Geoffrey Khan

The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Barwar

This work, in three volumes, presents a detailed description the neo-Aramaic dialect of the Assyrian Christian community of the Barwar region in northern Iraq, which is now endangered. Volume one contains a description of the grammar of the dialect. Volume two contains an extensive glossary. Volume three contains transcriptions of recorded texts

The Semitic languages : an international handbook

The handbook The Semitic Languages offers a comprehensive reference tool for Semitic Linguistics in its broad sense. It is not restricted to comparative Grammar, although it covers also comparative aspects, including classification. By comprising a chapter on typology and sections with sociolinguistic focus and language contact, the conception of the book aims at a rather complete, unbiased description of the state of the art in Semitics. Articles on individual languages and dialects give basic facts as location, numbers of speakers, scripts, numbers of extant texts and their nature, attestation where appropriate, and salient features of the grammar and lexicon of the respective variety. The handbook is the most comprehensive treatment of the Semitic language family since many decades.

The Jewish neo-Aramaic dialect of Sulemaniyya and Ḥalabja

This volume contains a detailed grammatical description of the spoken Aramaic dialect of the Jewish communities in the towns of Sulemaniyya and Ḥalabja in North Eastern Iraq together with numerous transcribed texts. The dialect, which belongs to the North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic group, is now on the verge of extinction.

Karaite Bible manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah

Preface References and abbreviations Introduction Description of manuscripts Synopsis of orthography Indexes Plates.

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE STRUCTURE OF MEDIEVAL ARABIC PETITIONS

The composition of medieval Arabic petitions was governed to a large extent by formulaic structural patterns and phraseology. A diachronic examination of petitions from different periods reveals that the formulaic elements in most cases did not remain constant with the passage of time. Over the years certain elements of structure or phraseology fell into disuse and new ones were introduced. Some elements underwent a progressive change. S. M. Stern has described the main elements of the structure of petitions from the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods, indicating the ways in which these changed from one period to another. He based his descriptions on a small number of extant original documents. D. S. Richards has added to Sterns description of the structure of the petition in the Fatimid period in his analysis of an additional document.2

The Neo-Aramaic dialect spoken by Jews from the region of Arbel (Iraqi Kurdistan)

Various dialects of Aramaic continued to be spoken by Jewish communities in Kurdistan until the early 1950s, when most of the Jews of the region emigrated to the State of Israel. These dialects are now spoken only by elderly members of the immigrant communities in Israel and will become extinct within a few years. In this article a brief overview is given of the Neo-Aramaic dialect that was spoken by Jewish communities in the plain of Arbel in northern Iraq. This region lay on the south-western periphery of the neo-Aramaic speaking area. Comparison with other known dialects shows that it was closer in structure to the Jewish neo-Aramaic in the north-east of Kurdistan (e.g. Urmia) than in the north-west (e.g. Zakho).

A petition to the Fāṭimid caliph al-'Āmir

The document which is published here comes from the Michaelides Collection, formerly belonging to G. A. Michaelides and now in the possession of Cambridge University Library. In addition to a substantial number of Arabic papyri this collection also contains Arabic paper documents. The paper documents are very varying in date, ranging from the Fāṭimid to the Ottoman periods. The present document is a petition from the Fāṭimid period. Some Fāṭimid documents of this type have already been published. Several unpublishedFāṭimid petitions have come to my attention. Most of these are from the Cairo Genizah and will be published as part of a corpus of Arabic Genizah documents. I am publishing the present document from the Michaelides collection separately.

An Arabic legal document from the Umayyad period

The number of Arabic papyri from the first two Islamic centuries that have been preserved is relatively small. Papyri from the third century A.H. are far more numerous and constitute the bulk of most collections. In this paper I publish an Arabic legal document from A.H. 77 (A.D. 707), which is in the Michaelides collection of papyri at Cambridge University Library. It is one of the earliest extant Arabic legal papyri. The document is a quittance ( barā’a ) drawn up by a certain Sa‘īd ibn Qays al-Dallālī to certify that Jamīla, the freedwoman of ’Umm Hunayda, is cleared of obligation to him after the payment of a sum of seven dīnārs. This sum was delivered as payment for a portion of a house.

The Verbal System of the Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Arbel

This article examines the syntax of the verb in the neo-Aramaic dialect of the Jews of Arbel (Iraqi Kurdistan). This dialect belongs to the group known as Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA). It exhibits a number of features in its verbal system that distinguish it from other dialects in this group. As in other NENA dialects, past and present tense verbs are formed from bases that correspond, respectively, to the passive and active participles of earlier Aramaic. A distinctive feature of the Arbel dialect is the use of the pre-verbal particle la to express aspectual nuances. This particle also has a discourse function.

Orthoepy in the Tiberian reading tradition of the Hebrew Bible and its historical roots in the Second Temple Period

The Tiberian reading tradition of the Hebrew Bible contains a variety of features that point to its origin in the Second Temple period. Once such feature is the careful reading of the inflected forms of the verbs היה and חיה to ensure that they are not confused. The paper directs particular attention to the lengthening of the vowels of the prefix conjugation (imperfect) of these verbs, which can be reconstructed from medieval sources. It is argued through comparison with the Babylonian tradition of Biblical Hebrew that this lengthening is an orthoepic feature that has its roots in the Second Temple Period. This demonstrates that the priestly authorities who were concerned with the careful preservation of the written text were also concerned with the careful preservation of the orally transmitted reading tradition.