Everything about Lishana Deni totally explained
Lishana Deni is a modern
Jewish
Aramaic language, often called
Neo-Aramaic or
Judeo-Aramaic. It was originally spoken in the town of
Zakho and its surrounding villages in northern
Iraq, on the border with
Turkey. Most speakers now live in and around
Jerusalem. The name
Lishana Deni means 'our language', and is similar to names used by other Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects (
Lishan Didan,
Lishanid Noshan). Other popular names for the language are
Lishan Hozaye, 'the language of the Jews', and
Kurdit, 'Kurdish'. Scholarly sources tend simply to refer to Lishana Deni as
Zakho Jewish Neo-Aramaic.
Origin and use today
Various Neo-Aramaic dialects were spoken across a wide area from the
Zakho region, in the west, to
Lake Urmia, in the northeast to
Sanandaj, in the southeast (the are covers northern
Iraq and northwestern
Iran). However, there's very little intelligibility between Lishana Deni and the other Jewish dialects. On the other hand, there's quite reasonable intelligibility between it and the Christian Neo-Aramaic dialects spoken in the region. The Christian dialect of
Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is closest to Lishana Deni, followed by the less intelligible
Ashiret dialects of
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic. Like other Judaeo-Aramaic dialects,
Lishana Deni is sometimes called
Targumic, due to the long tradition of translating the
Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, and the production of
targums.
The upheavals in their traditional region after the
First World War and the founding of the State of
Israel led most of the Jews of Kurdistan to move to Jerusalem. However, uprooted from northern Iraq, and thrown together with so many different language groups in the fledgling nation, Lishana Deni began to be replaced in the speech of younger generations by
Modern Hebrew. Fewer than 8,000 people are known to speak Lishana Deni, and all of them are over 50 years old. The language faces extinction in the next few decades.
Lishana Deni is written in the
Hebrew alphabet. Spelling tends to be highly phonetic, and elided letters are not written.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Lishana Deni'.
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