Hulaula language
| Hulaulá | |
|---|---|
| יהודיותא Hûla'ûlā, לשנא נשן Lišānā Nošān | |
| Pronunciation | [ˌhulaʔuˈlɑ] |
| Native to | Israel, Iran, United States |
| Region | Israel, originally form Iranian Kurdistan and small parts of Iraqi Kurdistan |
|
Native speakers
|
10,000 (1999) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | hula1244 |
Hulaulá (Hebrew: יהודיותא) is a modern Jewish Aramaic language, often called Neo-Aramaic or Judeo-Aramaic. It was originally spoken in Iranian Kurdistan and small parts in the easternmost parts of Iraqi Kurdistan. Most speakers now live in Israel. The name Hulaulá simply means 'Jewish'.
Speakers sometimes call their language Lishana Noshan or Lishana Akhni, both of which mean 'our language'. To distinguish it from other dialects of Jewish Neo-Aramaic, Hulaulá is sometimes called Galiglu ('mine-yours'), demonstrating different use of prepositions and pronominal suffixes. Scholarly sources tend simply to call it Persian Kurdistani Jewish Neo-Aramaic.
Hulaulá is written in the Hebrew alphabet. Spelling tends to be highly phonetic, and elided letters are not written.
Hulaulá sits at the southeastern extreme of the wide area over which various Neo-Aramaic dialects used to be spoken. From Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan Province, Iran, the area extended north, to the banks of Lake Urmia. From there, it extended west to Lake Van (in Turkey), and south onto the Plain of Mosul (in Iraq). Then it headed east again, through Arbil, back to Sanandaj.
The upheavals in their traditional region after the First World War and the founding of the State of Israel led most of the Persian Jews to settle in the new homeland in the early 1950s. Most older speakers still have Kurdish as a second language, while younger generations have Hebrew. Hulaulá is the strongest of all the Jewish Neo-Aramaic languages, with around 10,000 speakers. Almost all of these live in Israel, with a few remaining in Iran, and some in the United States.
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