Turoyo language
Encyclopedia
Turoyo/Surayt is a variety of Aramaic traditionally spoken in eastern Turkey
and north-eastern Syria
by the Assyrian/Syriac people. Turoyo is to a lesser extent mutually intelligible with Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic
.
in southeastern Turkey
.
An other name for the language is , and it is used by a number of speakers of the language in preference to . However, especially in the diaspora
, the language is frequently called Surayt/Suryoyo (or Sureyt or Sŭryoyo or Süryoyo depending on dialect), meaning 'Syriac'. Most speakers use Classical Syriac, or Kthobhonoyo/Kthowonoyo/Kthowoyo, for literature and worship. Turoyo/Surayt speakers are currently mostly members of the Syriac Orthodox Church
although there are also members of the Chaldean Catholic Church especially from the town of Midyat, until the 19th century there were also Nestorians especially in Tur Izlo/Bægoge area. There is an increasing interest in reviving Kthobhonoyo, the classical language, as a spoken language. This is most acute among non-Turoyo/Surayt-speaking Syriac Orthodox, whose first language may be Arabic
, German
, Swedish
, English
, Malayalam or another language. This, and the church's preference for Kthobhonoyo, has had some impact on Turoyo/Surayt.
, in the Serto and in "Estrangelo" script used for West-Syriac Kthobhonoyo. However, with upheaval in their homeland through the twentieth century, many Turoyo/Surayt speakers have emigrated around the world (particularly to Syria
, the Lebanon
, Sweden
and Germany
). The Swedish government's education policy, that every child be educated in his or her mother tongue, led to the commissioning of teaching materials in Turoyo. Yusuf Ishaq, thus, developed a written language for Turoyo/Surayt that uses the Latin alphabet
. The series of reading books and workbooks that use Ishaq's written Turoyo are called Toxu Qorena!, or "Come Let's Read!" This project has also produced a Swedish
-Turoyo dictionary of 4500 entries: the Svensk-turabdinskt Lexikon: Leksiqon Swedoyo-Suryoyo. Another old teacher, writer and translator of the Turoyo/Surayt-Dialect is Yuhanun Üzel, born in Midun in 1934, who finished in 2009 the translation of the Peshitta Bible in Turoyo/Surayt, with Benjamin Üzel and Yahkup Bilgic, in Serto (Westsyriac) and Latin script, a good foundation for the language. This Aramaic Christian commission name is "Sihto du Kthovo Qadisho Suryoyo".
Turoyo/Surayt has borrowed some words from Arabic
, Kurdish
and Turkish
. The main dialect of Turoyo/Surayt is that of Midyat
(Mëḏyoyo), in the east of Turkey's Mardin Province
. Every village for example Midin (Midun,Middo), Kfarze, `Iwardo/'Ewwardo and Anhil, and the Bægoge/Tur-Izlo(a cluster of seven small villages) all have distinctive Turoyo/Surayt dialects (Midwoyo, Kfarzoyo, `Iwarnoyo, Nihloyo and Izloyo respectively). All Turoyo/Surayt dialects are mutually intelligible with each other. Many Turoyo/Surayt speakers who have left their villages now speak a mixed dialect of their village dialect with the Midyat dialect. This mixture of dialects was used by Ishaq as the basis of his system of written Turoyo/Surayt. For example, Ishaq's reading book uses the word qorena in its title instead of the Mëḏyoyo qurena or the village-dialect qorina. All speakers are bilingual in another local language. Church schools in Syria and the Lebanon teach Kthobonoyo rather than Turoyo/Surayt, and encourage the replacement of non-Syriac loanwords with authentic Syriac ones. Some church leaders have tried to discourage the use and writing of Turoyo/Surayt, seeing it as an impure form of Syriac.
s /d͡ʒ/ (as in judge), /t͡ʃ/ (as in church) /ʒ/ (as in azure) and /ðˤ/ (the Arabic ẓāʼ) mostly only appear in loanwords from other languages. The most distinctive feature of Turoyo/Surayt phonolgy is its use of reduced vowels in closed syllable
s. The phonetic value of these reduced vowels differs depending both on the value of original vowel and the dialect spoken. The Miḏyoyo dialect also reduces vowels in pre-stress open syllables. This has the effect of producing a syllabic schwa
in most dialects (in Classical Syriac the schwa is not syllabic).
