r/Assyria • u/Equivalent_Snow8529 • 20d ago
Language why the broad linguistic diffrence ?
why do we have so many dialects ? like, literally every single village in the nineveh plains has a slightly diffrent dialect, like i could swear to god i can tell the diffrence between a telkepnaya and an alqoshnaya's dialect even though they live like 30 kilometers apart. i dont know much about the dialects of non-chaldean assyrians but from the songs i listen to i can also tell a diffrence between urmian and idk nuhadra/zakho. is it because we dont have like a standardized school system to teach kids so every village basically develops independantly ?
and, why the hell does nobody take interest in the history of the language itself? ive seen friends asked "what language do you speak" by arabs or others only for them to reply with "christian"
many people dont know what we speak. even on the internet i see people constantly arguing that its simply assyrian and not related to aramaic. like, dude, its a north eastern neo aramaic dialect, get it right
5
u/damnicarus 20d ago
This is mostly a Chaldean issue with people not knowing what they speak. Assyrians understand the history very well. Chaldeans still say they speak “Chaldean” which you don’t. As far as dialects, yes I’d assume it’s because each village developed their way of speaking independently. And that’s the beauty of it. There is no right or wrong way to speak. Regional dialects make the language unique.
So you speak something called NENA. North eastern Neo Aramaic. Eastern Aramaic means that it’s taken a lot of influence from languages like Akkadian etc that make it different than western Aramaic. Syriac would be the main branch, but even when looking at classical Syriac it’s different than the Neo dialects spoken by regular people.
4
u/damnicarus 20d ago
Lmao at people downvoting this. But yes, Assyrian Aramaic is the proper term. Aramaic was adopted by the Assyrian empire & they along with the Babylonians created the imperial chancellery script that evolved into Hebrew, Syriac, Mandaic, Elymaic etc. So to say our people didn’t speak Aramaic is silly. But to also not include the clearly Mesopotamian foundation of our languages is also silly. We do not speak a pure western Aramaic at all.
2
u/damnicarus 20d ago
Mind you, saying Assyrian doesn’t make it incorrectly labeled either. Assyrians spoke Assyrian Aramaic, which developed into these sureth dialects.
5
u/Equivalent_Snow8529 20d ago
i guess assyrian aramaic would be a valid desigantion but they deny the aramaic root, over the internet i mean.
1
0
u/Leo-Al 20d ago
Khora, while you've kind of answered your own question, the reason for so many dialects is due to the fall of our empire. While our ancestors did an amazing job after the fall, held on another 1000 years until it got mixed with Aramaic, Persian.& everything else that came after.
To put it short & precise, our ancestors recognized Two languages of the empire, before Aramaic ( itself Assyrianized/Akkadianized already) was made the 2nd language of the empire: Lishanum Akkadatum & Lishanum Ashuritum. Surit is spelled with an Allap, but they silenced it, where it should read Asurit, which obviously stems from Ashuritum. Word morphology is a normal thing that happens with all languages, as does influence & loanwords.
It is a crime to not acknowledge we still speak Assyrian, albeit modernized, influenced & tweaked. Still is Assyrian. To say " We speak A dialect of Aramaic" is wrong & it undermines our true identity & insults our ancestors.
Aramaic didn't replace Assyrian, it was added as a 2nd language used mainly for administrative purposes, not in Assyrian homes & on the streets.
Aramaic itself was Assyrianized, so why make things complicated? That's my take on this, based on years of reading the CAD ( Chicago Assyrian Dictionary) & making comparisons with our speech today & with old Aramaic.
We speak Asurit,/Surit from Ashuritum, & yeas it's undergone a lot of change vial dialects due to both occupations and separation from each other.
1
u/damiangorlami Turoyo 17d ago
Why do you feel the need to go against academia and revision history? Not a single credible linguist agrees with your take.
To say that Aramaic has been Assyrianized is just wrong on so many levels. Just get yourself a total lexicon of all the words today, which is about 30.000+ words. And compare how many are Akkadian loanwords. Out of the most recent studies, the most optimistic guess and at best we have about 600 words that are from Akkadian. Thats like less than 2% of the total lexicon.
So how can you speak of an "Aramaic being Assyrianized" when only 2% of the Akkadian-Assyrian survived in our current speech?
We speak a dialect of Aramaic. If you disagree with this take, then write a paper and publish your findings. Perhaps you can convince Academics to change their perspective but until then, you're just a minority
1
u/Leo-Al 15d ago
Well you're absolutely wrong on many levels, try to watch one of our very own Assyriologists, Zakke Cherri, who reads, writes & translates Cuneiform, holds lectures explaining exactly what I tried doing here, that even the Aramaic of old was already heavily influenced by Assyrian & Akkadian, & that we, well I will clarify a little better, Assyrian of the heartland ( where all the capitals were, plus Hakkari and vicinity ) speak more a related language to old Assyrian than Assyrians Nw of the Euohrates & capitals ( Turoyo/Merdin, Midyat...)
