11-07-2013, 06:10 PM
Shlama Akhi,
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
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