Hertevin is a dialect of

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 ...

originally spoken by

Chaldean Catholics Chaldean Catholics () ( syr, ܟܲܠܕܵܝܹ̈ܐ ܩܲܬܘܿܠܝܼܩܵܝܹ̈ܐ), also known as Chaldeans (, ''Kaldāyē''), Chaldo-Assyrians or Assyro-Chaldeans, are modern Assyrian adherents of the Chaldean Catholic Church, which originates fr ...

in a cluster of villages in

Siirt Province Siirt Province, ( tr, , ku, Parêzgeha Sêrtê) is a province of Turkey, located in the southeast. The province borders Bitlis to the north, Batman to the west, Mardin to the southwest, Şırnak to the south, and Van to the east. It has an ar ...

in southeastern

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. 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 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 Rust ...

.THE STORY OF MEM U ZINE IN THE NEO-ARAMAIC DIALECT OF BOHTAN SE Fox - … LINGUISTICS PRESENTED TO GENE B. GRAGG, 2007 https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/saoc60.pdf#page=97 Hertevin also shares many similarities with

Turoyo Turoyo ( syr, ܛܘܪܝܐ) (''Ṭūr ‘Abdinian Aramaic''), also referred to as modern Surayt ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܬ), or modern Suryoyo ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܝܐ), is a Central Neo-Aramaic language traditionally spoken in the Tur Abdin region in southeaste ...

Origins

Hértevin was 'discovered' by linguist Otto Jastrow in 1970, and first described in publication by him two years later. His recordings of the language are available o
Heidelberg University's Semitic Sound Archive
The speakers of the Hértevin dialect of Neo-Aramaic are traditionally

. Their area of habitation in and around the village of Hertevin (called Hertevinler in

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 ...

and Härtəvən in

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

), near the town of Pervari in

is at the very northeastern extreme of the area where Eastern Neo-Aramaic languages were traditionally spoken. Thus, Hértevin is a peripheral dialect that has developed quite differently from related languages. All Hértevin speakers are bilingual in

, and many also speak other languages. The

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 ...

is used for writing, but almost no literature in the Hértevin dialect exists. Church liturgy is in

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

Phonology

Its major phonetic feature is the loss of the

voiceless velar fricative The voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English, e.g. in ''loc ...

''x'', which has become a

voiceless pharyngeal fricative The voiceless pharyngeal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is an h-bar, , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is X\. In the transc ...

, ''ħ''. The original voiceless pharyngeal fricative has retained that pronunciation. In all the other dialects of eastern Neo-Aramaic the opposite is true: the voiceless pharyngeal fricative has been lost and merged with the voiceless velar fricative. /x/ does occur in loanwords to Hertevin. The [] and [] that occur in some other dialects of NENA merged back to [t] and [d]. Another feature of Hértevin Neo-Aramaic is its set of demonstratives. As with other languages of the eastern group, Hértevin makes no distinction between 'this' and 'that', and uses a single set of

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not co ...

s to cover both meanings: āwa (m. sg.), āya (f. sg.) and āni (pl.). However, unlike the other languages, Hértevin has developed an emphatic form of these pronouns that indicates 'this one right here': ōhā, ēhā and anhī. Although belonging to the eastern, or northeastern, group of Neo-Aramaic dialects, Hértevin shares some features with the

Turoyo language Turoyo ( syr, ܛܘܪܝܐ) (''Ṭūr ‘Abdinian Aramaic''), also referred to as modern Surayt ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܬ), or modern Suryoyo ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܝܐ), is a Central Neo-Aramaic language traditionally spoken in the Tur Abdin region in southeaste ...

, of the central group, originating from nearby

Mardin Province Mardin Province ( tr, Mardin ili; ku, Parêzgeha Mêrdînê; ar, محافظة ماردين) is a province of Turkey with a population of 809,719 in 2017, slightly down from the population of 835,173 in 2000. Kurds form the majority of the popu ...

. * They are phonetically noted as long sounds * and are phonetically slightly lowered as and . * can be raised to when preceding a pharyngeal , and an unstressed can be heard as a more front when preceding.

References

External links

Semitisches Tonarchiv: Dokumentgruppe "Aramäisch/Neuostaramäisch (christl.)" (text in German)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hertevin Language Eastern Aramaic languages Christian Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialects Languages of Turkey Endangered Afroasiatic languages Languages of Kurdistan

Origins

Phonology

See also

References

Further reading

External links