The verbal system of Turoyo/Surayt is similar to that used in other Neo-Aramaic languages
. In Classical Syriac, the ancient perfect and imperfect tenses had started to become preterite and future tenses respectively, and other tenses were formed by using the participle
s with pronominal
clitic
s or shortened forms of the verb hwā ('to become'). Most modern Aramaic languages have completely abandoned the old tenses and form all tenses from stems based around the old participles. The classical clitics have become incorporated fully into the verb form, and can be considered more like inflections.
Turoyo/Surayt has also developed the use of the demonstrative pronouns much further than any other Aramaic language. In Turoyo/Surayt, they have become definite article
s. Thus:
The Modern Western Syriac dialect of Mlahsô
and `Ansha villages in Diyarbakır Province
is quite different from Turoyo/Surayt. It is virtually extinct; its last few speakers live in al Qamishli in northeastern Syria
. Turoyo/Surayt is also more closely related to other Neo-Aramaic dialects than the Western Neo-Aramaic dialect of Ma'loula
.
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
and north-eastern Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
by the Assyrian/Syriac people. Turoyo is to a lesser extent mutually intelligible with Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic is a Neo-Aramaic dialect, spoken by an estimated 220,000 people , formerly in the area between Lake Urmia, north-western Iran, and Siirt, south-eastern Turkey, but now more widely throughout the...
and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic
Chaldean Neo-Aramaic
Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is a Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialect. Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is spoken on the plain of Mosul in northern Iraq, as well as by the Chaldean communities worldwide. Most speakers are Chaldean Catholics....
.
Etymology
From the word , meaning 'mountain', is the mountain tongue of the Tur AbdinTur Abdin
Tur Abdin is a hilly region of south east Turkey incorporating the eastern half of Mardin Province, and Şırnak Province west of the Tigris, on the border with Syria. The name 'Tur Abdin' is from the Syriac language meaning 'mountain of the servants '. Tur Abdin is of great importance to Syriac...
in southeastern Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
.
An other name for the language is , and it is used by a number of speakers of the language in preference to . However, especially in the diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
, the language is frequently called Surayt/Suryoyo (or Sureyt or Sŭryoyo or Süryoyo depending on dialect), meaning 'Syriac'. Most speakers use Classical Syriac, or Kthobhonoyo/Kthowonoyo/Kthowoyo, for literature and worship. Turoyo/Surayt speakers are currently mostly members of the Syriac Orthodox Church
Syriac Orthodox Church
The Syriac Orthodox Church; is an autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church based in the Eastern Mediterranean, with members spread throughout the world. The Syriac Orthodox Church claims to derive its origin from one of the first Christian communities, established in Antioch by the Apostle St....
although there are also members of the Chaldean Catholic Church especially from the town of Midyat, until the 19th century there were also Nestorians especially in Tur Izlo/Bægoge area. There is an increasing interest in reviving Kthobhonoyo, the classical language, as a spoken language. This is most acute among non-Turoyo/Surayt-speaking Syriac Orthodox, whose first language may be Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Malayalam or another language. This, and the church's preference for Kthobhonoyo, has had some impact on Turoyo/Surayt.
History
Until recently, Turoyo/Surayt was a spoken vernacular and was never written down: Kthobhonoyo was the written language. In the 1880s, various attempts were made, with the encouragement of western missionaries, to write Turoyo/Surayt in the Syriac alphabetSyriac alphabet
The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC . It is one of the Semitic abjads directly descending from the Aramaic alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, and the traditional Mongolian alphabets.-...
