The Neo-Aramaic variety of Telkepe
The task for this sabbatical is to complete a grammatical description of the endangered North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) variety of Telkepe and to publish this in two volumes: a grammar (covering phonology, morphology, syntax and information structure) and a collection of glossed texts and lexicon. These will be based on my own fieldwork. While the field of study has been enriched over recent decades by grammars of different varieties of NENA, we are still far from an adequate documentation of these diverse languages. This branch of NENA (the dialects of the northern Nineveh Plain) still lacks a monograph-size grammar, likewise a text corpus and glossary. The variety of Telkepe is increasingly at risk, especially since the village was overrun by ISIL in 2014.
Telkepe is of particular interest for studies of the historical development of Aramaic, a language with a written record going back 3000 years. The earliest texts in Neo-Aramaic languages were composed in this region around 400 years ago and bear a relationship to the modern dialects similar to that between Shakespearean and Modern English. A full description of a modern variety is needed in order to fully exploit the potential of these resources. It would also allow comparison with neighbouring dialects, to ascertain the extent of variation within a small region. The open-access publication will be of use to Semitists, general linguists, and members of the Telkepe community.
Telkepe is of particular interest for studies of the historical development of Aramaic, a language with a written record going back 3000 years. The earliest texts in Neo-Aramaic languages were composed in this region around 400 years ago and bear a relationship to the modern dialects similar to that between Shakespearean and Modern English. A full description of a modern variety is needed in order to fully exploit the potential of these resources. It would also allow comparison with neighbouring dialects, to ascertain the extent of variation within a small region. The open-access publication will be of use to Semitists, general linguists, and members of the Telkepe community.
Final report
The sabbatical’s most significant results and publications as well as a discussion of the conclusions
The task for this sabbatical was a grammatical description of the North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) variety of the town of Telkepe, in Northern Iraq, along with linguistically glossed texts and lexicon, based on my own fieldwork. The variety of Telkepe is increasingly at risk, especially since the village was captured by ISIL in 2014. Telkepe is of particular interest for diachronic studies of Aramaic, as the earliest texts in Neo-Aramaic languages were composed in its region. Documentation of Telkepe also allows comparison with neighbouring dialects, to ascertain the extent of variation within a small region. As part of the sabbatical, I spent 4 months as a guest researcher at Freie Universität Berlin and 3 months at the University of Graz, hosted by experts in documentation of living Semitic languages.
Dialectal variation is often neglected in language documentation and this gap sometimes gives the impression of much more linguistic uniformity than is actually the case. This study, combined with previous studies of neighbouring dialects, has revealed how much variation there is, even between villages in a small area. This variation is, furthermore, expressed in all areas of the language: phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon. For example, the vowel phonology of Telkepe is quite distinct from that of nearby Alqosh (Coghill 2019) and Qaraqosh (Khan 2002): not only are the sounds different, but there is also sometimes no one-to-one correspondence between them. Likewise their morphology varies considerably: for instance, they each express the present progressive (English is -___ing) with different constructions, e.g. ‘he is drinking’ in Telkepe is ’ile bi-shtaaya,* in Alqosh wole bi-shtaaya and in Qaraqosh kile kshaate. An example of syntactic difference is that Telkepe, under certain conditions, marks direct objects with a preposition (differential object marking or DOM), but this is not the case in Alqosh or Qaraqosh. Nearby Baritle does have DOM, but this is conditioned differently (Al-Saka 2021). The morphology and syntax of the copulas (forms expressing ‘to be’) has also been revealed to vary significantly across these dialects. As for lexicon, even quite basic vocabulary can vary. For instance, ‘sparrow’ is butika in Telkepe, bedika in Alqosh and sipra in Qaraqosh, while ‘ill’ is laasah in Telkepe, nassaax in Alqosh and mar’a in Qaraqosh. The variation is partly but not wholly explained by different degrees of borrowing from the neighbouring languages, Arabic and Kurdish.
Telkepe is one of the few NENA dialects that exhibits significant direct influence from Arabic. Of particular interest has been the study of how Arabic elements are integrated with Aramaic. One example of this is a particular adjectival inflection for the feminine, apparently unique among NENA, which is used with a small group of basic adjectives. Here, the native Aramaic feminine inflection -ta has merged with the borrowed Arabic feminine inflection -e to form a new feminine ending -te. At the same time, both -ta and -e continue to be used for other classes of adjectives.
Special attention has been given in this work to intonation, which is often neglected in language documentation, but which plays an important role in the meaning of sentences (compare English ‘You DID it?!’ with ‘YOU did it?!’). In all linguistic examples and texts the phrasal boundaries and main sentential stress(es) are marked. Within the phonology section, various intonational melodies used by Telkepe speakers are described and linked to distinctions in meaning.
