| Also Known As: Hertevin language
Description:
The Hértevin language is a modern Eastern Aramaic or Syriac language. It was originally spoken in a cluster of villages in Siirt Province in southeastern Turkey. Speakers of Hértevin Aramaic have emigrated mostly to the West, and are now scattered and isolated from one another. A few speakers may remain in Turkey.
The speakers of the Hértevin dialect of Neo-Aramaic are traditionally Chaldean Catholics. Their homeland in and around the village of Hertevin (called Hertevinler in Turkish and Härtəvən in Kurdish), near the town of Pervari in Siirt Province is at the very northeastern extreme of the area where Eastern Neo-Aramaic languages used to be spoken, before the upheavals of the twentieth century. Thus, Hértevin is a peripheral dialect that has developed quite differently from related languages. Although belonging to the eastern, or northeastern, group of Neo-Aramaic dialects, Hértevin shares some features with the Turoyo language, of the central group, originating from nearby Mardin Province.
Hértevin language was 'discovered' by linguist Otto Jastrow in 1970, and first described in publication by him two years later. Its major phonetic feature is the loss of the voiceless velar..... full article at Wikipedia |
