User:Ak1849/Senaya language

The Senaya language is a modern Eastern Syriac-Aramaic language. It is the language of Assyrians originally from Sanandaj in Iranian Kurdistan. Most Senaya speakers now live in California, United States and a few families still live in Tehran, Iran. They are mostly members of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Since the speakers are ethnically Assyrian, the language would be, at times, considered a dialect of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic. The language is considered to be endangered due to its small amount of speakers that are spread throughout the world. There are approximately less than 200 speakers left. It is assumed that mainly older people speak the language. The language is special as it has significant history that pertains to the area of Tehran, Iran.

Origin, history and use today
Senaya is derived and a part of the Neo-Aramaic languages, which are Semitic Languages that have been developed from Old and Middle Aramaic dialects and had also survived up to the modern day. The largest surviving group of Neo-Aramaic languages is the Northeastern Neo-Aramaic(NENA) languages which includes over 100 different languages. It was only during the 19th century that the first studies of Neo-Aramaic languages were initiated. By the 20th century, some Neo-Aramaic languages were marked by publications and by the establishment of modern schools and institutions.

The city of Sanandaj is at the southeastern periphery of the area of spoken modern Aramaic languages. Its geography makes the Neo-Aramaic of Sanandaj quite distinct from other dialects. Two different colloquial Aramaic dialects developed in Sanandaj: Jewish Hulaula and Christian Senaya. The two languages developed along different lines, so that the two are not mutually comprehensible. One distinctive difference between the two is the sound change associated with the Middle Aramaic fricative θ (th), often rendered as l in Hulaula, and s in Senaya. For example, mîθa, 'dead', is mîsa in Senaya, and mîla in Hulaula.

Most Senaya speakers are members of the Chaldean Catholic Church, which broke away from the Church of the East in the 16th century and entered into communion with the Roman Catholic Church. However, Senaya is to a small degree incomprehensible to speakers of Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, also Chaldean Catholics, originally from Iraq because of the heavy Kurdish influences on the language. In the middle of the 20th century, the Chaldean Bishop of Senna (as Sanandaj is called in Senaya) was moved to Tehran. The Christian community soon followed, so that there are no native speakers of Senaya left in Sanandaj. In Tehran, Senaya has been heavily influenced by the Urmežnāya dialect of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic spoken by the larger Church of the East community there. Both church communities use classical Syriac in worship. Senaya is written in the Madnhāyâ version of the Syriac alphabet, which is also used for classical Syriac.

Verbs
Since Senaya is a part of the Northeastern Neo-Aramic languages, most of the grammatical characteristics are similar between the languages. The word order for  Northeastern Neo-Aramic languages has basic SOV and SVO word order. The noun phrases do not inflect for case. Pronouns are also often null in the subject and object positions. The verbs involve root-and-template, also known as non-concatenative morphology, and also involves concatenative (affixal) morphology. For the verbs, the root-and-template forms are “verb bases”, and mood. Furthermore, some of the affixes add to the grammatical distinctions such as “-waa” which represents the past tense, and “k-” which represents an indicative mood.

Table 1: Senaya verb bases

Affixal Morphology
With the Northeastern Neo-Aramic languages, there are two sets of agreement morphemes known as S-suffixes and L-suffixes. They can mark person, number, and gender of arguments. The agreement morphemes for Senaya are as follows:

Table 2: S-Suffix agreement morpheme

Table 3: L-Suffix agreement morpheme Throughout all of the Northeastern Neo-Aramic languages, the S-suffixes always precedes the L-suffixes whenever they occur together.

Perfective:
Amongst all of the Neo-Aramaic languages, Senaya has a unique aspect split. The Perfective L-suffix for subject has no object agreement which is possible. An example of this are the following statements:


 * 1) Axnii dmex-ian, which translates to ‘We slept’
 * 2) Axnii ksuuta ksuu-ian which roughly translates to ‘we book write’, which can be translated into ‘We wrote a book’ since the object is nonspecific

Furthermore, in regards to the perfective base, the object agreement is banned and specific objects cannot appear alongside the perfective base. An example of this is the following statement:


 * 1) Axnii oo  ksuuta ksuu(-laa/-a)-lan(-laa/-a) which roughly translates to ‘we that book write’ which can ultimately, be translated as ‘We wrote that book’ which is what the intended statement is

Imperfective:
In terms of the imperfective suffixes, the object agreement occupies the form that the subject agreement had in the perfective L-Suffix and also takes the subject agreement surfaces from the S-suffix. An example of this are the following statements:


 * 1) Axnii dmax-ox which is the S-suffix alone and roughly translates to ‘we sleep’
 * 2) Axnii ksuuta-ox which is the S-suffix alone and roughly translates  to ‘we book write’ which can ultimately, be translated as ‘We write a book’ which is what the intended statement is
 * 3) Axnii (oo) ksuuta kasw-ox-laa which is the S-suffix and the L-suffix, and roughly translates to ‘We that book write’ which can be translated as ‘We write a specific (/that) book’

Since specific objects in Senaya require agreement marking, specific objects can only appear with the imperfective verb base and not the perfective verb base.