, in the Serto and in "Estrangelo" script used for West-Syriac Kthobhonoyo. However, with upheaval in their homeland through the twentieth century, many Turoyo/Surayt speakers have emigrated around the world (particularly to Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, the Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
). The Swedish government's education policy, that every child be educated in his or her mother tongue, led to the commissioning of teaching materials in Turoyo. Yusuf Ishaq, thus, developed a written language for Turoyo/Surayt that uses the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
. The series of reading books and workbooks that use Ishaq's written Turoyo are called Toxu Qorena!, or "Come Let's Read!" This project has also produced a Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
-Turoyo dictionary of 4500 entries: the Svensk-turabdinskt Lexikon: Leksiqon Swedoyo-Suryoyo. Another old teacher, writer and translator of the Turoyo/Surayt-Dialect is Yuhanun Üzel, born in Midun in 1934, who finished in 2009 the translation of the Peshitta Bible in Turoyo/Surayt, with Benjamin Üzel and Yahkup Bilgic, in Serto (Westsyriac) and Latin script, a good foundation for the language. This Aramaic Christian commission name is "Sihto du Kthovo Qadisho Suryoyo".
Turoyo/Surayt has borrowed some words from Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, Kurdish
Kurdish language
Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....
and Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
. The main dialect of Turoyo/Surayt is that of Midyat
Midyat
Midyat is an originally Assyrian/Syriac town in Mardin Province of Turkey. The ancient city is the epicenter of a centuries-old Assyrian/Syriac enclave in Southeast-Turkey, widely familiar under its Syriac name Tur Abdin. A cognate of the name Midyat is first encountered in an inscription of the...
(Mëḏyoyo), in the east of Turkey's Mardin Province
Mardin Province
Mardin Province is a province of Turkey with a population of 744,606. The population was 835,173 in 2000. The capital of the Mardin Province is Mardin...
. Every village for example Midin (Midun,Middo), Kfarze, `Iwardo/'Ewwardo and Anhil, and the Bægoge/Tur-Izlo(a cluster of seven small villages) all have distinctive Turoyo/Surayt dialects (Midwoyo, Kfarzoyo, `Iwarnoyo, Nihloyo and Izloyo respectively). All Turoyo/Surayt dialects are mutually intelligible with each other. Many Turoyo/Surayt speakers who have left their villages now speak a mixed dialect of their village dialect with the Midyat dialect. This mixture of dialects was used by Ishaq as the basis of his system of written Turoyo/Surayt. For example, Ishaq's reading book uses the word qorena in its title instead of the Mëḏyoyo qurena or the village-dialect qorina. All speakers are bilingual in another local language. Church schools in Syria and the Lebanon teach Kthobonoyo rather than Turoyo/Surayt, and encourage the replacement of non-Syriac loanwords with authentic Syriac ones. Some church leaders have tried to discourage the use and writing of Turoyo/Surayt, seeing it as an impure form of Syriac.
Pronunciation and grammar
Phonetically, Turoyo/Surayt is very similar to Classical Syriac. The additional phonemePhoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s /d͡ʒ/ (as in judge), /t͡ʃ/ (as in church) /ʒ/ (as in azure) and /ðˤ/ (the Arabic ẓāʼ) mostly only appear in loanwords from other languages. The most distinctive feature of Turoyo/Surayt phonolgy is its use of reduced vowels in closed syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
s. The phonetic value of these reduced vowels differs depending both on the value of original vowel and the dialect spoken. The Miḏyoyo dialect also reduces vowels in pre-stress open syllables. This has the effect of producing a syllabic schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
in most dialects (in Classical Syriac the schwa is not syllabic).
The verbal system of Turoyo/Surayt is similar to that used in other Neo-Aramaic languages
Neo-Aramaic languages
Neo-Aramaic, or Modern Aramaic, languages are varieties of Aramaic that are spoken vernaculars in the medieval to modern era, evolving out of Middle Aramaic dialects around AD 1200 ....
. In Classical Syriac, the ancient perfect and imperfect tenses had started to become preterite and future tenses respectively, and other tenses were formed by using the participle
Participle
In linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
s with pronominal
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
clitic
Clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...
s or shortened forms of the verb hwā ('to become'). Most modern Aramaic languages have completely abandoned the old tenses and form all tenses from stems based around the old participles. The classical clitics have become incorporated fully into the verb form, and can be considered more like inflections.
