Any Assyrian speakers?

[matin123]

if there are any assyrian speakers in this forum, i want to get an idea of how close your aramaic is to the kurdistani jewish aramaic. i'll write some numbers and basic words and phrases in kurdistani jewish dialect and i will aprreciate it if someone could write the assyrian equivalent. and i apologize if i cannot answer questions in return as i'm not fluent in the language. this is just for my curiosity... thank you in advance, matin

1 - xa
2 - trê
3 - tlha
4 - erba
5 - xemsha
6 - îshta
7 - showa
8 - tmênîa
9 - îchha
10 - isra

How are you? (to boy) dexîêt? (informal)
How are you? (to girl) dexîet? (informal)
I - ana
You - eta
yes - yî
no - le
goodbye - lêha hevê mênox (to boy)
goodbye - lêha hevê mênex (to girl)
father - tata
mother - dayke

[Reza]

Hi I'm new here.
I'm not Assyrian, but this will help you improve your Surath. http://www.learnsurath.com/

[matin123]

Thank you very much for the link. And welcome to Roj Bash Kurdistan.

[Shlama_98]

I'm an Assyrian

I would say your Jewish Aramaic is pretty much a Syriac dialect since it's the same language spoken by the Eastern Assyrians, here's some of the words you're looking for:

1 - xa - xa
2 - trê - tre
3 - tlha - tla or tlatha
4 - erba - Arba
5 - xemsha - xamsha or xamish
6 - îshta - ishta or ishit
7 - showa - showa or show'a
8 - tmênîa - tmenia
9 - îchha - icha or tish'a
10 - isra - isra

How are you? (to boy) dexîêt? (informal) - daxeet or dexeewit.
How are you? (to girl) dexîet? (informal) - dakheet or dexeewat.
I - ana - ana
You - eta - We say "At" for male and "Atee" for female, or also "Ayiet" for male or "Ayiat for female".
yes - yî - Heh or Ehh (Originally Een but we don't pronounce the Nun).
no - le - La
goodbye - lêha hevê mênox (to boy) - This does not mean goodbye, it means "May God be with you", and we say "Alaha haweh minokh".
goodbye - lêha hevê mênex (to girl) - "Alaha haweh minakh".
father - tata - Modern day we say Baba, but originally is Aba or Awa.
mother - dayke - Yimma, I think you guys say the Kurdish word, not Aramaic because the Semetic root is Emma.

Keep in mind that this is Eastern Assyrian, Western Assyrian would be:

1 - xa - ha (the H is letter xet but pronounced het, not exactly like the letter H).
2 - trê - tre
3 - tlha - tlatho
4 - erba - abro
5 - xemsha - hamsho
6 - îshta - ishto
7 - showa - shab'o
8 - tmênîa - thmanyo
9 - îchha - tish'o
10 - isra - isro

How are you? (to boy) dexîêt? (informal) - aydarbo hat.
How are you? (to girl) dexîet? (informal) - aydarbo hat.
I - ana - ono
You - eta - at
yes - yî - Ehh.
no - le - Lo
goodbye - lêha hevê mênox (to boy) - "Aloho haweh minokh".
goodbye - lêha hevê mênex (to girl) - "Aloho haweh minakh".
father - tata - Baba or Abo
mother - dayke - Emmo.

I'm not very sure with all of the Western Assyrian ones since I speak Eastern Assyrian, which is the same dialect as the Jewish one.

[Vladimir]

Assyrian is babylonian/akkadian.
Aramean = aramean.

[Shlama_98]

There's no Assyrian language, Assyrians spoke Akkadian in the older times and Aramaic in the modern times, and we call it Assyrian because in reality it differs a lot from the original Aramaic.

[matin123]

@Shlama_98

thank you so much for the reply. our dialect of aramaic has alot of hebrew, farsi, and kurdish loan words. i was told the assyrian dialect has many armenian loan words and influence. is this true? i knew for example that there must be an aramaic word for mother since dayke is kurdish. emmo is very close to ema in hebrew. obviously ema it must have derived from emmo. for father we also use baba as well. and aba is also in hebrew as well. how do you say goodbye in your dialect? leha haweh menox we usually use or maybe the kurdish xwahafiz which also means may God protect you. but it's interesting to see how the two languages are alike. my grandfather says when he watches the assyrian channels on tv, he understands most of what they're saying but not all of it. and can you explain a little more on the difference between eastern and western assyrian. where it's used, it's roots, etc. thank you again for the reply i appreciate it.

[Shlama_98]

No problem Martin

thank you so much for the reply. our dialect of aramaic has alot of hebrew, farsi, and kurdish loan words. i was told the assyrian dialect has many armenian loan words and influence. is this true? i knew for example that there must be an aramaic word for mother since dayke is kurdish.

In terms of the loan words topic, I would say we don't have a lot of Armenian words that I can think of (At least I have never heard of any before), but we do have some loan words from Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, and Turkish, I would say 5% to 10% of our words are these loan words, but for each loan word we have a real Aramaic word for it too, it's just that a lot of people are already used to their slang so they keep using the loan words, for example:

Freedom - People use Azadoota which comes from Azad (Persian/Kurdish) more than they use the original word for it in Aramaic which is "Xeyroota".

Yellow - More people use the word Zarda or Zara which is (Persian/Kurdish) rather than the original word in Aramaic which is "Yarooqa" (I believe in Hebrew you guys call green "Yaroq", we call both green and yellow "Yarooqa, Assyrian people must have been color blind lol).

Flag - More people call it "Baydax" which comes from Turkish, but in our language the original word is "Atha".

School - More people say Madraasa which is the Arabic way of saying it, in our language it's "Madrashta", I know it's very similar but people still use the Arabic way.

