Talk:Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Zakho

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Lishana means language: think before changing the name of this page to Lishana Deni language please. --Gareth Hughes 22:17, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Lishana deni (as you know, Gareth) is simply 'our language'. The speakers of this dialect never thought of "lishana deni" as the name of the language. I was once with a speaker of it in Israel when we met another. My companion told the other fellow (I'm translating here) "this American speaks our language". The other fellow said, "What do you mean, he speaks Hebrew?" My companion replied, No, he speaks your language, lishana didokh, like we're speaking right now!

Surely it's not לשנא יהודיא Lišānā Hôzāyē but either לשנא יהודיא Lišānā Hôzāya 'Jewish language' or Lišānid Hozāye 'language of the Jews', no? I've fixed the phonetic transcription.

The only reference I can find to hand with this alternative name uses the construct. Most scholars tend just to call it Zakho. I'll see if I can find another reference in the library. — Gareth Hughes 13:34, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Requested move 20 April 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved - no oppposing or supporting comments User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:56, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

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Lishana Deni → Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Zakho – As acknowledged in the lead, this is by far the more common name of the dialect in English-language sources, as you can tell by checking the sources currently cited or else these ones: (t · c) buidhe 13:13, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

• Sources using Zakho Jewish Neo-Aramaic or a different arrangement of these words (such as "Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Zakho"): [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] (t · c) buidhe 13:13, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

@Buidhe: I see that nobody else commented on this, but you made this move in error. I fear that you have not even made a brief survey of the relevant literature (and admittedly, the article is pretty poor). Zakho is just one of the towns where Lishana Deni was spoken; we now have articles for the dialects of Zakho and Betanure, but no article for the language itself, which is illogical. Lishana Deni also includes the dialects spoken in Duhok (which has a grammar), Amedia, Nerwa, and other towns. "Lishana Deni" is the normal term used to refer to this collection of related dialects (as used in Molin 2021, for example), but the term "Cis-Zab" is also used by Mutzafi. Nowhere is Zakho considered to be representative of all of Lishana Deni. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:04, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

The language in question is referred to by linguists as Northeastern Neo-Aramaic and includes Jewish as well as Christian modern Aramaic dialects spoken from Zakho to Urmia. Any dialect clusters within this language can be created, but if they can be shown to meet notability standards. The current article and the sources it's based on are about the dialect in Zakho. Most of the sources on NENA are focused on the dialect of individual places, not groupings of dialects which may be mentioned but aren't elaborated on in most cases. However, if you think there is a dialect grouping that is notable and not better covered in the overview NENA article I wouldn't object to creation of such an article. (t · c) buidhe 17:10, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

@Buidhe: Please read the article we are talking about. Most of its claims are about Lishana Deni, not the dialect of Zakho specifically. Now, I won't belabour the language/dialect distinction, but many lects within NENA are not mutually intelligible, so it makes sense to treat mutually intelligible clusters separately, especially in cases like this where there is widespread acknowledgement of such a cluster as constituting a language from the perspective of native speakers and linguists. As you say, they are often treated separately, but Sabar has written a dictionary of Lishana Deni that covers several dialects. The question is really whether each of the 120 or so towns with a unique NENA dialect should each get an article — probably not, right? So the simplest way to solve this is to move the article back, and merge Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Betanure into it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:50, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what you or I think about the language dialect distinction, but what is stated by reliable sources: "the cluster of Jewish dialects known as lishana deni"[9] "the cluster of closely related dialects, sometimes known by their native name of lishana deni"[10] "the branch of North-eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) that is known as the Jewish North-western Group or, using the speakers' own label, Lishana Deni, literally 'our language'"[11] "lishana deni dialect cluster"[12] All these were found in a quick google scholar search, during which I didn't find any scholarly sources calling it a language.

I disagree with that merger because both the Betanure dialect has a book (full grammar) written about it and the Zakho dialect has at least one book and several academic papers.So they both meet GNG in my opinion. There is much less coverage of the dialect cluster than the Zakho dialect, most mentions in academic sources are brief and a dictionary isn't necessarily very helpful for writing a full article, depending on what it covers. Other dialects of NENA have to be evaluated for notability, and an article can be created if notable. I think it would make more sense to cover the dialect clusters/groupings in the NENA article, in part because different researchers sometimes divide them up differently, but if notable they could also have their own articles. (t · c) buidhe 21:08, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

@Buidhe: To be clear, every dialect with a grammar meets GNG? I'm not sure if you realise that there are 120 or so dialects of NENA, and probably a couple dozen pass the standards you've laid out. If you really think that it's better to have articles for every town's dialect than articles for notable dialect clusters, and that it's better to have the link for that dialect cluster redirect to an arbitrarily chosen page for just one of its many dialects, then it seems to me that you don't have much interest in improving these entries. I'll just clean up the mess you left behind in the article (claims that relate to Lishana Deni as a whole rather than to the dialect of Zakho) and be on my way. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:00, 8 October 2021 (UTC)