four (western, central, northeastern and southeastern) primary groups. In terms of sociolinguistics, Neo-Aramaic languages are also classified by various ethnolinguistic and religiolinguistic criteria, spanning across ethnic and religious lines, and encompassing groups that adhere to Christianity, Judaism, Mandeism and Islam. Christian Neo-Aramaic languages have long co-existed with Classical Syriac as a literary and liturgical language of Syriac Christianity. Since Classical Syriac and similar archaic forms, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northeastern Neo-Aramaic
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 Christians between the Tigris and Lake Urmia, stretching north to Lake Van and southwards to Mosul and Kirkuk. As a result of the Sayfo (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. The other branches of Neo-Aramaic are Western Neo-Aramaic, Central Neo-Aramaic (Turoyo and Mlahso), and Mandaic. Some linguists classify NENA as well as Turoyo and Mlahso as a sing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Neo-Aramaic
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 (modern southeastern Turkey and northeastern 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. Within Aramaic studies, several alternative groupings of Neo-Aramaic languages had been proposed by different researchers, and some of those groupings have used the term ''Central Neo-Aramaic'' in a wider meaning, including the widest scope, referring to all Neo-Aramaic languages except for Western Neo-Aramaic and Neo-Mandaic. Definition The narrower definition of the term "''Central Neo-Aramaic languages''" includes only the Turoyo and M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Neo-Aramaic
Western Neo-Aramaic (), more commonly referred to as Siryon ( "Syrian"), is a modern Western Aramaic languages, Western Aramaic language. Today, it is only spoken in three villages – Maaloula, Al-Sarkha (Bakhah), Bakhah and Jubb'adin – in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains of western Syria. Western Neo-Aramaic is believed to be the closest modern language, living language to the Language of Jesus, language of Jesus, whose first language, according to scholarly consensus, was Western Aramaic; all other remaining Neo-Aramaic languages are of the Eastern Aramaic languages, Eastern branch. Distribution and history Western Neo-Aramaic is probably the last surviving remnant of a Aramaic language#Middle Aramaic, Western Middle Aramaic dialect which was spoken throughout the Orontes River Valley area and into the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in the 6th century. It now is spoken solely by the villagers of Maaloula, Jubb'adin and Al-Sarkha (Bakhah), Bakh'a, about northeast of Damascus. The continua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aramaic Language
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 in the ancient region of Syria. For over three thousand years, It is a sub-group of the Semitic languages. Aramaic varieties served as a language of public life and administration of ancient kingdoms and empires and also as a language of divine worship and religious study. Several modern varieties, namely the Neo-Aramaic languages, are still spoken in the present-day. The Aramaic languages belong to the Northwest group of the Semitic language family, which also includes the Canaanite languages such as Hebrew, Edomite, Moabite, and Phoenician, as well as Amorite and Ugaritic. Aramaic languages are written in the Aramaic alphabet, a descendant of the Phoenician alphabet, and the most prominent alphabet variant is the Syriac alphabet. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classical Syriac
The Syriac language (; syc, / '), also known as Syriac Aramaic (''Syrian Aramaic'', ''Syro-Aramaic'') and Classical Syriac ܠܫܢܐ ܥܬܝܩܐ (in its literary and liturgical form), is an Aramaic dialect that emerged during the first century AD from a local Aramaic dialect that was spoken by Arameans in the ancient Aramean kingdom 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 ce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 border, the east, the Persian Gulf and Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to Iraq–Jordan border, the southwest and Syria to Iraq–Syria border, the west. The Capital city, capital and largest city is Baghdad. Iraq is home to diverse ethnic groups including Iraqi Arabs, Kurds, Iraqi Turkmen, Turkmens, Assyrian people, Assyrians, Armenians in Iraq, Armenians, Yazidis, Mandaeans, Iranians in Iraq, Persians and Shabaks, Shabakis with similarly diverse Geography of Iraq, geography and Wildlife of Iraq, wildlife. The vast majority of the country's 44 million residents are Muslims – the notable other faiths are Christianity in Iraq, Christianity, Yazidism, Mandaeism, Yarsanism and Zoroastrianism. The official langu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aramaic Studies
