English: Jewish Neo Aramaic, part of the Northeastern Neo-Aramaic grouping of Neo-Aramaic dialects, is an extension of the ancient Aramaic language. Jewish Neo-Aramaic is comprised of various Aramaic dialects that originated from Jews exiled from the Land of Israel to the Assyrian empire. These dialects evolved over centuries within various nations in that region eventually settling in the Kurdish regions of today’s Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria, in Azeri regions and in parts of (formerly Soviet) Georgia.

One of these dialects is Lishana Noshan (לישנא נושן), spoken by Jews that lived in the Kurdish regions of today’s Iran and Northeastern Iraq. Lishana Noshan is endangered, as most of its speakers today are elderly people that have not passed down their mother tongue. Although today most live in Israel, they are spread across the globe and have adopted the local languages of their host countries [1]. The speaker interviewed in this video, conducted with the HUC-JIR Jewish Language Project, is Qamar Davoodian, who was born in Tekab (Tikan Tappa), Iran. This interview was filmed in Rehovot, Israel, and was conducted by Ariel Nosrat of the Lishana Institute. The interview was translated and transcribed by Alan Niku from the HUC-JIR Jewish Language Project.

This video was created as part of a Wikimedia Community Fund grant with Wikitongues titled "Documenting and increasing Jewish language representation on Wikimedia" [2].

1. https://www.jewishlanguages.org/jewish-aramaic

2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Programs/Wikimedia_Community_Fund/Documenting_and_increasing_Jewish_language_representation_on_Wikimedia