Lishana Deni - Origin and Use Today

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 area covers northern Iraq and northwestern Iran). However, there is very little intelligibility between Lishana Deni and the other Jewish dialects. On the other hand, there is 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 though used to be written in Arabic alphabet. Spelling tends to be highly phonetic, and elided letters are not written.