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O.T and N.T. Aramaic
#16
Incidentally, Akhi - Qrb is used heavily in modern eastern Neo-Aramaic for not only immediate relatives, but also for people like the best man/woman at the wedding. Or even godparents.

Also, Xm is also used extensively in the Hakkari group (Ashiret tribes) as "remember" in our Neo dialects. My own included. My own mother used to say "pkhem ly" (I remembered)

I can guarantee you we have nothing to do with any area west of the Euphrates. <!-- sWink --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/wink1.gif" alt="Wink" title="Wink" /><!-- sWink -->

+Shamasha

Ps. How did you know the old English phrase was a poem ? From one stanza I mean? The meaning is: "he first created for the children of men" from C?dmon's Hymn
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#17
SteveCaruso Wrote:... if you can get past the extremely plene and unorthodox orthography...

I can't. Which is one reason I never bothered to study it (the other, admittedly, is because we consider them unorthodox in person as well as in speech). <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->

This is one dialect (and even their own alphabet) that I would agree with Distazo that it's more akin to Italian vs Spanish. Their speech is that odd to every other group of Aramaic speakers.

+Shamasha
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#18
Paul Younan Wrote:I knew that must've been something you constructed from scratch. I've never read or heard conversational Aramaic of any variety quite that way.

I'm a way, you've accomplished what the authors of things like the Zohar did. A purely literary tongue in a way.

Here's the funny thing, though: It *is* conversational Western Aramaic. It really has quite a different "feel" (grammatically and otherwise) compared to other classical dialects. It's also the reason why Galileans were treated with contempt over their "sloppy" language in Talmud Bavli and why Galilean manuscripts were "corrected" by scribes entrusted with their preservation who were familiar with Eastern Aramaic dialects. I've been told by more than one person that examples I've given "aren't Aramaic" at all, but when I've referred them to conversational examples from, say, Talmud Yerushalemi (or that it *was* a direct quote from Talmud Yerushalemi as one case was) there has been quite a bit of surprise.

Paul Younan Wrote:My Aramaic challenge above is constructed by myself as well. But you would find it readily in one particular dialect, with two idioms unique to it. Dictionaries of any kind will not help.

+Shamasha

Once I'm back in my office and have time to sit down and give it a proper look, I'm going to have at it. Today is proving far busier than I thought. :-)

.
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#19
Paul Younan Wrote:AYT X) $WYX) D'L)MSH PL+ RY$) MN MNY) DSWT) W(YMN MLYL) KSH )XL RY$HDYH

Alrighty. Relaxing with a snack and let's see. Assuming Syriac orthography I'm going to have at this.

Neo-Aramaic dialects are far from my fort?. :-)

AYT - There is
X) - one
$WYX) - "melting?" from $WX (to melt)? - buggered if this one is in my working vocabulary
D'L)MSH - D-L-MSY - MSY is "to melt" or "condense" but I do not know its nuance in Aphel (if that's what it is).
PL+ - escape, remove, dislocate
RY$) - the head
MN - from
MNY) - count
DSWT) - D-SWH - of - joyful(s)? desireable(s)? (from SWY?)
W(YMN - W-(M-N - and with us? Not feeling this one. Then again, it could be that it's 2:30 AM.
MLYL) - it is said
KSH - KS-H - his cup
)XL - ate
RY$HDYH - his chief leader?

Ugh, the only thing I could somewhat confidently piece together is "There is one [???] remove the head/best from the multitude of desirables, and with us it is said 'His cup ate his chief leader?'"

The only pun I can readily guess is the one between RY$) and RY$HDYH.

That portion I can't wrap my head around is probably crucial and not being able to look at a dictionary or lexicon is bugging the heck out of me. Please share the translation and analysis! :-)

.
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#20
And I didn't even notice these two replies until just now:

Paul Younan Wrote:Incidentally, Akhi - Qrb is used heavily in modern eastern Neo-Aramaic for not only immediate relatives, but also for people like the best man/woman at the wedding. Or even godparents.

Also, Xm is also used extensively in the Hakkari group (Ashiret tribes) as "remember" in our Neo dialects. My own included. My own mother used to say "pkhem ly" (I remembered)

I can guarantee you we have nothing to do with any area west of the Euphrates. <!-- sWink --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/wink1.gif" alt="Wink" title="Wink" /><!-- sWink -->

That's interesting to note, as in Classical dialects the divide is pretty firm. Perhaps it's an influence from Arabic? I'd have to check that.

Paul Younan Wrote:Ps. How did you know the old English phrase was a poem ? From one stanza I mean? The meaning is: "he first created for the children of men" from C?dmon's Hymn

Since about 80% of Old English that survives to present day is poetry, it's a pretty good chance. :-)

Paul Younan Wrote:
SteveCaruso Wrote:... if you can get past the extremely plene and unorthodox orthography...

