Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies (volume 17): 2014 9781463236878

Citation preview

HUGOYE

JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES A Publication of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute



Volume 17 2014

HUGOYE

JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES A Publication of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute

GENERAL EDITOR George Anton Kiraz, Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute / Gorgias Press EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Adam Becker, New York University Sebastian P. Brock, University of Oxford Aaron Michael Butts, The Catholic University of America Jeff W. Childers, Abilene Christian University Muriel Debie, CNRS Paris Sidney Griffith, The Catholic University of America Amir Harrak, University of Toronto Susan Harvey, Brown University Mor Gregorios Y. Ibrahim, Mardin-Edessa Publishing House Andreas Juckel, University of Münster Hubert Kaufhold, Oriens Christianus Robert Kitchen, Knox-Metropolitan United Church Kathleen McVey, Princeton Theological Seminary Heleen Murre-van den Berg, Leiden University Wido T Van Peursen, The Peshitta Institute of Leiden University Lucas Van Rompay, Duke University Alison Salvesen, University of Oxford Hidemi Takahashi, University of Tokyo Jack Tannous, Princeton University BOOK REVIEW EDITOR Ute Possekel, Harvard Divinity School CONFERENCE REPORT EDITOR Jeanne-Nicole Saint-Laurent, Marquette University ASSISTANT EDITOR J. Edward Walters, Princeton Theological Seminary

HUGOYE: JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES (ISSN 1937-318X)

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is a publication of BETH MARDUTHO: THE SYRIAC INSTITUTE. Copyright © 2014 by GORGIAS PRESS and BETH MARDUTHO: THE SYRIAC INSTITUTE.

The Syriac word hugoye, plural of hugoyo, derives from the root hg‚ ‘to think, meditate, study’; hence, hugoyo ‘study, meditation’. Recently, hugoye has been used for ‘academic studies’; hence, hugoye suryoye ‘Syriac Studies’. SUBSCRIPTIONS Subscription requests should be addressed to Gorgias Press, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. Subscriptions may be made online at http://www.gorgiaspress.com. Back issues are available. NOTE FOR CONTRIBUTORS Submission guidelines and instructions are found on the Hugoye web site at http://www.bethmardutho.org. NOTE TO PUBLISHERS Copies for review should be sent directly to the Book Review Editor at the following address: Ute Possekel, Hugoye Book Review Editor, Gordon College, Department of History, 255 Grapevine Road, Wenham, MA 01984. ADVERTISEMENTS Rates: $250 full page; includes a listing in all e-mail announcements for one year. To place ads, write to the subscription address above.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.

TABLE OF CONTENTS HUGOYE 17.1 Introduction ..............................................................................................3 In Memoriam Gideon Goldenberg.................................................................................5 René Lavenant........................................................................................13 Papers Neo-Aramaic Garshuni: Observations Based on Manuscripts.......17 Emanuela Braida Greek and Latin in Syriac Script ......................................................... 15 Sebastian P. Brock A Kurdish Garshuni Poem by David of Barazne (19th Century) ... 53 Mustafa Dehqan and Alessandro Mengozzi Armenian Garshuni: An Overview of the Known Material ........... 93 Hidemi Takahashi Bibliographies ....................................................................................... 119 Book Reviews ....................................................................................... 141

v

vi

Table of Contents

HUGOYE 17.2 Introduction ......................................................................................... 191 Papers The Deir Al-Zaʿfaran and Mardin Garshuni Archives.................. 195 Khalid Dinno Garshuni as It Is: Some Observations from Reading East and West Syriac Manuscripts ............................................................................... 215 Adam Carter McCollum Maronite Garshuni Texts: On their Evolution, Characteristics, and Function ................................................................................................ 237 Joseph Moukarzel Garshuni Malayalam: A Witness to an Early Stage of Indian Christian Literature ............................................................................. 263 István Perczel The Song of the Three Men in the Furnace and the Benediction Prayer (Dan 3:24-91): According to a Garshuni Turkish Manuscript ............................................................................................ 325 Peter Zieme Reports .................................................................................................. 353 Book Reviews ....................................................................................... 359

Volume 17 2014

HUGOYE

Number 1

JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES A Publication of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute



Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 17.1, 3-4 © 2014 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME 17: PAPERS FROM THE HUGOYE CONFERENCE II: GARSHUNOGRAPHY IN THE SYRIAC TRADITION J. EDWARD WALTERS

PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY The second Hugoye Conference was held on June 22, 2013 on the topic of “Garshunography in the Syriac Tradition.” A group of around 50 scholars met in Alexander Library at Rutgers University, joined by around 50 other scholars from various locations throughout the world thanks to the live online stream of the conference by Rutgers’ technical staff. At the conference, eight scholars presented papers on the topic of Garshunography, including Aaron Butts, George A. Kiraz, Sebastian Brock, Joseph Moukarzel, Khalid Dinno, István Perczel, Hidemi Takahashi, and Emanuela Braida. Two of the papers (Butts and Kiraz) focused on the concept of and appropriate terminology for the study of “Garshuni” as a textual phenomenon. The rest of the papers focused on particular iterations of Garshuni writing practices from a variety of languages, cultures, time periods, and contexts including Greek and Latin (Brock), Arabic (Moukarzel, Dinno), Armenian (Takahashi), Malayalam (Perczel), and Neo-Aramaic (Braida). This range of material epitomizes the rich heritage of Garshuni writing practices associated with the Syriac tradition, and also suggests that there is much more work remaining to be done to understand the extent of the practice and the socio-historical conditions that necessitated it. 3

4

Introduction

Two of the papers from the conference will not appear in this volume (Kiraz, Butts). But the volume will include two submissions by scholars of Garshuni materials who were unable to attend the conference: Peter Zieme and Adam McCollum. The conference was hosted by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, the Rutgers University Libraries, the Rutgers Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literature, and the Rutgers Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Several people from Rutgers University deserve our thanks for their involvement in sponsoring this event, in particular Dr. Marianne Gaunt, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian, and her staff Farideh Tahrani, Grace Agnew, and Isaiah Beard. Special thanks are also due to Prof. Charles Häberl, AMESALL chair. The next Hugoye conference will be held May 16-17, 2014 at Rutgers University, Alexander Library. The topic for this conference will be “Colophons in the Syriac Tradition.”

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 17.1, 5-11 © 2014 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

IN MEMORIAM

GIDEON GOLDENBERG (1930–2013) LUCAS VAN ROMPAY DUKE UNIVERSITY

Professor Gideon Goldenberg passed away in Jerusalem on Tuesday, 30 July, 2013. Within his general interest in Semitic languages, and especially in syntax, Syriac always occupied a significant place. He is the author of many authoritative publications in the field of Syriac syntax and grammar. Gideon Goldenberg was born in Tel-Aviv on 1 February, 1930. His parents were immigrants from Russia to the Land of Israel, the British Mandate of Palestine, in the first decade of the twentieth century. When he was six, the family moved to a Moshav near Tel-Aviv. He went to primary school there and to high school in Tel-Aviv. In 1947 he joined the Palmach, the elite force of the Haganna, then took part in the Israeli War of Independence, and lived in Kibbutz Revivim, in the Negev, for a year. 5

6

Gideon Goldenberg

In 1952 he began his studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For his B.A. (1952-1955) his areas of study were Hebrew Language and Scripture (Miqra). In 1956 he received his Master’s degree in Hebrew Language, for which he worked, under the supervision of Professor Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai (Torczyner), on the manuscripts of a work by Rabbi Levi Ben Gershon, the famous fourteenth-century Jewish scholar from southern France. At the same time he began to study linguistics and languages. He studied Latin, Greek, Turkish, Coptic, several Semitic languages (Arabic, Akkadian, Ethiopian languages, Syriac, and Neo-Aramaic dialects), and European languages (English, French, German, Russian, and Italian). He also knew Yiddish. Among his teachers he developed a very special and lasting relationship with Professor Hans Jakob Polotsky (d. 1991), under whose supervision he wrote his Ph.D. dissertation, on the Amharic Tense System (Jerusalem, 1966, in Hebrew). In 1959 Gideon Goldenberg accepted an appointment at TelAviv University. After having taught there for some time, he cofounded the Department of Arabic and, in 1969, he founded the Department of Semitic Linguistics, which he directed for nearly twenty years. In 1987 he left Tel-Aviv University and accepted an appointment at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he had already worked part-time for several years. He was a member of the Departments of Hebrew Language and Linguistics and served as chair in both departments. He retired from this position in 1998, but continued to teach select courses until 2010. He also taught at the University of Addis Ababa, at the University of California, Los Angeles, at the University of Naples, and at the University of Leiden. In 1979 he was elected a member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. In 1993 he was the recipient of the Israel Prize for Language Sciences. In 1996 he was elected a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and in 1999 a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He worked until his last days. He gave his final lecture on 26 June, at a conference on “Neo-Aramaic Dialectology: Jews, Christians, and Mandaeans,” organized at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The topic of his lecture was “Impersonals.”

