Lishana Deni
| Lishana Deni | |
|---|---|
| לשנא דני Lišānā Denî, לשנא יהודיא Lišānā Hôzāyē | |
| Pronunciation | [liˈʃɑnɑ ˈdɛni] |
| Native to | Israel, Iraq, Turkey |
| Region | Nineveh Plains, Iraqi Kurdistan (Iraq), Bohtan valley and Hakkari mountains (Turkey) |
|
Native speakers
|
7,500 (1999) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | lish1247 |
Lishana Deni is a modern Jewish Aramaic language, often called Neo-Aramaic or Judeo-Aramaic. It was originally spoken in Northern Iraq and Southeastern Turkey in the lands west of the zab river (Athura). Most speakers now live in and in villages around Jerusalem. The speakers are ethnic Assyrians of Jewish faith, and the language is occasionally considered to be a dialect of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic.
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 although it was spoken in the entire region west of the zab river.
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 area covers northern Iraq and northwestern Iran). 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 and villages nearby.
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. Lishana Deni is written in the Hebrew alphabet. Spelling tends to be highly phonetic, and elided letters are not written.
...
Wikipedia