Posted by Warrior Empress from host-65-199-130-239.link.com.eg (65.199.130.239) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 at 4:38AM :
In Reply to: Re: Jeff posted by farid from customer-148-233-71-42.uninet.net.mx (148.233.71.42) on Tuesday, July 01, 2003 at 1:05PM :
: There are many words that are actually arabic in origin and I guess twisted and churned into being the popular assyrian spoken by those who originate from iraq (ie my parents).
: ***I wonder about that...itīs also likely that the words originally were Assyrian and went through Arabic or even Farsi and came back to us as "foreign" words.
...Yes well actually this is a correct analysis. In my time travelling the Middle East and Turkey two years ago I found so many words that exist in my parents' speech and at the same in Turkish and different dialects of Arabic. I picked up both Turkish and Arabic almost immediately.
We do have an original language and I met one Suryoyo guy who is working with a cuneiform expert showing how modern syriac's roots are found in cuneiform script which ofcourse came before the Arabic and Turkish alike. For example cuneiform describes a river as "nahro" which is a word we still use and the Arabs now pronounced as 'Nahr'. The Turks ofcourse (after Islamisisation) spoke Arabic and this language was mixed with the original (mongolian? medean? Greek probably too I don't know this history well) and then after Ataturk's republican drive changed the script to latin and created a "new" language, ie Turkish.
My young friend Nikko in Sydney is currently studying and compiling a history of the linguistic changes etc. I am sure you all know him well. Prof Edward Odisho in the US is interested in this phenomenon also.
As an anthropologist however, I do realise how culture and languages evolve and change into new breeds and new modes of communication and new modes of self-identification. But it is nice to know your history.
Majidi aka
Warrior Empress
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