This is for us obvious when we hear the difference in speech & sounds, for example, true Assyrian never had the sounds of TH, AYNE & H,. We still don't use these sounds, they're either from Aramaic or from Arabic that influenced Aramaic in later times.
I'll also entertain the idea that the Th might have been from Greeks, as it is impossible to speak Greek without it, or Spanish as well, but Greeks were in Mesopotamia and Anatolia much longer than Arab arrival.
Don't be too stubborn to accept all our dialects have been influenced, as with every other language on earth, and as for me going against scholars & Academia, well I gave you one answer with our own Zakke cherri, but here's another, those same Academics that you put so much face value in, have been telling us for 200 years, that we are a " Semitic" people, and now when you actually search, they admit we are NOT semitic, at least not Ethnically, so they've retracted their age old claim & view on that bs, and it's just a matter of time that they update the bs Linguistical label "semitic" as well, since the guy came thousands of years too late to have fathered ANY Mesopotamian language, wether they use it as an umbrella term or not, it's simply and frankly just wrong.
Point being, be more open & inquisitive than you are, because many things Academia claims & labels are based on ancient judean fabrications, proven to be highly inaccurate if not completely made up.
I wish I could afford the time and energy to write more professional articles with sources as I once used to, but even if I did, they're not ready to correct their wrongs because they'd have to rewrite everything.
Not sure why people get so triggered on this subject? It's ridiculous to do so. Either you're open minded or you're not, but there's nothing to get angry about, do your own research and see what you find.
1
u/damiangorlami Turoyo 15d ago
Your first problem is that you take a linguistic claim from an Assyriologist.. so obviously your perspective will be biased. I trust linguists and philologists a lot more on this subject and they all say that our language comes from Aramaic.
You must distinguish borrowing from shared inheritance and demonstrate a systematic historical development, not just similar-sounding words. This is where you go wrong in all your takes.
Our identity does not require an unbroken Akkadian linguistic pedigree. Making that a condition of being authentically Assyrian weakens and dilutes our history. We cannot attribute the Aramaic language as purely Assyrian which is an error that many of our people like to make. When Assyriologists reflect they often criticizes their own field how too much is being attributed to Assyria without a clear distinction of what is Aramaic, Akkadian, Hittite, Sumerian, Babylonian, etc. It is precisely why Assyriology as a field is getting defunded in major universities... and our own people that go to above and beyond to attribute ANY innovation coming from Mesopotamia to the Assyrians to push their political national ideology isn't helping either. Be proud of what is Assyrian and distinguish carefully but don't falsely claim things that turn our people into laughing stock by academia.
I'm going bit astray now. You probably get my point.
0
u/Leo-Al 15d ago
And of course you'd say that because he's an Assyrian, speaker, nevermind Simo Parpola who's Finnish, agreeing with him in that the Aramaic adopted by Assyrians, was not the same as Aramaic from the west, even in ancient times, it was heavily Assyrianized and for their own Royal house usage, not for the masses.
Nevermind Assyrian ( classified as Akkadian only because Akkadians wrote Cuneiform first ) was still heavily in use, 1000 years after the fall of our empires, by Parthians and Persians, right next to Aramaic, simultaneously.
Nevermind on the behistun Rock relief, they listed 3 languages of the Persian empire, Old Persian, Elamite & Babylonian ( Assyrian/Akkadian ) and not Aramaic.
Nevermind the thousands of words Assyrians use on a daily basis, without which we cannot communicate intelligently, are directly related to what AshurBaniPal used himself & I won't bother listing any again, already done it.
Nevermind that Academia itself is the laughing stock who can't fix a simple mathematical problem and would rather continue regurgitating fallacies just to avoid rewriting history, and that they are constantly disagreeing with each other.
Let's forget all this,.and go with your idea instead,.because you're right in your mind. Sure buddy. Believe whatever you want.
0
u/Stenian East Hakkarian 20d ago
We speak a dialect of Aramaic, and I'll say this on repeat. This is a linguistic fact. Stop making such likes lies and invented crap - Ashuritum? What's that, a fungal infection? Dude, get a grip please.
Our Aramaic language does have many ancient Assyrian/Akkadian loanwords, yes, but that doesn't mean we speak an "Asurit" language. Same way English has many French words, doesn't mean it's a Romance language. Are the English insulting their Germanic ancestors that they have a lot of Latin/French words in their vocabulary? I don't think so.
Also, your ancestors adopted Aramaic for its simplicity and convenience. Blame them. They should be insulted. Not you or I. Relax.