Grammatical descriptions of Semitic languages, including recently documented endangered varieties, are rarely written in a way that is accessible to general linguists. This monograph uses modern, generally-understood linguistic terminology, and glosses word-for-word all the linguistic examples, as well as transcribed texts, thus making the data available for linguistic typologists and other general linguists. The work is at an advanced stage and will be submitted to an open access publisher during 2025.
During my work on adjectival inflection in Telkepe, I realized that the situation there could not be adequately explained without a comparison to the behavior of adjectives in other NENA varieties. This led to a sub-project on borrowed adjectives in NENA. I discovered that, although most borrowed adjectives originate from Kurdish, the borrowed feminine inflection -e has an Arabic origin, and I was able to explain this surprising phenomenon. The results of this sub-project are currently in press (open access) with the Journal of Semitic Studies.
What the project has resulted in aside from the publications
In Berlin I benefited from participation in the lively Semitic research seminar, as well as lunchtime discussions of research with Prof. Talay and other members of the department. I also developed existing contacts with general linguists at Potsdam, including several who have worked on another variety of NENA.
In Graz I learned a great deal from Dr. El Zarka about intonation and information structure, and together we spent hours analyzing the intonation patterns in my recordings and those of of Arabic varieties, noting intriguing similarities between Aramaic and Arabic varieties in the same region.
I had time and space during the sabbatical to develop new skills in using programs in my research, including Latex (for project publications), PRAAT (for phonetic analysis) and ELAN (for transcription, translation and glossing aligned with audio and video).
Any new research questions
The most interesting research question that arose was to what extent languages in the same region converge in their intonation patterns? Areal convergence is well-researched for other areas of language (e.g. phonology, syntax), but not for intonational patterns. First indications are that such convergence has taken place in the region I study, but further research would be required to confirm the extent of this.
How I have disseminated my research and whether and how collaboration has occurred
During my sabbatical I gave four invited talks: to The Philological Society, at University College London in October 2023, at the University of Potsdam in November 2023, at the University of Düsseldorf in May 2024 and in the Semitic Research Colloquium, Freie Universität Berlin, in June 2024. I also presented my research at two international conferences, the 5th Neo-Aramaic Languages Conference at Bogaziçi University, Istanbul in October 2023 and Aramaic Language Studies – Historical Dimensions and Universals at Heidelberg University in September 2024.
Both research stays, in Berlin and Graz, led to plans for collaborative research: in Berlin on documentation of NENA varieties; at the University of Potsdam on a project on differential object marking in NENA; and in Graz on regional tendencies in intonation patterns.
*Transcription is adapted here for technical reasons.
References
Al-Saka, Vean Matti. 2021. Verbal Syntax and Differential Object Marking in Baritle Neo-Aramaic. PhD, School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, Newcastle University.
Coghill, Eleanor. 2019. "Northeastern Neo-Aramaic: The dialect of Alqosh." In The Semitic Languages, 2nd edition, edited by John Huehnergard and Na'ama Pat-El, 711–747. London/New York: Routledge.
Khan, Geoffrey. 2002. The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Qaraqosh. Edited by T. Muraoka and C.H.M. Versteegh, Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics. Leiden: Brill.
The task for this sabbatical was a grammatical description of the North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) variety of the town of Telkepe, in Northern Iraq, along with linguistically glossed texts and lexicon, based on my own fieldwork. The variety of Telkepe is increasingly at risk, especially since the village was captured by ISIL in 2014. Telkepe is of particular interest for diachronic studies of Aramaic, as the earliest texts in Neo-Aramaic languages were composed in its region. Documentation of Telkepe also allows comparison with neighbouring dialects, to ascertain the extent of variation within a small region. As part of the sabbatical, I spent 4 months as a guest researcher at Freie Universität Berlin and 3 months at the University of Graz, hosted by experts in documentation of living Semitic languages.
Dialectal variation is often neglected in language documentation and this gap sometimes gives the impression of much more linguistic uniformity than is actually the case. This study, combined with previous studies of neighbouring dialects, has revealed how much variation there is, even between villages in a small area. This variation is, furthermore, expressed in all areas of the language: phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon. For example, the vowel phonology of Telkepe is quite distinct from that of nearby Alqosh (Coghill 2019) and Qaraqosh (Khan 2002): not only are the sounds different, but there is also sometimes no one-to-one correspondence between them. Likewise their morphology varies considerably: for instance, they each express the present progressive (English is -___ing) with different constructions, e.g. ‘he is drinking’ in Telkepe is ’ile bi-shtaaya,* in Alqosh wole bi-shtaaya and in Qaraqosh kile kshaate. An example of syntactic difference is that Telkepe, under certain conditions, marks direct objects with a preposition (differential object marking or DOM), but this is not the case in Alqosh or Qaraqosh. Nearby Baritle does have DOM, but this is conditioned differently (Al-Saka 2021). The morphology and syntax of the copulas (forms expressing ‘to be’) has also been revealed to vary significantly across these dialects. As for lexicon, even quite basic vocabulary can vary. For instance, ‘sparrow’ is butika in Telkepe, bedika in Alqosh and sipra in Qaraqosh, while ‘ill’ is laasah in Telkepe, nassaax in Alqosh and mar’a in Qaraqosh. The variation is partly but not wholly explained by different degrees of borrowing from the neighbouring languages, Arabic and Kurdish.