Turoyo/Surayt has also developed the use of the demonstrative pronouns much further than any other Aramaic language. In Turoyo/Surayt, they have become definite article
Definite Article
Definite Article is the title of British comedian Eddie Izzard's 1996 performance released on VHS. It was recorded on different nights at the Shaftesbury Theatre...
s. Thus:
- masculine singular: u-malko (the king)
- feminine singular: i-malëkṯo/ i-malakṯo (the queen)
- plural common: am-malke/æm-malke (the kings), am-malkōṯo/æm-malkōṯe-am-malëkyōṯe (the queens).
The Modern Western Syriac dialect of Mlahsô
Mlahsö language
Mlahsô is a Modern West Syriac language, a dialect of Aramaic. It was traditionally spoken in eastern Turkey and north-eastern Syria by members of the Assyrian/Syriac people....
and `Ansha villages in Diyarbakır Province
Diyarbakir Province
Diyarbakır Province is a province in eastern Turkey. The province covers an area of 15,355 km² and the population is 1,528,958. The provincial capital is Diyarbakir...
is quite different from Turoyo/Surayt. It is virtually extinct; its last few speakers live in al Qamishli in northeastern Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
. Turoyo/Surayt is also more closely related to other Neo-Aramaic dialects than the Western Neo-Aramaic dialect of Ma'loula
Western Neo-Aramaic
Western Neo-Aramaic is a modern Aramaic language. Today, it is spoken in three villages in the Anti-Lebanon mountains of western Syria. Western Neo-Aramaic is the only modern living Aramaic language drawn from the branch of Western Aramaic languages...
.
See also
- Assyrian peopleAssyrian peopleThe Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
- Aramaic languageAramaic languageAramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
- Assyrian Neo-AramaicAssyrian Neo-AramaicAssyrian Neo-Aramaic is a Neo-Aramaic dialect, spoken by an estimated 220,000 people , formerly in the area between Lake Urmia, north-western Iran, and Siirt, south-eastern Turkey, but now more widely throughout the...
- Chaldean Neo-AramaicChaldean Neo-AramaicChaldean Neo-Aramaic is a Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialect. Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is spoken on the plain of Mosul in northern Iraq, as well as by the Chaldean communities worldwide. Most speakers are Chaldean Catholics....
- Mlahsô languageMlahsö languageMlahsô is a Modern West Syriac language, a dialect of Aramaic. It was traditionally spoken in eastern Turkey and north-eastern Syria by members of the Assyrian/Syriac people....
- Syriac alphabetSyriac alphabetThe Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC . It is one of the Semitic abjads directly descending from the Aramaic alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, and the traditional Mongolian alphabets.-...
- Syriac languageSyriac languageSyriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
- Tur AbdinTur AbdinTur Abdin is a hilly region of south east Turkey incorporating the eastern half of Mardin Province, and Şırnak Province west of the Tigris, on the border with Syria. The name 'Tur Abdin' is from the Syriac language meaning 'mountain of the servants '. Tur Abdin is of great importance to Syriac...
General references
- Heinrichs, Wolfhart (ed.) (1990). Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Scholars Press: Atlanta, Georgia. ISBN 1-55540-430-8.
- Jastrow, Otto (1985). Laut- und Formenlehre des neuaramäischen Dialekts von Mīdin im Ṭur cAbdīn. Otto Harrowitz Verlag: Wiesbaden.
- Jastrow, Otto (1992). Lehrbuch der Ṭuroyo-Sprache. Otto Harrowitz Verlag: Wiesbaden. ISBN 3-447-03213-8.
- Tezel, Aziz (2003). Comparative Etymological Studies in the Western Neo-Syriac (Ṭūrōyo) Lexicon: with special reference to homonyms, related words and borrowings with cultural signification. Uppsala Universitet. ISBN 91-554-5555-7.
External links
- Ethnologue report for Turoyo
- Semitisches Tonarchiv: Dokumentgruppe "Aramäisch/Turoyo"
- Yauno: The Syriac Community Wie erkenne ich nicht-aramäische Wörter in Turoyo? (How do I recognise non-Aramaic words in Turoyo?)
- The Turoyo language today
- Syriac Turoyo-Bible