Secondary perfective:
Senaya is one of the languages that has partial agreement reversal. With these types of languages, the canonical perfective aspect cannot be used if there is a non third person object, which is why there is a second way to express the perfective aspect. This would allow objects to appear in the perfective. The secondary perfective aspect uses the imperfective verb base and the prefix QAM, which is a variant across all of the Northeastern Neo-Aramic languages. An example of the secondary perfective is the following statement:


 * 1) Ooya on talmiide tm -molp-aa-luu which roughly translates to ‘she those students QAM-teach’ which uses both the S-suffix and the L-suffix. This translates to ‘She taught those students’

Although the example illustrates the use of the imperfective verb base, the example is still semantically perfective because it compares the canonical imperfective, canonical perfective, and secondary perfective across the various syntactic and semantic contexts. In the example above, the S-suffix marks the subject agreement while the L-suffix marks the object agreement.

Complete Agreement Reversal
Senaya already has partial agreement reversal, but it also consists of complete agreement reversal which is when the transitive and intransitive subject marker is treated as an object marker in the imperfective. An example of this is the following statement:


 * 1) ‘U-bt-amr-en-nux’ which roughly translates to ‘And I shall say to you’

Object Marking
Furthermore, the difference between specific and nonspecific objects is shown through the following example:


 * 1) Aana ksuuta kasw-an which roughly translates to ‘I book write’ which uses the S-suffix, and can be translated to ‘I will write a book’
 * 2) Aana oo ksuuta kasw-an*(-aa) which roughly translates to ‘I that book write’ which uses the S-suffix and L-suffix, and can be translated to ‘I will write that book’

This sort of pattern is illustrated in a broad range of Differential Object Marking where objects that are high on a certain scale such as animacy or definiteness get marked, while the objects that are low on the scale do not get marked.

Research
1995 a research project under the leadership of Estiphan Panoussi in cooperation with Wolfhart Heinrichs granted by the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences analyzed the Senaya Dialect (Title: The Christian Senaya Dialect on Neo-Aramaic Texts, Grammar and Dictionary). The project produced three volumes: Senaya, A Christian Neo-Aramaic Dialect (Originally in Persian Kurdistan)(400 pages). Senaya Grammar (300 pages). A Dictionary of the Neo-Aramaic Senaya Dialect (800 pages).

Senaya culture
The first recorded music with Senaya lyrics was released by Paul Caldani in 2002, titled Melodies of a Distant Land.

Publications

 * Estiphan Panoussi : On the Senaya Dialect, in Wolfhart Heinrichs (ed) Studies in Neo-Aramaic (Harvard Semitic Studies) 1990, pp. 107-129,ISBN 9789004369535.
 * E. Panoussi: „Ein vorläufiges Vergglossar zum aussterbenden neuaramäischen Senaya-Dialekt“, Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, vol. LXV,(1991) fasc. 3-4:165-183.
 * Heinrichs, Wolfhart (ed.) (1990). Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Scholars Press: Atlanta, Georgia. ISBN 1-55540-430-8.
 * Laura Kalin. 2012. Two last resort phenomena in Senaya (Neo-Aramaic). In Theories of Everything: In Honor of Ed Keenan, 131-153. Los Angeles: UCLA.
 * Kalin, L., & Van Urk, C. (2015). Aspect splits without ergativity: Agreement asymmetries in Neo-Aramaic. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 33(2), 659-702. Retrieved March 9, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43697781
 * Mutzafi, H. (2008). Trans-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 71(3), 409-431. Retrieved March 9, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40378798
 * Laura Kalin. 2014. Aspect and Argument Licensing in Neo-Aramaic. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles; 230pp.)
 * Kim, R. (2008). "Stammbaum" or Continuum? The Subgrouping of Modern Aramaic Dialects Reconsidered. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 128(3), 505-531. Retrieved March 9, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25608409
 * Samuel Ethan Fox. (1994). The Relationships of the Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialects. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 114(2), 154-162. doi:10.2307/605827
 * Panoussi, Estiphan. 1990. On the Senaya dialect. In Wolfhart Heinrichs (ed.), Studies in Neo-Aramaic, 107-129. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
 * Mutzafi, H. (2008). Trans-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 71(3), 409-431. Retrieved March 9, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40378798
 * Szemerényi, O. (1956). Latin rēs and the Indo-European long-diphthong stem nouns. Zeitschrift Für Vergleichende Sprachforschung Auf Dem Gebiete Der Indogermanischen Sprachen, 73(3/4), 167-202. Retrieved March 9, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40847965

Category:Assyrians in Iran Category:Eastern Aramaic languages Category:Neo-Aramaic languages Category:Languages of Iran Category:Endangered Afroasiatic languages Category:Languages of Kurdistan