Aramaic studies are scientific studies of the Aramaic languages and cultural history of Arameans. As a specific field within Semitic studies, Aramaic studies are closely related to similar disciplines, like Hebraic studies and Arabic studies. As a distinctive academic discipline, Aramaic studies started to develop during the Early Modern period, and they were initially focused on the study of the Christianity, Christian Aramaic heritage, embodied in Syriac language and cultural traditions of Syriac Christianity. The field was gradually widened, and by the 19th century expanded towards studies of ancient Aramaic heritage, that included all of the oldest (pre-Christian) variety (linguistics), varieties of Aramaic languages, and ancient Aramaic alphabet. On the other side, the field was also expanded towards modern periods, focused on the study of the remaining Neo-Aramaic languages, and modern cultural heritage of Neo-Aramaic communities. During the 19th century, Aramaic studies we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semitic Languages
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, 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. Semitic languages occur in written form from a very early historical date in West Asia, with East Semitic Akkadian and Eblaite texts (written in a script adapted from Sumerian cuneiform) appearing from the 30th century BCE and the 25th century BCE in Mesopotamia and the north eastern Levant respectively. The only earlier attested languages are Sumerian and Elamite (2800 BCE to 550 BCE), both language isolates, and Egyptian (a sister branch of the Afroasiatic family, related to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neo-Mandaic
Neo-Mandaic, sometimes called the "''ratna''" ( ar, رطنة ''raṭna'' "jargon"), is the modern reflex of the Mandaic language, the liturgical language of the Mandaean religious community of Iraq and Iran. Although severely endangered, it survives today as the first language of a small number of Mandaeans (possibly as few as 100–200 speakers) in Iran and in the Mandaean diaspora. All Neo-Mandaic speakers are multilingual in the languages of their neighbors, Arabic and Persian, and the influence of these languages upon the grammar of Neo-Mandaic is considerable, particularly in the lexicon and the morphology of the noun. Nevertheless, Neo-Mandaic is more conservative even in these regards than most other Neo-Aramaic languages. General information Neo-Mandaic (ISO 639-3: mid) represents the latest stage of the development of Classical Mandaic, a language of the Middle East which was first attested during the period of Late Antiquity and which continues to be used to the pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 Turkmenistan to the north, by Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east, and by the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. It covers an area of , making it the 17th-largest country. Iran has a population of 86 million, making it the 17th-most populous country in the world, and the second-largest in the Middle East. Its largest cities, in descending order, are the capital Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz, and Tabriz. The country is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, beginning with the formation of the Elamite kingdoms in the fourth millennium BC. It was first unified by the Medes, an ancient Iranian people, in the seventh century BC, and reached its territorial height in the sixth century BC, when Cyrus the Great fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It is a unitary republic that consists of 14 governorates (subdivisions), and is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east and southeast, Jordan to the south, and Israel and Lebanon to the southwest. Cyprus lies to the west across the Mediterranean Sea. A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including the majority Syrian Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Assyrians, Armenians, Circassians, Albanians, and Greeks. Religious groups include Muslims, Christians, Alawites, Druze, and Yazidis. The capital and largest city of Syria is Damascus. Arabs are the largest ethnic group, and Mu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mandaic Language
Mandaic is a southeastern Aramaic variety in use by the Mandaean community, traditionally based in southern parts of Iraq and southwest Iran, 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 in the southern Iranian Khuzestan province. Liturgical use of Classical Mandaic is found in Iran (particularly the southern portions of the country), in Baghdad, Iraq and in the diaspora (particularly in the United States, Sweden, Australia and Germany). 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 AkkadianStephen A. Kaufman, ''The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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