Lishana Deni

Lishana Deni is a modern Jewish Aramaic language, often called Neo-Aramaic or Judeo-Aramaic. It was originally spoken in the town of Zakho and its surrounding villages in northern Iraq, on the border with Turkey. Most speakers now live in and around Jerusalem. The name Lishana Deni means 'our language', and is similar to names used by other Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects (Lishan Didan, Lishanid Noshan). Other popular names for the language are Lishan Hozaye, 'the language of the Jews', and Kurdit, 'Kurdish'. Scholarly sources tend simply to refer to Lishana Deni as Zakho Jewish Neo-Aramaic.

Origin and use today

Various Neo-Aramaic dialects were spoken across a wide area from the Zakho region, in the west, to Lake Urmia, in the northeast to Sanandaj, in the southeast (the are covers northern Iraq and northwestern Iran). However, there is very little intelligibility between Lishana Deni and the other Jewish dialects. On the other hand, there is quite reasonable intelligibility between it and the Christian Neo-Aramaic dialects spoken in the region. The Christian dialect of Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is closest to Lishana Deni, and the less intelligible Ashiret dialects of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic. The language is sometimes called Targumic, due to the long tradition of translating the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, and the production of targums.

The upheavals in their traditional region after the First World War and the founding of the State of Israel led most of the Jews of Kurdistan to move to Jerusalem. However, uprooted from northern Iraq, and thrown together with so many different language groups in the fledgling nation, Lishana Deni began to be replaced in the speech of younger generations by Modern Hebrew. Fewer than 8,000 people are known to speak Lishana Deni, and all of them are over 50 years old. The language faces extinction in the next few decades.

Lishana Deni is written in the Hebrew alphabet. Spelling tends to be highly phonetic, and elided letters are not written.

References

• Heinrichs, Wolfhart (ed.) (1990). Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Scholars Press: Atlanta, Georgia. ISBN 1–55540–430–8.
• Maclean, Arthur John (1895). Grammar of the dialects of vernacular Syriac: as spoken by the Eastern Syrians of Kurdistan, north-west Persia, and the Plain of Mosul: with notices of the vernacular of the Jews of Azerbaijan and of Zakhu near Mosul. Cambridge University Press, London.
• Sabar, Yona (1975). The impact of Israeli Hebrew on the Neo-Aramaic dialect of the Kurdish Jews of Zakho: a case of language shift. Hebrew Union College Annual 46:489–508.

See also

• Aramaic language
• Jewish languages
• Aramaic alphabet

External links

• Ethnologue report for Lishana Deni.