Telkepe is one of the few NENA dialects that exhibits significant direct influence from Arabic. Of particular interest has been the study of how Arabic elements are integrated with Aramaic. One example of this is a particular adjectival inflection for the feminine, apparently unique among NENA, which is used with a small group of basic adjectives. Here, the native Aramaic feminine inflection -ta has merged with the borrowed Arabic feminine inflection -e to form a new feminine ending -te. At the same time, both -ta and -e continue to be used for other classes of adjectives.
Special attention has been given in this work to intonation, which is often neglected in language documentation, but which plays an important role in the meaning of sentences (compare English ‘You DID it?!’ with ‘YOU did it?!’). In all linguistic examples and texts the phrasal boundaries and main sentential stress(es) are marked. Within the phonology section, various intonational melodies used by Telkepe speakers are described and linked to distinctions in meaning.
Grammatical descriptions of Semitic languages, including recently documented endangered varieties, are rarely written in a way that is accessible to general linguists. This monograph uses modern, generally-understood linguistic terminology, and glosses word-for-word all the linguistic examples, as well as transcribed texts, thus making the data available for linguistic typologists and other general linguists. The work is at an advanced stage and will be submitted to an open access publisher during 2025.
During my work on adjectival inflection in Telkepe, I realized that the situation there could not be adequately explained without a comparison to the behavior of adjectives in other NENA varieties. This led to a sub-project on borrowed adjectives in NENA. I discovered that, although most borrowed adjectives originate from Kurdish, the borrowed feminine inflection -e has an Arabic origin, and I was able to explain this surprising phenomenon. The results of this sub-project are currently in press (open access) with the Journal of Semitic Studies.
What the project has resulted in aside from the publications
In Berlin I benefited from participation in the lively Semitic research seminar, as well as lunchtime discussions of research with Prof. Talay and other members of the department. I also developed existing contacts with general linguists at Potsdam, including several who have worked on another variety of NENA.
In Graz I learned a great deal from Dr. El Zarka about intonation and information structure, and together we spent hours analyzing the intonation patterns in my recordings and those of of Arabic varieties, noting intriguing similarities between Aramaic and Arabic varieties in the same region.
I had time and space during the sabbatical to develop new skills in using programs in my research, including Latex (for project publications), PRAAT (for phonetic analysis) and ELAN (for transcription, translation and glossing aligned with audio and video).
Any new research questions
The most interesting research question that arose was to what extent languages in the same region converge in their intonation patterns? Areal convergence is well-researched for other areas of language (e.g. phonology, syntax), but not for intonational patterns. First indications are that such convergence has taken place in the region I study, but further research would be required to confirm the extent of this.
How I have disseminated my research and whether and how collaboration has occurred
During my sabbatical I gave four invited talks: to The Philological Society, at University College London in October 2023, at the University of Potsdam in November 2023, at the University of Düsseldorf in May 2024 and in the Semitic Research Colloquium, Freie Universität Berlin, in June 2024. I also presented my research at two international conferences, the 5th Neo-Aramaic Languages Conference at Bogaziçi University, Istanbul in October 2023 and Aramaic Language Studies – Historical Dimensions and Universals at Heidelberg University in September 2024.
Both research stays, in Berlin and Graz, led to plans for collaborative research: in Berlin on documentation of NENA varieties; at the University of Potsdam on a project on differential object marking in NENA; and in Graz on regional tendencies in intonation patterns.
*Transcription is adapted here for technical reasons.
References
Al-Saka, Vean Matti. 2021. Verbal Syntax and Differential Object Marking in Baritle Neo-Aramaic. PhD, School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, Newcastle University.
Coghill, Eleanor. 2019. "Northeastern Neo-Aramaic: The dialect of Alqosh." In The Semitic Languages, 2nd edition, edited by John Huehnergard and Na'ama Pat-El, 711–747. London/New York: Routledge.
Khan, Geoffrey. 2002. The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Qaraqosh. Edited by T. Muraoka and C.H.M. Versteegh, Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics. Leiden: Brill.