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( Assyrian Neo-Aramaic)
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic is a modern Eastern Aramaic or Syriac language. Assyrian Neo Aramaic is neither to be confused with Assyrian Akkadian, nor the Old Aramaic dialect that was adopted as a lingua franca in Assyria in the 8th century BC. Although this latter Aramaic is also an Aramaic language, it is incomprehensible to speakers of the modern language. Originally, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic was spoken in the area between Lake Urmia, north-western Iran, and Siirt, south-eastern Turkey, but it is now the language of a worldwide diaspora. Most speakers are members of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East. Assyrian Neo-Aramaic is one of a number of modern Eastern Aramaic languages spoken in the region between Lake Urmia in Iranian Azerbaijan and Mosul in northern Iraq. Jews and Christians speak different dialects of Aramaic that are often mutually unintelligible. The Christian dialects have been heavily influenced by the Syriac language, a dialect of Eastern Middle Aramaic, that became the literary and liturgical language of many churches in the Fertile Crescent. Therefore Christian Neo-Aramaic has a dual heritage literary Syriac and colloquial Eastern Aramaic. The Christian dialects are often called Sûret, Syriac, or Sûryaya Swadaya, Colloquial Syriac. The name Assyrian (Atûraya or even Asûraya) is adopted by many, but not all, Aramaic-speaking Christian communities as a socio-political definition of a nation (umta) rather than a religious group (millet). Russian linguists studied Assyrian Neo-Aramaic as spoken by immigrant speakers in Georgia and Armenia at the end of the 19th century. They called the language ?????????, Aysorskiy, from the Armenian name ?????, Asori. However, by the 1930s, the official name of the language in Russian had become ???????????, Assiriyskiy, or Assyrian. The Assyrian Church of the East, of which most speakers of the varieties of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic are members, uses classical Syriac in its liturgy. However, colloquial Assyrian often affects the pronunciation. Assyrian Neo-Aramaic has numerous diverse dialects. In fact, on purely linguistic grounds, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic could be considered the same language. However, the latter is based on the dialect of Alqosh in northern Iraq, whereas the Urmia dialect has become the prestige dialect of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, and comprehension between the two is limited.
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