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SUMMARY:North-eastern Neo-Aramaic: Endangered communities and languages in
  contact - Prof Eleanor Coghill\, Uppsala University
DTSTART:20190313T171500Z
DTEND:20190313T181500Z
UID:TALK116974@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:77035
DESCRIPTION:North-eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) is one of the modern branches
  of the (Semitic) Aramaic language family. The NENA dialects are (or were)
  spoken by Christian and Jewish communities across northern Iraq\, Turkey\
 , Syria and Iran. Most dialects of NENA are severely endangered and many h
 ave already died out\, due to the persecutions\, wars and ethnic cleansing
  the various communities have endured. A large majority of the remaining s
 peakers can be found in the world-wide diaspora rather than in the homelan
 d. Events in Iraq and Syria within the next few years will probably be dec
 isive for the survival of NENA.\n\nThe languages in contact with NENA are 
 genetically diverse: Kurmanji and Sorani Kurdish (Iranian)\, vernacular an
 d standard Arabic (Semitic)\, Iranian Azeri and Turkish (both Turkic)\, as
  well as Persian (Iranian). Contact influence on NENA seems to have arisen
  mainly through long-term bi- and multi-lingualism rather than through lan
 guage shift. Contact influence is apparent at all levels of the language\,
  lexicon\, phonology\, morphology and syntax.\n\nThis talk will give an ov
 erview of the current endangerment of the dialects before discussing some 
 contact-induced influences in NENA dialects and the socio-linguistic situa
 tions that gave rise to them.
LOCATION:Faculty of English\, Room GR-06/07
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