Overview

Aramaic has been spoken uninterruptedly for more than 3000 years, yet a generation from now most Aramaic dialects will be extinct. The study of the Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) dialects has increased dramatically in the past decade as linguists seek to record these dialects before the disappearance of their last speakers. This work is a unique documentation of the now extinct Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Challa (modern-day Çukurca, Turkey). It is based on recordings of the last native speaker of the dialect, who passed away in 2007. In addition to a grammatical description, it contains sample texts and a glossary of the dialect. Jewish Challa belongs to the cluster of NENA dialects known as 'lishana deni' and reference is made throughout to other dialects within this group.

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9789004176829

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Reviews

When one arrives at the texts, one encounters a pleasant surprise: the texts [...] are lively and involved tales of life in a country not too unfamiliar and in a time not too long ago-yet a life utterly different than what is familiar to most readers of a book on Neo-Aramaic grammar. [...] In a very impressive feat the original language (most often Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew, Kurdish, or Turkish) of every lexical item is given, together (occasionally) with a brief reference. [... For scholars used to dealing with a stable grammar, encountering the chaos of Shabbo's speech is a humbling experience, and Fasberg is to be commended for bringing it to us. Aaron Koller, Review of Biblical Literature,[http://www.bookreviews.org] (2012)

Author Information

Steven E. Fassberg, Ph.D. (1984) in Semitic Philology, Harvard University, teaches in the Department of Hebrew Language, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has written on Hebrew and Aramaic linguistics including A Grammar of the Palestinian Targum Fragments (Scholars, 1990) and Studies in Biblical Syntax (Magnes, 1994).

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