The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Koy Sanjaq (Iraqi Kurdistan).

• Author: Sabar, Yona
• Position: Book review

The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Koy Sanjaq (Iraqi Kurdistan). By HEZY MUTZAFI. Semitica Viva, vol. 32. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2004. Pp. xviii + 260. [euro]58 (paper).

In the last ten years or so two scholars, Geoffrey Khan and Hezy Mutzafi, have devoted almost their entire academic energy to the study of individual Christian and Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects that are not only on the verge of disappearance, but are also the least known. Their efforts have resulted in fine monographs that are thorough, in-depth, and comprehensive: G. Khan, A Grammar of Neo-Aramaic: The Dialect of the Jews of Arbel (Leiden, 1999), The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Qaraqosh (Leiden, 2002), and The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Sulemaniyya and Halabja (Leiden, 2004). This volume by Mutzafi follows fine articles on grammatical aspects of various dialects (e.g., "Barzani Jewish Neo-Aramaic and its Dialects," Mediterranean Language Review 14 [2002]), which we hope might turn into monographs as well. The present monograph is based on a Hebrew doctoral dissertation (Tel-Aviv University, 2000), translated into English, with some necessary bibliographical updating, revision, and modification.

The introduction includes a brief history of Koy Sanjaq (KS) and its Jewish community. The town's name, "Banner's Village," was given to it after an Ottoman army camped there (1623?). The present population is over 70,000, practically all Muslims, with only 142 (Neo-Aramaic-speaking) Chaldean Christians. The (Neo-Aramaic-speaking) Jewish community left for Israel in the early 1950s together with the rest of the Jews of Iraq. Mutzafi does not mention any numbers for the Jewish community, but according to Abraham Ben-Yaacob, Kurdistan Jewish Communities (Jerusalem, 1980), 101-3, there were seventy Jewish families there in 1948, 120 in 1884, and, according to the official 1930 census, 302 Aramaic-speaking Jews.

It seems that KS once had a thriving Jewish community, materially and spiritually, including Hakhamim (= Rabbis), who authored several books, such as Moshe and Abraham Hariri (Ben-Yaacob, 102-3). Mutzafi mentions a manuscript authored by a certain Yosef, son of Yahuda, brought by the community to Israel, which includes hymns, homilies, and prayers, as well as some "archaic" Neo-Aramaic translations, etc. A colophon in Hebrew from 1771 mentions the Turkish ruler: "... our master, the mighty king Sultan Mustafa, may his kingdom prosper ..." The occupations of the Jewish men...