There are more words I can think of, but you get the idea on the loan words we use, it's almost the same in Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Kurdish too, they all use loan words from each other, this is the affect of being neighbors and communicating with each other I guess.

emmo is very close to ema in hebrew. obviously ema it must have derived from emmo. for father we also use baba as well. and aba is also in hebrew as well. how do you say goodbye in your dialect? leha haweh menox we usually use or maybe the kurdish xwahafiz which also means may God protect you.

The original word for mother in Aramaic is actually Emma, just like how you guys say it in Hebrew, but in Eastern Syriac we say Yimma as a slang thing, originally it's Emma, Emmo is only in Western dialect which is not the original sound (I'll explain later in this post).

As for goodbye, well we say "Posh b shayna" which means "Stay well", but we also say "Alaha haweh minox/minax", just like you guys, the only difference is we say Alaha fully while you guys only say half of it, also it seems the way you say it in Kurdish is half Arabic because "Hafiz" is Arabic which means protect as you pointed out.

but it's interesting to see how the two languages are alike. my grandfather says when he watches the assyrian channels on tv, he understands most of what they're saying but not all of it.

Your grandfather understands because it's the same language, keep in mind that we have many many dialects, in fact it's very difficult for Eastern Assyrians to understand Western Assyrians, not just that, but within Eastern Assyrians we have many slangs also, your grandpa understood the Eastern Assyrian most likely because the Jews who spoke Aramaic spoke the same dialect as the Eastern Assyrians.

and can you explain a little more on the difference between eastern and western assyrian. where it's used, it's roots, etc. thank you again for the reply i appreciate it.

The difference between Eastern and Western Syriac is not in spelling or grammar because they are the same language and both written the exact same way (Maybe different fonts but not different grammar or spelling), the major difference between the two is the pronouncation of the words, which eventually led to two different vowel systems, the Eastern dialect is more original as we speak, while the Western dialect has an influence of Greek on the sounds, in Eastern we use the dot system for our vowels (Similar to the Hebrew Nikkud but not the same), in Western they use small Greek symbols as their vowels, initially the main difference you'll notice between the two is the A vs the O, in Eastern most words end in A while Westerns they end in the O, for example:

Eastern - Western
Shlama - Shlomo
Aba - Abo
Emma - Emmo
Alaha - Aloho
So on

The other difference you'll notice is some letters are pronounced differently, for example in Eastern we pronounce the X (KH sound that is) for the letter Xet, while they call it Het and pronounce it as H (Not the English H, but the Arabic Haa'), also we say letter Peh which brings the sound P, while they say Feh and say the F sound, here's some examples:

Eastern - Western
Shapeera - Shafeero
Xleetha - Hleetho
Pumma - Fummo
Purqana - Furqono
Xilma - Hilmo
Xitna - Hathno
So on

Having said that, in Eastern Assyrian we have some slangs that use all these sounds, my mom's dialect uses all the sounds like Xet/Het, Peh/Feh, and everything else, so depending on which area you come from, the slang sounds a cetain way, for example my mom's dialect uses some of these words:

Hubba rather than Xubba
Haleetha rather than Xleetha
Qofa rather than Qopa
so on

As far as the homeland goes, our home villages are scattered between 4 countries (Much like the Kurds), Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria.

In Iraq, all of the Assyrians there are Eastern Assyrians and all speak the Eastern dialect, we are located in the northern area mostly, we have a big population in the province of Ninwa which the original homeland, but we also have big populations in the Iraqi-Kurdistan area such as the provinces of Dohuk and Arbil, there's also a pretty decent sized population in Kirkuk too, outside the northern area we have a big population in Baghdad and some live in Basra too, but Assyrians in these two cities have came down from the north in the early 19th century when they were looking for jobs.

In Iran, all of the Assyrians there are also Eastern Assyrian and also speak the Eastern dialect, the original villages were located in Urmia (Which is the province of West Azerbaijan today), but eventually some of them moved to Tehran and Iraq after the first world war while some remained in Urmia.

In Syria, Assyrians are mixed with Eastern and Western these days, before the first world war most of the Assyrians there were Western Assyrians and they spoke the Western dialect, they lived mostly in the Qamishli and Hasaka areas, also in Aleppo, but after the first world war a wave of Eastern Assyrians (Hakkari Assyrians) moved there and settled in the Qamishli and Hasaka areas around the Khabur river, also many Assyrians eventually moved to Damascus.

In Turkey, today only Western Assyrians live there, and they live around the province of Mardin in an area called Tur Abdin, there are some in Dyiabakir and Harput too, and there used to be some who lived in Urhay too (Modern Urfa), before the first world war there was a lot of Eastern Assyrians there too, they were mostly located in the province of Hakkari, but some of them also lived in other provinces like Dyiarbakir, Shirnak, Siirt, Batman, Van, and Bitlis, of course all of these Eastern Assyrians eventually ended up moving either to Iraq or Syria.

Today we still have the biggest Assyrian population in Iraq, but we have a pretty big diaspora population too, and when you go back to the roots, it's these 4 countries that our home villages fall in.

[matin123]

thanks again. a lot of information to take in lol

[Johny Bravo]

a question to assyrian speakers:

does the word zahf oder zehf exist in assyrian? if yes, what means it?

[Shlama_98]

does the word zahf oder zehf exist in assyrian? if yes, what means it?

Not that I know of, but if you reffering to the Hebrew Zahav (Which means Gold), our version is Dahwa (Usually pronounced Dawa), could also be said Dahba which is more original, and in Arabic it's Dhahab.

If it's another word then not sure.

[Johny Bravo]

What do you say for "great, big" in Assyrian? Thanks.

[Shlama_98]

For "Great" or "Big" we say "Raabba", "Gora", or "Kabeera".

[Ashuri]

Wow this is a great thread indeed. I am also Assyrian.