Die neuaramaischen Dialekte der Khabur-Assyrer in Nordostsyrien: Einfuhrung, Phonologie und Morphologie.

• Author: Kim, Ronald I.
• Position: The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Betanure - Book review

Die neuaramaischen Dialekte der Khabur-Assyrer in Nordostsyrien: Einfuhrung, Phonologie und Morphologie. By SHABO TALAY. Semitica Viva, vol. 40. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2008. Pp. xxix + 479. [euro]98.

The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Betanure (Province of Dihok). By HEZY MUTZAFI. Semitica Viva, vol. 43. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2008. Pp. xix +412. [euro]78.

The extraordinary growth of Modern Aramaic (Neo-Aramaic. NA) studies over the past two decades has led to the rapid appearance of new grammars of previously undocumented varieties. The two volumes under review were both published in the prestigious Semitica Viva series of Harrassowitz, edited by the pioneering Otto Jastrow; both are outstanding, richly documented descriptions of dialects whose speakers were uprooted from their homes during the tumultuous events of the twentieth century.

The volume by Shabo Talay, Privatdozent at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg and a native speaker of the Miden dialect of Turoyo, presents the phonology and morphology of the NA dialects currently spoken along the Khabur River in northeastern Syria. The speakers of these dialects are descended from the so-called Mountain Nestorians who until 1915 inhabited the rugged Hakkari region of what is now southeastern Turkey. As a result of the events of World War I, they were forced to flee their ancestral homes, and, after a long and tortuous interlude in British-controlled Iraq, were allowed to settle in the French mandate of Syria in 1934. The language of these Khabur Assyrians (to use the modern nationalist term for Aramaic-speaking Nestorian Christians) has previously been described by Jacobi (1973), and other scholars have examined individual dialects spoken by descendants of the Mountain Nestorians living elsewhere in the Assyrian diaspora, notably Fox (1997, 2009) on Gilu and Bohtan and Mutzafi (2000) on Maha Xtaya d-Baz; but Talay is the first to carry out a comprehensive study of all the present-day Khabur varieties, based on fieldwork conducted during the years 1997-2005 in Syria and among emigrant communities in Europe and the USA.

After an introductory chapter, including a list of the various names for the Assyrians and their language, a brief history of the Khabur Assyrians and overview of their present-day tribal divisions and villages, and a summary of the main linguistic characteristics, the rest of the volume is devoted to the phonology and morphology of the Khabur NA dialects. Section II (phonology) includes chapters on consonants, vowels (including syllable structure), and word stress, while section III (morphology) treats pronouns (including the copula), verbs, nouns, adjectives, numerals, and prepositions and adverbs. The book closes with a lengthy bibliography, to which constant reference is made throughout the historical and grammatical presentations.

Talay admirably handles the challenge of presenting data from some three dozen local varieties in a coherent and logical manner, with clear explanation of interdialectal relations and diachronic developments from Middle Aramaic (MidAr.). Because the Assyrian settlements along the Khabur were organized along original tribal and clan lines, the study of their dialects offers the possibility of recovering, at least in part, the linguistic situation in the Hakkari region prior to 1915. However, the Hakkari Assyrians' history of flight and resettlement, both voluntary and forced, must have resulted in at least some degree of dialect mixture during the two decades after 1915, and it is only to be expected that contact among neighboring villages on the Khabur since the 1930s has led to further diffusion and leveling. The relationship among the Hakkari/Khabur NA dialects is thus a complicated one, reflecting the geography of both the original settlements and the present-day villages, as well as contact-induced mixing and leveling. Although Talay does not explore these problems in detail, his description of the Khabur dialects constantly refers to tribal affiliation, distinguishing among the dialect clusters spoken by the Upper and Lower Tiyari, Txuma, and Sammesdin tribes, as well as the "Hakkari" cluster (a kind of "grab bag" category) and the outlying dialects of Halmun and Lewen. (Pace p. 53, there is no evidence that either has influenced the...