North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic
| Northeastern Neo-Aramaic | |
|---|---|
| NENA | |
| Geographic distribution |
Traditionally spoken northeast to the plain of Urmia in Iran, southeast to the plain of Mosul in Iraq, southwest to Al Hasakah province in Syria and as northwest as Tur Abdin in Turkey. Diaspora speakers in North America and Europe. |
| Linguistic classification |
Afro-Asiatic
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Glottolog | nort3241 |
Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (often abbreviated NENA) is a term used by Semiticists to refer to a large variety of Modern Aramaic languages that were once spoken in a large region stretching from the plain of Urmia, in northwestern Iran, to the plain of Mosul, in northern Iraq, as well as bordering regions in south east Turkey and north east Syria.
As of the 1990s, the NENA group had an estimated number of fluent speakers among the Assyrians just below 500,000, spread throughout the Middle East and the Assyrian diaspora. More than 90% of these speak either the Assyrian Neo-Aramaic or the Chaldean Neo-Aramaic variety, two varieties of Christian Neo-Aramaic or Sureth which, contrary to what their names suggest, are not divided among denominational Chaldean Catholic Church/Assyrian Church of the East lines, and indeed some speakers of both dialects may be followers of the Syriac Orthodox Church or Protestants. There are a number of other NENA varieties, but all of them are endangered or near-extinct, and in addition, some Assyrian communities speak Central Neo-Aramaic dialects such as Suroyo.
The NENA languages contain a large number of loanwords and some grammatical features from the extinct East Semitic Akkadian language of Mesopotamia (the original language of the Assyrians) and also in more modern times from their surrounding languages: Kurdish, Arabic, Persian, Azerbaijani and Turkish language. These languages are spoken by both Jews and Christian Assyrians from the area. Each variety of NENA is clearly Jewish or Assyrian.
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