In Memoriam

7

Within Gideon Goldenberg’s broader study of Semitic syntax, Syriac occupied an important place from early on. In his 1971 study of the “Tautological Infinitive” [no. 1] the two patterns of this structure existing in Syriac – the one with the infinitive in extraposition and the other with the infinitive followed by the pronoun (h)u, to be analyzed as a “cleft sentence” – are discussed in great detail and placed within their larger Aramaic, Semitic, and general linguistic contexts. The “cleft sentence” and its Syriac representations received further attention, first in a short article in 1977 on “Imperfectly-Transformed Cleft Sentences” [no. 2] and, in greater detail, in a 1990 article to which he gave the exquisite title “On Some Niceties of Syriac Syntax” [no. 5]. As a strategy of rhematization, the enclitic pronoun (h)u is capable of transforming any preceding word or phrase into the predicate of a nominal clause, even while the relative dalath, which would usually nominalize the rest of the sentence, is absent. E.g.: l-mēlap (h)u "ābē (ʾ)nā “Learning is what I want to do.” (Comp. Semitic Languages [no. 14], 189-192). The question of rhematization is taken up again, along with several other topics, in his 1995 article “Bible Translations and Syriac Idiom” [no. 8]. Gideon Goldenberg’s lengthy essay “On Syriac Sentence Structure” [no. 3, 1983] is the most comprehensive and thorough study of Syriac syntax since the standard grammars of Theodor Nöldeke (1880 and 1898) and Rubens Duval (1881). Based on a solid corpus of early Syriac texts, the study focuses on the Syriac expressions of predication. The two types of predication, verbal and non-verbal, are seen in analogy to each other, the latter type being in the process of verbalization, the highest degree of which is found in the participle assuming the function of the finite verb. A wide array of topics related to the verbless (“nominal”) clause is discussed, and the various types of ʾit sentences receive special attention. Some further clarifications on the verbless clause are found in a short essay from 2006 [no. 11]. Other topics that Gideon Goldenberg discussed with much incisiveness include predicative adjectives in Syriac (focusing on cases in which the emphatic rather than the absolute state is used) [no. 6, 1991] and Syriac perfect forms. In a remarkable study of “Aramaic Perfects” [no. 7, 1992], he traces the evolution of the expressions of the perfect and past tense from Syriac well into Neo-Aramaic, explaining in the process the emergence of

8

Gideon Goldenberg

distinctively marked expressions of resultative perfect based on the perfect/passive participle. Many of his observations on Syriac, found throughout his many publications, resurface in his magnum opus, Semitic Languages [no. 14, 2013 – which appeared a few months before his death], and are given here a wider context and additional significance. The importance of Syriac resided for him not only in the wealth and the diversity of the preserved materials, but also in its uniquely documented prosodic features, a testimony to the “syntactical sensitivity” of Syriac authors, scholars, and scribes. Very telling in this regard is the following comment, found in his essay on “The Contribution of Semitic Languages to Linguistic Thinking” [no. 4, 1987-1988, p. 11 – reprinted as the lead essay in no. 10, 1998]: “To the credit of Syriac writers in the field of linguistic scholarship we ought to mention the careful study (in grammars, and even more in textual commentaries on the Scriptures) of prosodic features, like enclitic and independent pronouns, independent hwā vs. enclitic wā etc. Far from the verdict pronounced by some Orientalists, Syriac is one of the finest languages that I know with regard to syntactical sensitivity, much of which is connected with prosodic distinctions, and the linguistic tradition of the Syrians has carefully documented and preserved such distinctions of which we know very little in other dead languages.”

Such reflections are obviously concerned with the language in its most creative stage. Our study of the Syriac language, therefore, should be primarily based on original prose writings belonging to the period in which the language was still fully alive. As for the language of the Peshitta, both the Old Testament and the New Testament, Gideon Goldenberg had some doubts about their “stylistic status and idiomatic authenticity” (“Bible Translations and Syriac Idiom” [no. 8], p. 25), even while agreeing with Nöldeke that the Old Syriac Gospels, in virtue of their “flowing idiomatic style” are superior to the Peshitta (ibid., p. 25, and “On Predicative Adjectives and Syriac Syntax” [no. 6], p. 723). Throughout his work he regularly used biblical texts without, however, losing awareness of their possible limitations. The Syriac commentary tradition occasionally provides precious insights into the ways in which features of biblical language were understood by native speakers. Additionally, Gideon Goldenberg was always eager to listen to