3
u/damnicarus 20d ago
I get what you’re saying, but it’s more than loan words. Aramaic was adapted by the Assyrian & Babylonian empires as early as the 8th century BCE. We then created our own dialects that were heavily influenced by Akkadian, as Akkadian was still spoken for a very long time alongside Aramaic. The very foundation of eastern Aramaic traces its characteristics to Akkadian. That’s what makes it an eastern Aramaic & not Aramaic proper. Aramaic is essentially an umbrella term for various related languages
1
u/Leo-Al 20d ago
I respectfully disagree, and it's not Akkadian that we spoke, AshurBaniPal was clear when he claimed " I've studied that cunning Sumerian language and that Dark Akkadian which is hard to use correctly")
You have to pay attention to this. He's telling us how he saw them as different than Assyrian.
Another thing, Aramaic was adopted as the 2nd language and only by the Royal houses, not the mass people.
Do you know that the only Reason They call Assyrian " a dialect of Akkadian " is because Akkadians simply received and used Cuneiform 1st, and only began being used by Assyrians by 2000 bc, for records & trade. I've had Grok confirm this, even saying Assyria existed before Akkad.and writing, which we already knew of course.
Academia takes the easy/lazy route when classifying things when it comes to Linguistics. It's plain to see this. For example, many Assyrians believe were "semites" just because it's in the Bible, without realizing this is a judean construct, nothing to do with Assyria or Mesopotamia.
1st we've already proven via genetics, we predate anything " semitic" by over 2000 or more years, predating Shem's birth by that much.
Then scholars are saying, well they're not Semitic as the biblical reference says, just Linguistically. But how is that possible when Assyrians already existed, speaking Assyrian, thousands of years before Shem came along and claimed our language?
It's all silly and laziness by Academia and even our own that we all don't correct this. Aramaic is another fallacy.
But people are more comfortable being fooled than being told they have been fooled. It's quite a conundrum.
Btw, in my previous response to our fellow angry Assyrian before this, I listed a few sample Assyrian words we use every day, and can't do without, Assyrian not Aramaic.
If we spoke Aramaic, we wouldn't be using these words and terms.
3
u/Leo-Al 20d ago
Maybe you do, because I don't, and unless you speak Aramaic like thr people from Ma'loula, Syria ( Maybe you should watch it & listen, then you don't speak Aramaic.
Already said I've been reading the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary for over 15 years. Compared a lot of ancient words & Phrases to our modern Assyrian and to Aramaic., and by using Linguistically methods of seeing word morphology to make real connection with what I'm reading, I saw clearly how our spoken Assyrian still has deep connections to our ancient.
I doubt you've done what I've done, because unless you have, you will fail to see the connection. I can give you a thousand examples but your eyes and my thumbs would hurt.
Small examples? Khasha from Akashu ( walk, move ) Ena/Eyna from Enu ( eye ), Sqipa from Zaqapu ( erected ), Cimalta from Cimaltu ( ladder, stairs ), Beta from Betu/m, Susa from Sisu, Oupra from Epru, dimma from Damu, eda from idu, Chappeh from Kappu ( palm, hand ), qatta from Qatu ( hand, Handle ) Salma from Sulmu ( vision, Image, Likeness ) Risha from Reeshu, Raya from Riyu ( Shephard ), kalba from Kalbu, Klila from Klilu ( Crown ) , Qarna from Qarnu ( Horn ), the name Birta/Bertha from Birtu ( Castle ), Shimsha from Shamshu, shishmeh from Shimshamum ( Sesame ), Gumla from Gamilu, Scapa from Sarrapu ( burn, burning, reddening) Smuqa from Samuku ( also to burn, Red ) we get Summak the spice from this word.
Baba from Abu/m, Yimma from Umma, Akhuna from Akhu, Akhata/khata from Akhatu, Darta from Dartu ( courtyard) khaqla from Eqlu ( field ), M'khaya from Makhasu ( to hit, strike), Mirya from Marsu, N'shaqa from Nashaqu ( kiss, also bite ), N'pasa from Napasu ( to Strike, smash...) Napas/Napsha from Napashu ( breath, to breath, life, soul ), Khshawa from Khasasu ( to think, wise, to be conscious..), Atira from Eteru/Atari ( Rich, Excess, Extra)... I can go on and on. These are all authentic ancient Assyrian words/terms that Aramaic burrowed from. Alaha from Ilu/m, ullul from ilil/ilish ( upwards, North, Above hence the term Ilu for God ).
Endlessness of more samples exist, but it seems for some Assyrians, they'd rather claim to speak Aramaic just because it's associated with Jesus.
Sad to see an Assyrian make fun of his own ancient language & people, but nothing surprises me anymore.
Believe what you want, I call it as it is. Maybe work on controlling your emotions a little so you're able to have more intelligent conversations with a clear & open mind.
8
u/AshurCyberpunk Assyrian 20d ago
This is common to a lot of countries or nations. Distance, geographic differences, proximity to other ethnicities, political borders, or isolation creates varying features in the common language. Italy for example has three major dialects. Check some of the African countries and you'll find the number of dialects to be in three digits.
The main contributing factor however is the non-existence of a central administrative dialect (aka standard language), i.e. a dialect used for writing or communicating for government affairs or trade. In most countries, such a language/dialect exists and influences the other local dialects.