From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Tue Dec 23 2003 - 06:59:00 EST
On 22/12/2003 17:53, Christopher John Fynn wrote:
>Which script does the small community of native Aramaic speakers that still
>exists use to write their own language?
>
>
This is a very complex issue. There are quite a number of separate
communities, although I can't fiind evidence of any in Lebanon. The
following data is based on the Ethnologue, see
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=950:
LANGUAGE
SPEAKERS
COUNTRY
SCRIPT
Assyrian neo-Aramaic
210,000
Iraq, Armenia, Georgia, Iran, Syria
Syriac, Cyrillic?
Lishanid Noshan
2,000
Israel
Hebrew
Bohtan neo-Aramaic
1,000
Georgia
?
Bijil neo-Aramaic
extinct
Israel
?
Babylonian Talmudic Aramaic
extinct
studied by Jews worldwide
Hebrew
Chaldean neo-Aramaic
200,000
Iraq
Syriac
Hértevin
1,000
Turkey
Syriac
Hulaulá
10,000
Israel
Hebrew
Koy Sanjaq Surat
1,000
Iraq
Syriac
Lishana Deni
7,000
Israel
Hebrew
Senaya
500
Iran
Syriac
Lishán Didán
3,000
Israel
Hebrew
Mlahsö
extinct
Syria
?
Turoyo
10,000
Turkey, Syria
Syriac
Mandaic
1,000
Iran
Mandaic
Classical Mandaic
extinct
Iran - liturgical use
Mandaic
Syriac
extinct
Turkey, Iraq, Syria - liturgical use
Syriac
Western neo-Aramaic
15,000
Syria
?
Samaritan Aramaic
extinct
West Bank, Israel - liturgical use
Samaritan
>Would they be happy if Aramaic was "unified" with Hebrew? I don't know but I
>suspect those that live in Lebanon or Syria might not - and it could even cause
>them political problems.
>
>
>
Well, we need to ask them. I was not making any proposals to disunify
scripts in modern use. But there is a basic misunderstanding here. The
roadmapped "Aramaic" script, despite being proposed for the BMP, is not
a script in modern use. It is a historic script from around 2500 years
ago which survives only in a few very diverse inscriptional and papyrus
fragments (including those already separately roadmapped as Palmyrene
etc), and in texts which have been transmitted in the slightly later
variant which is called Aramaic square script or (by Unicode) Hebrew script.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/
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