In Memoriam

9

Barhebraeus’ testimony, either in his grammatical works or in his commentaries, as an – admittedly much later – representative of indigenous Syriac tradition. Barhebraeus’ works also serve to illustrate the importance of the process of transmission for our study of the classical texts. This includes various aspects of vowel notation, touched upon in several publications [and specifically dealt with in no. 13], but also the impact of the Arabic grammatical tradition on the indigenous tradition of Syriac grammarians. Gideon Goldenberg deserves our profound gratitude for having raised a great number of such important questions and for letting us benefit from his insights and erudition in trying to answer them. My observations are limited to Gideon Goldenberg’s work that is directly relevant to Syriac studies. In addition, he has major publications dealing with general and comparative Semitic linguistics, Hebrew and Arabic grammar and linguistic tradition, Ethiopian languages, Modern South-Arabian, and Neo-Aramaic. His students were instrumental in bringing together and reprinting a number of his articles in two volumes: Studies in Semitic Linguistics. Selected Writings [no. 10, 1998] and Further Studies in Semitic Linguistics [no. 15, 2013]. The former volume also has the English translation, by Shmuel Bar, of two essays previously published in Hebrew. Following a Hebrew language Jubilee volume, edited by Moshe Bar-Asher in 1997 [no. 9], a Festschrift containing sixteen contributions written in English and German by students, colleagues, and friends, and edited by Tali Bar and Eran Cohen, was published in 2007 [no. 12]. Gideon Goldenberg leaves a rich legacy to future generations of students of Syriac and Semitic linguistics. He was a man of great erudition and much wisdom, inhabiting as many worlds as languages he knew. The company of his wife Esther, children, grandchildren, and friends was always very precious to him. Even in his old age, in spite of what he described as “the growing fragility of the body” and the need to “walk through the streets of Jerusalem with staff in hand” (cf. Zechariah 8:4), he never complained (for, he once wrote, “after all, if I had been a football player I would have finished my career at the age of thirty”) and never lost sight of his friends. It is painful to lose him, but we are grateful for the richness of his life and work.

10

Gideon Goldenberg

Main publications involving Syriac: 1. “Tautological Infinitive,” Israel Oriental Studies 1 (1971), 36-85. Reprinted in Studies in Semitic Linguistics [no. 10], 66-115. 2. “Imperfectly-Transformed Cleft Sentences,” in Proceedings of the Sixth World Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem, 1977), vol. 1, 127-133. Reprinted in Studies in Semitic Linguistics, 116-122. 3. “On Syriac Sentence-Structure,” in M. Sokoloff (ed.), Arameans, Aramaic and the Aramaic Literary Tradition (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1983), 97-140. Reprinted in Studies in Semitic Linguistics, 525-568. 4. “The Contribution of Semitic Languages to Linguistic Thinking,” Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap Ex Oriente Lux 30 (1987-1988), 107-115. Reprinted in Studies in Semitic Linguistics, 1-9. 5. “On Some Niceties of Syriac Syntax,” in R. Lavenant (ed.), V Symposium Syriacum 1988 (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 236; Rome: Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1990), 335344. Reprinted in Studies in Semitic Linguistics, 569-578. 6. “On Predicative Adjectives and Syriac Syntax,” Bibliotheca Orientalis 48 (1991), 716-726. Reprinted in Studies in Semitic Linguistics, 579-590. 7. “Aramaic Perfects,” Israel Oriental Studies 12 (1992), 113-137. Reprinted in Studies in Semitic Linguistics, 605-629. 8. “Bible Translations and Syriac Idiom,” in P.B. Dirksen and A. van der Kooij (eds.), The Peshitta as a Translation. Papers Read at the II Peshitta Symposium Held at Leiden 19-21 August 1993 (Monographs of the Peshitta Institute Leiden, 8; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 25-39. Reprinted in Studies in Semitic Linguistics, 591-604. 9. Moshe Bar-Asher (ed.), ‫“( ספר היובל לגדעון גולדנברג‬Jubilee Volume for Gideon Goldenberg”) (Masorot. Studies in Language Traditions and Jewish Languages, 9-10-11; Jerusalem: Institute of Jewish Studies, 1997) – with a biography by Shlomo Raz, 13-18 [Hebrew]. 10. Studies in Semitic Linguistics. Selected Writings (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1998). 11. “Comments on ‘Three Approaches to the Tripartite Nominal Clause in Syriac’ by Wido van Peursen and Jan Joosten,” in P.S.F. van Keulen and W.Th. van Peursen (eds.), Corpus Linguistics and Textual History: A Computer-assisted Interdisciplinary

In Memoriam

12. 13.

14. 15.

11

Approach to the Peshi$ta (Studia Semitica Neerlandica, 48; Assen: Van Gorcum, 2006), 175-184. Tali Bar and Eran Cohen (eds.), Studies in Semitic and General Linguistics in Honor of Gideon Goldenberg (Alter Orient und Altes Testament, 334; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2007). “‫“( ”הניקודים הסוריים ושיטותיהם‬Methods of Vowel Notation in Syriac”), in Rafael I. (Singer) Zer and Yosef Ofer (eds.), Israel. Linguistic Studies in the Memory of Israel Yeivin (Publications of the Hebrew University Bible Project, 6; Jerusalem: The Mendel Institute of Jewish Studies, 2011), 65-78 [Hebrew]. Semitic Languages. Features, Structures, Relations, Processes (Oxford: University Press, 2013). Further Studies in Semitic Linguistics (Alter Orient und Altes Testament, 405; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2013).

[With thanks to Esther Goldenberg, Tali Bar, and Aaron Butts.]

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 17.1, 13-16 © 2014 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

IN MEMORIAM

RENÉ LAVENANT, S.J. (1926–2013) DOMINIQUE GONNET, S.J.

INSTITUT DES SOURCES CHRÉTIENNES René Lavenant was born in Davézieux, near Annonay (in the Rhône-Alpes region), in March 1926. He had two younger sisters. As he himself reported, the memory and the cult of Saint John Francis Regis, an early Jesuit saint, were very much alive during his childhood, both in his family and in his native region. He attended high school first at the Junior Seminary of Saint Charles Borromeo in Annonay and then at the École Apostolique (“Apostolic School”) of Avignon, where he graduated in 1944. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in September 1944 in Francheville (to the west of Lyons) and pronounced his first vows in Yzeure (in the Auvergne region) two years later. His request to work in the Middle East was accepted and in 1946 he 13

14

René Lavenant

started working, as part of his military service, at the Maronite Junior Seminary of Ghazir, north of Beirut, where for two years he taught the fourth grade and acted as a supervisor. This first experience was followed by a two-year period of Arabic language study in Bikfaya. When he left Lebanon in 1950, in order to continue the Jesuit curriculum in philosophy at Chantilly, near Paris, he knew that he wanted to focus on the Syriac language. As he himself reported, Father Graffin introduced him to this language during weekly Sunday sessions. In 1953 he returned to Ghazir where he was appointed assistant to the Director of Studies. He continued to work on Syriac and fulfilled requirements for a certificate in Semitic philology before returning to France for the theology component of the Jesuit curriculum, which he started in Lyons-Fourvière in 1955. He was ordained a priest in July 1958. Between 1959 and 1961 he was based in Chantilly and continued his Syriac work at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. Following his Tertianship (the final year of Jesuit training) in the Jesuit community of Paray-le-Monial (in Burgundy), he returned to Lebanon in the summer of 1962 and, for one additional year, was in charge of the program of study at Ghazir Seminary. In 1963 he began his career as university professor. The same year saw his first major publication: an edition and translation of Philoxenus of Mabbug’s important Letter to Patricius of Edessa, which appeared in the Patrologia Orientalis. Living initially in Bikfaya and later in Beirut, he was for thirteen years professor of Arabic at the Centre de Recherches et d’Études Arabes (CREA), which is affiliated with the Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth. He had a weekly teaching load of 20 hours. After an extended stay in the United States in 1977, he spent an additional three years in Beirut, working on Syriac language and patristics and teaching not only at the Université Saint-Joseph, but also at the Pontifical Biblical and Oriental Institutes in Rome. In 1980, at the age of 54, he was appointed professor of patristics and Syriac studies at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. He continued, however, his collaboration with Beirut, in particular for the revision of the Arabic version of the Old Testament. As the leading Syriac scholar of the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, he took upon himself the task of editing the proceedings of the Syriac Symposium between 1980 (the third Symposium) and 1996 (the seventh Symposium), which all appeared in the series Orientalia Christiana

In Memoriam

15

Analecta. In addition, from 1995 to 2002, he was the general editor of the Patrologia Orientalis collection. He left Rome in 2002 to join the Jesuit community of the Rue Sala in Lyons, where he contributed to the research and editorial work of Sources Chrétiennes. In 2009 he moved to the Jesuit community of La Chauderaie, in Francheville. With courage and peace of mind he endured the increasingly debilitating effects of Parkinson’s disease. His condition rapidly declined at the end of 2012. He passed away peacefully in the morning of 13 June 2013.

