Hulaulá
Israel, originally from Iranian Kurdistan and small parts of Iraqi Kurdistan
(10,000 cited 1999)[1]
Classification[edit]
Speakers sometimes call their language Lishana Noshan or Lishana Akhni, both of which mean 'our language'. To distinguish it from other dialects of Jewish Neo-Aramaic, Hulaulá is sometimes called Galiglu ('mine-yours'), demonstrating different use of prepositions and pronominal suffixes. Scholarly sources tend simply to call it Persian 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:
Western Trans-Zab, including the dialect cluster in Arbel
North Eastern Trans-Zab, including the dialect cluster in Urmi and adjacent Irani and Turkish areas
South Eastern Trans-Zab, in Iranian Kurdistan and areas to the south, as well as Iraqi towns Sulemaniyya, Halabja, Penjwin and Khanaqin.[3]
Intelligibility[edit]
Hulaulá is somewhat intelligible with the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Urmia (and Iranian Azerbaijan more broadly). It is also somewhat intelligible with its western neighbor, Inter-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic. However, it is unintelligible with the Christian 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 called Targumic, due to the long tradition of translating the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, and the production of targums.
Influences[edit]
The various dialects of Hulaulá were clustered around the major settlement areas of Jews in the region: the cities of Sanandaj and Saqqez in Kurdistan Province, Iran, with a southern outpost at Kerend, and a cluster in the Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah. Hulaulá is full of loanwords from Hebrew, Akkadian, Persian, and Kurdish.
Writing System[edit]
Hulaulá is written in the Hebrew 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) and ʾelá "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 final é 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: