Mutzafi, Hezy: The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Betanure (Province of Dihok)

Description of one of the most archaizing Jewish Neo-Aramaic varieties and member of the Lishana Deni dialect cluster of northernmost Iraq. The dialect is currently spoken in Israel by no more than three dozen elderly people, of whom only a small minority are proficient speakers. The grammatical description of the dialect is synchronic, but it includes etymological and historical comments as well as several paragraphs dealing with diachronic processes. The large and variegated corpus of texts comprises, inter alia, descriptions of the village of Betanure and its history, the fauna and flora of the region, agriculture and other occupations of the Jewish villagers, customs and traditions, legends, folktales, anecdotes and amusing stories. The glossary is extensively etymological and offers much comparative data drawn from numerous Neo-Aramaic varieties, apart from recourse to Classical Aramaic lexical data. XIX,412 Seiten, gebunden (Semitica Viva; Vol. 43/Harrassowitz Verlag 2008)