Publications: 1. “Trois hymnes de saint Ephrem sur le Paradis,” L’Orient Syrien 5 (1960), 33-46. 2. La lettre à Patricius de Philoxène de Mabboug. Édition critique du texte syriaque et traduction française. (Patrologia Orientalis, 30.5; 1963). 3. (With François Graffin) Éphrem de Nisibe. Hymnes sur le Paradis (Sources Chrétiennes, 137; 1968). 4. “Le problème de Jean d’Apamée,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 46 (1980), 367-390. 5. Jean d’Apamée. Dialogues et traités (Sources Chrétiennes, 311; 1984). 6. Various entries in Dizionario patristico e di antichità cristiane, 3 vol. (Genova, 1983); French translation: Dictionnaire encyclopédique du Christianisme ancien, 2 vol. (Paris, 1990). 7. (With Filoksinos Y. Dolabani, Sebastian P. Brock, and Samir Khalil), “Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliothéque du Patriarcat Syrien Orthodoxe à Homs (auj. à Damas),” Parole de l’Orient 19 (1994), 555-661. 8. “La letteratura siriaca primitiva,” in P. Siniscalco (ed.), Le antiche chiese orientali. Storia e letteratura (Roma : Città Nuova, 2005), 178-207. 9. Philoxène de Mabboug. Homélies. Introduction, traduction et notes par Eugène Lemoine. Nouvelle édition revue par René Lavenant (Sources Chrétiennes, 44 bis; 2007). 10. Editor of: III Symposium Syriacum 1980, V Symposium Syriacum 1988, VI Symposium Syriacum 1992, VII Symposium Syriacum 1996 (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 221, 236, 247, 256; 1983-1998). 11. Co-editor, with H.J.W. Drijvers, C. Molenberg, and G.J. Reinink, of IV Symposium Syriacum 1984 (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 229; 1987).

16

René Lavenant

12. Several articles in the Dizionario enciclopedico dell’Oriente cristiano, ed. by E.G. Farrugia (Rome, 2000): “Assemani, Giuseppe Luigi”, “Assemani, Giuseppe Simonio”, “Assemani, Stefano Evodio”, “Bardesane”, “Barhebraeus” (with V. Poggi], “Bnay (Bnāt) Qyāma”, “Dionigi Bar "alībī”, “Edessa” [with J. Habbi], “Giacobbe (Giacome) Baradeo o Baradai” [with C. Capizzi], “Narsaī”, “Patrologia Orientalis”, “Sources Chrétiennes”. 13. Forthcoming: Translation of the fourth and final part of Moufazzal ibn Abil-Fazail, Histoire des Sultans mamlouks (Patrologia Orientalis). [Translated from the French by L. Van Rompay.]

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 17.1, 17-31 © 2014 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

NEO-ARAMAIC GARSHUNI: OBSERVATIONS BASED ON MANUSCRIPTS EMANUELA BRAIDA

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO* ABSTRACT The present paper is a preliminary study of key spelling features detected in the rendering of foreign words in some Neo-Aramaic Christian texts belonging to the late literary production from the region of Alqosh in Northern Iraq. This Neo-Syriac literature laid the groundwork for its written form as early as the end of the 16th century, when scribes of the so-called ‘school of Alqosh’ wrote down texts for the local population. From a linguistic point of view, scribes and authors developed a Neo-Syriac literary koine based on the vernacular languages of the region of Alqosh. Despite the sporadic presence of certain orthographical conventions, largely influenced by Classical Syriac, these texts lacked a standard orthography and strict conventions in spelling. Since a large number of vernacular terms have strayed over time from the classical language or, in many cases, they have been borrowed from other languages, the rendering of the terms was usually characterized by a mostly phonetic rendition, especially in the case of foreign words that cannot be written according to an original or a standard form. In these cases, scribes and authors had to adapt the Syriac alphabet to * A Post Doctoral Research Fellowship granted by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Amir Harrak, for the guidance, encouragement and advice he has provided throughout my time as Post-doctoral fellow.

17

18

Emanuela Braida the phonetic representation of an Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish or maybe Western term. The results are hardly normalizable, since the graphic rendering of the terms often reflects the phonetic characteristics of a particular vernacular. This complicated linguistic situation is well reflected in the Neo-Aramaic version of the Story of Ahiqar preserved MS London Sachau 9321, where a large amount of loanwords from a number of non-Aramaic languages shows a lively regional vocabulary to which the Neo-Aramaic dialects actively contributed.

