The neo-Aramaic oral heritage of the Jews of Zakho [electronic resource] / Oz Aloni.

At foot of cover: University of Cambridge, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

At head of front cover: Cambridge Semitic languages and cultures.

Available through Open Book Publishers.

Includes examples of Neo-Aramaic dialect of the Jews of Zakho.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 317-341) and index.

Introduction / Esther-Miriam Wagner -- I. HANDBOOK. 1. Vernacularisation in the Ottoman Empire: Is Arabic the Exception that Proves the Rule? / Michiel Leezenberg ; 2. From Means to Goal: Auxiliary Disciplines in the Ottoman Madrasa Curriculum / Necmettin Kızılkaya ; 3. On the Order of the Sciences for He Who Wants to Learn Them / Guy Burak ; 4. Rumi Authors, the Arabic Historiographical Tradition, and the Ottoman Dawla/Devlet / Guy Burak ; 5. Arabic Grammar Books in Ottoman Istanbul: The South Asian Connection / Christopher D. Bahl ; 6. Bastards and Arabs / E. Khayyat -- II. READER. 1. Bodl. Ms. Heb. C. 72/18: A Letter by Isaac Bayt ʿAṭṭān to Moses B. Judah (1480s) / Dotan Arad and Esther-Miriam Wagner ; 2. The Purim Scroll of the Cairene Jewish Community / Benjamin Hary ; 3. Appointment Deed of a Cantor in the Karaite Community, Cairo (1575) / Dotan Arad ; 4. Aharon Garish, Metsaḥ Aharon / Naḥem Ilan ; 5. Kitāb Hazz al-Quḥūf (1600s) / Humphrey Taman Davies ; 6. A Weaver's Notebook from Aleppo (10th/16th century) / Boris Liebrenz and Kristina Richardson ; 7. Selections from Arabic Garshūnī Manuscripts in the British Library / Michael Erdman ; 8. Excerpt from Yūsuf al-Maġribī's Dafʿ al-iṣr ʿan kalām ahl Miṣr (1606) / Liesbeth Zack ; 9. Lebanon: Chronicle of al-Ṣafadī (early 17th century [?]) / Jérôme Lentin ; 10. A Jew's Testimony Regarding a Statement Made in His Presence by a Muslim, Testified on Monday 20th Kislev 5418 (1657) / Werner Diem ; 11. A Jew's Testimony Regarding a Statement Made in His Presence by a Muslim (1681) / Werner Diem ; 12. A Basra Passover Haggadah with Judaeo-Arabic Translation (ca. 1700) / Omer Shafran ; 13. Qahwa 'Coffee' (16th-17th centuries) / Ghayde Ghraowi ; 14. Egypt: Damurdāšī's Chronicle of Egypt (first half of 18th century) / Jérôme Lentin ; 15. Matenadaran Collection MS No.1751: A Medical Work (1726) / Ani Avetisyan ; 16. A Clerical Letter by Rafael al-Ṭūḵī from the Prize Papers Collections (1758) / Esther-Miriam Wagner and Mohamed Ahmed ; 17. A Christian Mercantile Letter from the Prize Papers Collections (1759) / Esther-Miriam Wagner and Mohamed Ahmed ; 18. Ḥannā al-Ṭabīb, Riḥlat al-Shammās Ḥannā al-Ṭabīb ilā baldat Istanbūl (1764/65) / Feras Krimsti ; 19. Syria 1: Chronicle of Ibn al-Ṣiddīq (1768) / Jérôme Lentin ; 20. A Letter Transmitted by Ambassador Hajj Mahdī Bargash from Sultan Muḥammad Bin ʿAbdallah to Sultan Abdul Ḥamīd (1789 CE) / Ahmed Ech-Charfi ; 21. Arab Merchant Letters from the Gotha Collection of Arabic Manuscripts / Boris Liebrenz 22. A Judaeo-Arabic Letter from the Prize Papers Collection, HCA 32/1208/126.2 (1796) Download Matthew Dudley ; 23. The Cairo-Ramla Manuscripts, or the Ramle KAR, 13 (1800s) / Olav Ørum 24. A 19th-Century Judaeo-Arabic Folk Narrative / Magdalen M. Connolly ; 25. Libya 1: Ḥasan al-Faqīh Ḥasan's Chronicle Al-Yawmiyyāt al-Lībiyya (early 19th century) / Jérôme Lentin ; 26. Libya 2: Letter from Ġūma al-Maḥmūdī (1795-1858) to ʿAzmī Bēk, Daftardār of the ʾIyāla (Province) of Tripoli (undated) / Jérôme Lentin ; 27. T-S NS 99.38 (1809) / Geoffrey Khan and Esther-Miriam Wagner ; 28. Rylands Genizah Collection A 803 (1825) / Esther-Miriam Wagner and Mohamed Ahmed ; 29. Syria 2: Chronicle of Muḥammad Saʿīd al-ʾUsṭuwānī (1840-1861) / Jérôme Lentin ; 30. Arabia: A Letter from Abdallah Ḥiṣānī to ʿAbdallah Bāšā (1855) / Jérôme Lentin ; 31. Excerpts from Yaʿqūb Ṣanūʿ's Abū Naḍḍāra Zarʾa and ʿAbd Allāh al-Nadīm's al-Ustāḏ / Liesbeth Zack ; 32. A Disgruntled Bishop: A Garshūnī Letter from Bishop Dinḥā of Midyat to Patriarch Peter III / George Kiraz ; 33. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Jarādī: Sīrat al-Ḵawāja al-ʾAkram al-Marḥūm Harmān al-ʾAlmānī / Alex Bellem and G. Rex Smith ; 34. Ora ve-Simḥa (1917) / Esther-Miriam Wagner ; 35. A 'Mandæo-Arabic' Letter from Lady Drower's Correspondence / Charles Häberl ; 36. An Anecdote about Juḥā (1920s) / Tania María García-Arévalo -- References.

Open access resource providing free access.

"In 1951, the secluded Neo-Aramaic-speaking Jewish community of Zakho migrated collectively to Israel. It carried with it its unique language, culture and customs, many of which bore resemblance to those found in classical rabbinic literature. Like others in Kurdistan, for example, the Jews of Zakho retained a vibrant tradition of creating and performing songs based on embellishing biblical stories with Aggadic traditions. Despite the recent growth of scholarly interest into Neo-Aramaic communities, however, studies have to this point almost exclusively focused on the linguistic analysis of their critically endangered dialects and little attention has been paid to the sociological, historical and literary analysis of the cultural output of the diverse and isolated Neo-Aramaic communities of Kurdistan. In this innovative book, Oz Aloni seeks to redress this balance. Aloni focuses on three genres of the Zakho community's oral heritage: the proverb, the enriched biblical narrative and the folktale. Each chapter draws on the author's own fieldwork among members of the Zakho community now living in Jerusalem. He examines the proverb in its performative context, the rewritten biblical narrative of Ruth, Naomi and King David, and a folktale with the unusual theme of magical gender transformation. Insightfully breaking down these examples with analysis drawn from a variety of conceptual fields, Aloni succeeds in his mission to put the speakers of the language and their culture on equal footing with their speech."--Publisher's website.

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