Greek-isms???????

[Lars Lindgren]

Shlama lakh Akhan Lars,

How are you? I miss seeing you guys on Sundays! I pray all is well in Sweden.

Your point is well taken. For decades we've had a word in Neo-Aramaic for "television", prass khizwa (from khza,
to behold) .... unfortunately, in most households you'll still hear the English loan-word "telefizion." Ditto for Radio, which should be "prass qala", etc.

The problem primarily stems from the lack of a central language authority, schools and of course the status of a national language.

It's much easier for someone to transliterate a foreign word into Aramaic than to actually try and think of cognate roots that can be constructed from the native tongue to convey the same idea.

Sometimes, like in my Mother's case - "Garson" is just how she preferred to say "waiter" instead of the more appropriate Aramaic "Shaqya" ("cup-bearer")

Once a loan-word takes hold in a language, it's very difficult to remove.

Nevertheless, the mere presence of loan words in a text is a very weak evidence for determining the original language of that text. That goes for Aramaic loan-words in the Greek manuscripts as well. Far more convincing are examples that are derived from Syntax or Idiom.

+Shamasha Paul

Shlama lokh Shamasha Paul,

Basima spai iwen. Op akhnan mokhniewekh menokhon. Akhnokhon hamasha iweton al balan. Qam awilen khda brata shlita surta. Qasha Klutz itle shiklo.

Please excuse any errors as I'm still struggling to learn :-)

Whenever I discover a Neo-Aramaic word for something that I know my wife or her family uses a loan-word for, I try my best to remind them to try and use the Aramaic word instead. And usually they are very happy to learn that there actually is an Aramaic word they can use instead of the loan-word. But some things are hard to change, like saying press khizwa instead of TV.

Also, it can be pretty amusing sometimes when assyrians here in Sweden pick up Swedish words and by accident use them while talking to their relatives in for example America och Australia.

Shlama,
Lars