The present paper is a preliminary study of key spelling features detected in the rendering of foreign words in some Neo-Aramaic Christian texts. These texts belong to the late literary production deriving from the region of Alqosh in Northern Iraq. 1 Literary production in this region has a long tradition in manuscript form, unlike the area of Lake Urmia in Northwestern Iran. In the region of Urmia, the development of Christian literary production began in the 1830s, when British and American Protestant missionaries introduced the use of the press schools as practical remedies against widespread illiteracy. Linguistically speaking, they normalized the Aramaic dialect of Urmia, giving it a standard form called sureth. As E. Odisho pointed out, “the choice fell on the Urmi dialect not because it was widely spread or accepted by other inhabitants or other regions and villages or because it maintained greater affinity to the old written languages. The choice was merely because the 1 The manuscripts on which this study is mainly based have been edited in the following texts: Emanuela
Braida, “A Story of Ahiqar in Neo-Aramaic according to MS London Sachau 9321,” Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 14 (2014), forthcoming; Emanuela, Braida, “A Hagiographical Tale: On the Hermit Barmalka by Joseph ‘Abbaya of Alqosh”, in Religious Poetry in Vernacular Syriac from Northern Iraq (17th-20th Centuries). An Anthology, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 627 and 628, ed. A. Mengozzi (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), I, 95-108; II, 83-98; Emanuela, Braida, “A Poetic Adaptation of Historical Sources: On an Attack by the Mongols at Karamlish by Thomas Hanna of Karamlish”, in Religious Poetry in Vernacular Syriac from Northern Iraq (17th-20th Centuries). An Anthology, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 627 and 628, ed. A. Mengozzi (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), I, 109-31; II, 99-119.

Neo-Aramaic Garshuni

19

missionaries happened to have most of their main headquarters there.”2 This new literary language was written in the traditional Syriac alphabet and was not a replica of the Urmi dialect, since it mostly followed the classic models of historical and etymological spelling rather than the spoken language. Furthermore, a number of elements of other spoken dialects and many of the Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Kurdish loanwords which were already common in the everyday language were brought in. From the mid-nineteenth century several magazines were printed in the Urmia area that grew to become an example to follow for many subsequent publishing initiatives of Neo-Aramaic speakers in the diaspora. From this newly established standard written language, a spoken koine arose and became a widespread ‘lingua franca’ among the Assyrian speakers after the World War I.3 As for the Christian Neo-Syriac literature of Northern Iraq, it laid the groundwork for its written form as early as the end of the 16th century. In the region of Mosul, scribes of the so-called ‘school of Alqosh’ wrote down texts assiduously, translating biblical texts and transcribing – and sometimes also composing – poems for the local population. From a linguistic point of view, scribes and authors developed a Neo-Syriac literary koine based on the vernacular languages of the region of Alqosh. Most of their works consisted of long religious poems called durekyatha. There are also examples of very different kinds of compositions, including historical poems, folk songs, and lullabies, although these genres are represented only in 19th century manuscripts.4 All the neo-Aramaic manuscripts coming from the Northern Iraq area were written in the traditional East-Syriac alphabet. 2Edward

Odisho, The Sound System of Modern Assyrian (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1988), 19. 3 For a comprehensive overview of this literature, see Hendrika L. Murre-van den Berg, From a Spoken to a Written Language: The Introduction and Development of Literary Urmia Aramaic in the Nineteenth Century (Leiden: Publication of the De Goeje Fund, 1999). 4 For an introduction into this literature, see Rudolf Macuch, Geschichte der spät- und neusyrischen Literatur (Berlin: Gruyter, 1976); Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti, Il Ladrone e il Cherubino: Dramma Liturgico Cristiano Orientale in Siriaco e Neoaramaico (Torino: Silvio Zamorani Editore, 1993); and Alessandro Mengozzi, Israel of Alqosh and Joseph of Telkepe: A Story in a Truthful Language (Leuven: Peeters, 2002).

20

Emanuela Braida

Despite the sporadic presence of certain orthographical conventions, largely influenced by Classical Syriac, these texts lacked a standard orthography and strict conventions in spelling. However, when a Neo-Aramaic scribe could draw inspiration from his own cultural background, he showed that Classical Syriac was the basis of his literary choices, even if this language was far removed from his everyday use. Some historical spelling variants are very common in manuscripts of any period and testify the lasting use of words in classical Syriac. This is the case, for example, of the historical spelling (and probably pronunciation) of terms and names directly related to the religious tradition, as mshi%a, ‘Christ’, or ‛edta, ‘church’, that usually retain %eth and ‛ayn contrary to the phonetic tendency in spelling /%/ with kap and /‛/ with alef, which led to phonetic spellings such as khelma, ‘dream’, and ‛ayna, ‘eye’. However, a large number of vernacular terms have strayed over time from the classical language or, in many cases, they have been borrowed from other languages, since the multilingualism represents the common linguistic context of the neo-Aramaic speaking communities. As the manuscript tradition of Alqosh represents the written record of an oral culture, the exact rendition of a term – regardless of its historical form – is often important for literary purpose (metric, rhyme) and proper understanding of the text by an audience. For these reasons, the rendering of the terms is usually characterized by a mostly phonetic rendition, especially in the case of foreign words that cannot be written according to an original or a standard form. Since the so-called Iraqi Kurdistan is a border region, the influence of neighboring languages is very strong and evident in the pronunciation, loanwords, and sometimes even the grammar of Neo-Aramaic languages. The region in question borders Iran to the East, Turkey to the North, Iraq to the West and to the South, a fact which explains why a number of Arabic, Persian, Kurdish and Turkish terms are common in all the neo-Aramaic languages. Furthermore, the position of Neo-Aramaic speaking communities among Islamic majorities exposed them to a high number of linguistic entries in relation to the cultural prestige of Islamic languages as Arabic or Persian. In the case of foreign words a scribe cannot resort to etymological forms and historical renderings, but he must adapt his alphabet to the phonetic representation of a term. This procedure

