Garshuni or Karshuni (

Syriac alphabet The Syriac alphabet ( ) is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language since the 1st century AD. It is one of the Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet, and shares similarities with ...

: , Arabic alphabet: ) are

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

writings using the Syriac alphabet. The word "Garshuni", derived from the word "grasha" which literally translates as "pulling", was used by

George Kiraz George Anton Kiraz ( syr, ܓܘܪܓܝ ܒܪ ܐܢܛܘܢ ܕܒܝܬ ܟܝܪܐܙ; born 1965) is a Syriac engineer and entrepreneur, best known for his contribution to modern Syriac studies. Biography George Kiraz was born in Bethlehem to a Syriac Orth ...

to coin the term "garshunography", denoting the writing of one language in the script of another.

History

Garshuni originated in the seventh century, when Arabic was becoming the dominant spoken language in the

Fertile Crescent The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...

, but the Arabic alphabet was not yet fully developed. There is evidence that writing Arabic in Garshuni influenced the style of modern Arabic script. After this initial period, Garshuni writing has continued to the present day among some

Syriac Christian Syriac Christianity ( syr, ܡܫܝܚܝܘܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ / ''Mšiḥoyuṯo Suryoyto'' or ''Mšiḥāyūṯā Suryāytā'') is a distinctive branch of Eastern Christianity, whose formative theological writings and traditional liturgies are expr ...

communities in the Arabic-speaking regions of the

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...

and

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

, who commonly use the Sertâ script.

Characteristics

The

has three principal varieties: * Estrangelâ (the Classical Syriac script), * Madnhâyâ (the Eastern Syriac script, often called "Assyrian" or "

Nestorian Nestorianism is a term used in Christian theology and Church history to refer to several mutually related but doctrinarily distinct sets of teachings. The first meaning of the term is related to the original teachings of Christian theologian N ...

"), * Sertâ (the Western Syriac script, often called " Jacobite" or "

Maronite The Maronites ( ar, الموارنة; syr, ܡܖ̈ܘܢܝܐ) are a Christian ethnoreligious group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and Levant region of the Middle East, whose members traditionally belong to the Maronite Church, with the larges ...

"). The Syriac alphabet is extended by use of

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

s to write Arabic Garshuni. Garshuni-in-Serto

Similarities

Occasionally, other languages such as

Turkish Turkish may refer to: *a Turkic language spoken by the Turks * of or about Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities and mi ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, Sogdian, the

Kurdish languages Kurdish (, ) is a language or a group of languages spoken by Kurds in the geo-cultural region of Kurdistan and the Kurdish diaspora. Kurdish constitutes a dialect continuum, belonging to Western Iranian languages in the Indo-European language ...

and

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

have been written in the Syriac alphabet, and these are sometimes also referred to as "Garshunis". With several additional characters, the Malayalam version is better known as

Karsoni Suriyani Malayalam (സുറിയാനി മലയാളം, ܣܘܪܝܢܝ ܡܠܝܠܡ), also known as Karshoni, Syro-Malabarica or Syriac Malayalam, is a dialect of Malayalam written in a variant form of the Syriac alphabet which was popular ...

and had been in use till early 20th century among the Keralite Syriac Christian clergymen and followers. For the analogous Jewish practice of writing Arabic in Hebrew letters, see

Judeo-Arabic languages Judeo-Arabic dialects (, ; ; ) are ethnolects formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Under the ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, encomp ...

. Today, Assyrians use the word 'garshuni' when referring to a spoken language written using something other than its corresponding script, i.e. spoken Assyrian written using Latin script.

Bibliography

*Briquel-Chatonnet, F., “De l'intérêt de l'étude du garshouni et des manuscrits écrits selon ce système” in: L’Orient chrétien dans l’empire musulman: Hommage au professeur

Gérard Troupeau Gérard Troupeau (1927 – 15 December 2010, Tours) was a French scholar agrégé of Arabic, a professor at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales from 1961 to 1990, and director of studies of Arabic philology at the École p ...

(Studia arabica III). Versailles: Editions de Paris, 2005, pp. 463–475. *Briquel-Chatonnet, F.; Desreumaux, A.; Binggeli, A., “Un cas très ancien de garshouni? Quelques réflexions sur le manuscrit BL Add. 14644” in: P. G. Borbone, A. Mengozzi, M. Tosco (éds.), Loquentes linguis. Studi linguistici e orientali in onore di Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006, pp. 141–147. *Mengozzi, A.
“The History of Garshuni as a Writing System: Evidence from the Rabbula Codex”
in: F. M. Fales & G. F. Grassi (eds), CAMSEMUD 2007. Proceedings of the 13th Italian Meeting of Afro-Asiatic Linguistics, held in Udine, May 21–24, 2007, Padova: S.A.R.G.O.N. Editrice e Libreria, 2010, pp. 297–304. *Mingana, A., “Garshūni or Karshūni?” in: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1928) 891–893. *Morozov, D.A., “Garshuni: Syriac script in Christian Arabic texts” (in Russian: “Karshuni: Sirijskaja pisjmennostj v arabo-hristianskih tekstah”) in: 5-je chtenija pamiati N. F. Kaptereva: Rossija i pravoslavnyj Vostok (Moscow, 30-31 Oct. 2007). Moscow, 2007, pp. 70–72. *Ram, H., Qiṣṣat Mar Eliĭa (Die Legende vom Hl. Elias). Als Beitrag zur Kenntnis der arabischen Vulgar-Dialekte Mesopotamiens nach der Handschrift Kod. Sachau 15 der Konigl. Bibliothek zu Berlin herausgegeben, ubersetzt und mit einer Schriftlehre versehen. Inaugural-Dissertation. Leipzig, 1906. *Seleznyov, Nikolai N., “Un clerc syro-occidental d’Arfad et le métropolitain de Jérusalem, de l’Église de l’Orient: Le livre “De l’unanimité de la foi” et sa recension en garshuni" (in Russian: “Zapadnosirijskij knizhnik iz Afrada i ijerusalimskij mitropolit Cerkvi Vostoka: “Kniga obschnosti very” i jejo rukopisnaja redakcija na karshuni") in
Symbol 58: Syriaca et Arabica
Paris-Moscow, 2010, pp. 34–87 (text in Garshuni: pp. 45–72).

References

External links

Commentary on Pentateuch(Torah) / Manuscript on Garshuni

"The Unique Explanation of the Secrets'
is a manuscript in Garshuni, dating back to 1740 *
Garshuni works at the World Digital LibrarySyriac–Garshuni glossary
{{Arabic language Syriac alphabet Syriac Christianity Arabic language