I can't. Which is one reason I never bothered to study it (the other, admittedly, is because we consider them unorthodox in person as well as in speech). <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->

This is one dialect (and even their own alphabet) that I would agree with Distazo that it's more akin to Italian vs Spanish. Their speech is that odd to every other group of Aramaic speakers.

Indeed, the Mandaeans are quite "unorthodox" in many senses with a very unique faith and philosophy. Sadly, with the violence over in the middle east, many of them have immigrated to the US, and mostly lost the use of their own language to the point that Neo-Mandaic dialects have a great deal of variance in pronunciation. I'm presently working on an NEH grant with Rutgers to translate their Book of John into English for the first time, and it's quite fascinating to see the similarities intermingled with the differences.

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#21
Shlama Akhi,

SteveCaruso Wrote:That's interesting to note, as in Classical dialects the divide is pretty firm. Perhaps it's an influence from Arabic? I'd have to check that.

I can assure you it's not an influence from Arabic, since the Ashiret tribes ( I belong to one, the Tkhuma ) are from Hakkari in Turkey, and our neo-Aramaic dialects are far more influenced by Kurdish and Turkish loan-words. For the various Chaldean dialects (from Iraq, for example) there is a lot more influence from Arabic. And likewise, the Urmian family of dialects (from Iran) are influenced by Persian loan words.

Please take this as constructive criticism, intended in a spirit of love: there is an old addage that I think applies well here, when discussing your approach to cataloging these various dialects. The addage goes something like:

"Absence of evidence, is not evidence of absence."

Just because you haven't found any "Classical Syriac" usage of q-r-b to mean "relative", or "x-m" to mean "remember"... in the extant manuscripts (the overwhelming majority of which remain uncatalogued and untranslated to this day, I've examined the Voobus collection at the University of Chicago with Prof. Saadi) does not mean that it was not used as such during the time. The fact that Neo-Aramaic dialects which descend from "Classical Syriac" make use of these terms strongly indicates that, indeed, the meaning has been contiguous throughout the centuries.

"Men Yad" may very well be a distinctly "western" Aramaic idiom, as I had not seen or understood it (and, idioms are very regional-centered), but certainly the usages of q-r-b (relative) and x-m (recall) aren't "western" anomalies at all, and would be understood by any modern eastern neo-Aramaic speaker.

+Shamasha
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#22
SteveCaruso Wrote:
Paul Younan Wrote:AYT X) $WYX) D'L)MSH PL+ RY$) MN MNY) DSWT) W(YMN MLYL) KSH )XL RY$HDYH

Alrighty. Relaxing with a snack and let's see. Assuming Syriac orthography I'm going to have at this.

Neo-Aramaic dialects are far from my fort?. :-)

AYT - There is
X) - one
$WYX) - "melting?" from $WX (to melt)? - buggered if this one is in my working vocabulary
D'L)MSH - D-L-MSY - MSY is "to melt" or "condense" but I do not know its nuance in Aphel (if that's what it is).
PL+ - escape, remove, dislocate
RY$) - the head
MN - from
MNY) - count
DSWT) - D-SWH - of - joyful(s)? desireable(s)? (from SWY?)
W(YMN - W-(M-N - and with us? Not feeling this one. Then again, it could be that it's 2:30 AM.
MLYL) - it is said
KSH - KS-H - his cup
)XL - ate
RY$HDYH - his chief leader?

Ugh, the only thing I could somewhat confidently piece together is "There is one [???] remove the head/best from the multitude of desirables, and with us it is said 'His cup ate his chief leader?'"

The only pun I can readily guess is the one between RY$) and RY$HDYH.

That portion I can't wrap my head around is probably crucial and not being able to look at a dictionary or lexicon is bugging the heck out of me. Please share the translation and analysis! :-)

.

Shlama Akhi,

First off, very well done. You correctly recognized that this is from a neo-Aramaic dialect. Secondly, your identification of the subject, verb and object in both phrases is awesome. Thirdly, you were spot on not only with the identification of the source of the pun, but also in many of the definitions of the words.

I'm not sure any dictionary would have been able to help you with the nuances of this particular dialect, since it diverges significantly from modern "koine" Aramaic that is used when tribes of various affiliations want to communicate in a standard way. Additionally, no dictionary would have been able to assist with the two very distinct idioms present in no other Aramaic family.

I wanted you to know that this sentence was about me. It is how I felt after having more food than I should have eaten that night, and also dealing with a lack of self worth due to not readily understanding your challenge. Following is the translation (broken up into phrases):

"Ayt kha shweekha" (there is an idiot)

"d'lamseh" (who is unable to) (think of it as an aggregation of: d'la mishkah in classical Syriac. Neo-Aramaic aggregates a lot)

"pale+ reesha men" (literally "pull the head from", an idiom meaning "comprehend")

"manaya d'sawtha" (literally, "meaning of the saying", an idiom meaning, well, "the idiom")

"w'eman" (and when)

"maleela" ( he fills )

"kaseh" (his stomach)

"akhel reeshediye" (literally, "he eats his own head", an idiom meaning "he is a glutton")

+Shamasha
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