Neo-Aramaic Garshuni

21

must adapt the Syriac alphabet to the phonetic representation of an Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish or maybe Western term. The results are hardly normalizable, since they depend on many different factors. Usually the more an author is learned, the more his transcriptions follow consistent rules, but it is also usual that a learned author tends to limit the use of foreign loanwords in favor of Aramaic synonyms, even if they are sometimes obsolete. By contrast, a less educated scribe tends to use ordinary words even though not Aramaic, transcribing them in an arbitrary way. The little or no knowledge of the spelling of the word in its original language is often evident in the variety of transcripts that may appear within a single text. For representing phonemes extra to the original Aramaic phonologic system, the modern texts show a number of diacritics in addition to the traditional vocalization based on the system of vowel points. The most common occurrences in rendering foreign consonants are listed in the following table. ‚

b/v

NeoAramaic/ Syriac

Arabic

‫ا‬

!

" /"#

Persian

Kurdish

Turkish

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ع‬

‫ ب‬ø

‫و‬

‫ب‬

‫و‬

‫ب‬

‫ڤ‬

‫ب‬

d/ḏ

$/$/ % $#

ø ‫ج‬

&

‫د‬

w/ḇ

'

‫ھ‬

‫ھ‬

‫ھ‬

‫ھ‬

z

(

‫و‬

‫و‬

‫و‬

‫و‬

)

‫ز‬

(/

*

g/j/gh h

'/x y

k/x/ ch (ç)

,/,+ +

l

././ # ./ .% 0

n

m s ‛

‫خ‬ ‫ط‬

-

‫غ‬

‫غ‬

‫ذ‬

‫گ ج‬ ‫د‬

‫ژ‬ ‫ح‬

‫غ‬

‫ذ‬

‫ز‬

‫گ ج‬

‫ د‬ø

‫ژ‬

‫غ‬

‫گ ج‬ ‫د‬

‫ز‬

‫ذ‬

‫ژ‬

‫ز‬

‫ض ظ‬

‫خ‬ ø

‫خ‬ ø

‫خ‬ ø

‫ي‬

‫ى‬

‫ى‬

‫ى‬

‫ك‬

‫خ‬

‫ك‬

‫خ‬

‫چ‬

‫ك‬

‫خ‬

‫چ‬

‫ك‬

‫خ‬

‫ل‬

‫ل‬

‫ل‬

‫ل‬

1

‫م‬

‫م‬

‫م‬

‫م‬

2

‫ن‬

‫ن‬

‫ن‬

3

‫س‬

4

‫ع‬

‫س‬ ø

‫س‬ ø

‫ڭ‬

‫چ‬

‫ن‬ ‫س‬ ø

22

Emanuela Braida

p/f

NeoAramaic/ Syriac

Arabic

ø‫ف‬

Persian

Kurdish

Turkish

‫ف‬

‫ف‬

‫ف‬

6 5 /5 7/76

‫ظ ض ص‬

ø

r

8

‫ق‬

‫ق‬

9

‫ر‬

‫ر‬

t/ṯ

:

‫ش‬

‫ش‬

‫ش‬

‫ش‬

;

‫ث ت‬

‫ت‬

‫ت‬

‫ت‬

)/*/ q

sh

‫پ‬

ø

‫پ‬

‫ق‬ ‫ڕ‬

ø

‫پ‬

‫ق‬ ‫ر‬

‫ر‬

The merging of alap /‚/ and ‛ayn /‛/ is frequent in the case of both Syriac words and Arabic loanwords, where alap usually 6 replaces an etymological ‛ayn (e.g. . instead of .