| Hulaulá | |
|---|---|
| יהודיותאHûla'ûlā,לשנא נשןLišānā Nošān | |
| Pronunciation | [ˌhulaʔuˈlɑ] |
| Native to | Iran,Iraq |
| Region | Israel, originally fromIranian Kurdistan and small parts ofIraqi Kurdistan |
Native speakers | (10,000 cited 1999)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | huy |
| Glottolog | hula1244 |
| ELP | Hulaulá |
Trans-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic, also known asHulaulá (lit. 'Jewish'),[2] is a grouping of related dialects ofNortheastern Neo-Aramaic originally spoken by Jews inIranian Kurdistan and easternmostIraqi Kurdistan. Most speakers now live in Israel.
Speakers sometimes call their languageLishana Noshan orLishana Akhni, both of which mean 'our language'. To distinguish it from other dialects of Jewish Neo-Aramaic, Hulaulá is sometimes calledGaliglu ('mine-yours'), demonstrating different use of prepositions and pronominal suffixes. Scholarly sources tend simply to call itPersian Kurdistani Jewish Neo-Aramaic.
In terms of internal classification of Trans-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic, Mutzafi (2008) suggests a three-way split based on the various forms of the positive present copula:
Hulaulá sits at the southeastern extreme of the wide area over which various Neo-Aramaic dialects used to be spoken. FromSanandaj, the capital ofKurdistan Province, Iran, the area extended north, to the banks ofLake Urmia. From there, it extended west toLake Van (inTurkey), and south onto the Plain ofMosul (inIraq). Then it headed east again, throughArbil, back toSanandaj.
The upheavals in their traditional region after theFirst World War and the founding of the State of Israel led most of thePersian Jews to settle in the new homeland in the early 1950s. Most older speakers still haveKurdish as a second language, while younger generations haveHebrew. Hulaulá is the most widely spoken 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.
Hulaulá is somewhat intelligible with theJewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Urmia (andIranian Azerbaijan more broadly). It is also somewhat intelligible with its western neighbor,Inter-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic. However, it is unintelligible with theChristian Neo-Aramaic dialect of Senaya. Christians and Jews spoke completely different Neo-Aramaic languages in the same region. Like other Judaeo-Aramaic languages, Hulaulá is sometimes calledTargumic, due to the long tradition of translating theHebrew Bible into Aramaic, and the production oftargums.
The various dialects of Hulaulá were clustered around the major settlement areas of Jews in the region: the cities ofSanandaj andSaqqez inKurdistan Province, Iran, with a southern outpost at Kerend, and a cluster in theIraqi city ofSulaymaniyah. Hulaulá is full of loanwords fromHebrew,Akkadian,Persian, andKurdish.
Hulaulá is written in theHebrew alphabet. Spelling tends to be highly phonetic, and elided letters are not written.
In general, the Trans-Zab dialect bundle has many isoglosses, such as final stress, e.g.gorá "man" vs.góra "elsewhere", merged interdentals /ṯ/ and /ḏ/ into /l/, e.g.belá "house" (< *bayṯā) andʾelá "festival" (< *ʿeḏā), lexemes, e.g.băruxa "friend2, the definite suffix-aké borrowed from Gorani, and verb-final word order influenced by Iranian. Though most Trans-Zab dialects are similar, Trans-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic is unique in its definite suffix,-aké. The finalé could have been borrowed from Akre or through contraction of-aka-y in Sorani.[3]
All Trans-Zab varieties are verb-final, and its sentence structure is SOV.[3]
Hulaulá exhibits many phonological and morphosyntactic innovations. The most widely applicable are listed below:
