World Library  
My Account |  Register |  Help  
  
Flag as Inappropriate
Email this Article
 

Senaya language

Senaya
ܣܢܝܐ Senāya, ܣܘܪܝ Soray
Pronunciation
Native to Iran
Region Tehran and Qazvin
Native speakers
60 in Iran (1997)[1]
200 in California (1994)[2]
Syriac (Māḏnhāyā alphabet)
Language codes
ISO 639-3 syn
Glottolog sena1268[3]

The Senaya language is a modern Eastern Syriac-Aramaic language. It is the language of Assyrians originally from Sanandaj in Iranian Kurdistan. Most Senaya speakers now live in California, United States and few families still live in Tehran, Iran. They are mostly members of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Since the speakers are ethnically Assyrian, the language would be, at times, considered a dialect of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic.

Contents

  • Origin, history and use today 1
    • Senaya culture 1.1
  • References 2
    • See also 2.1

Origin, history and use today

The city of Sanandaj is at the southeastern periphery of the area of spoken modern Aramaic languages. Its geography makes the Neo-Aramaic of Sanandaj quite distinct from other dialects. Two different colloquial Aramaic dialects developed in Sanandaj: Jewish Hulaula and Christian Senaya. The two languages developed along different lines, so that the two are not mutually comprehensible. One distinctive difference between the two is the sound change associated with the Middle Aramaic fricative θ (th), often rendered as l in Hulaula, and s in Senaya. For example, mîθa, 'dead', is mîsa in Senaya, and mîla in Hulaula.

Most Senaya speakers are members of the Chaldean Catholic Church, which broke away from the Church of the East in the 16th century and entered into communion with the Roman Catholic Church. However, Senaya is incomprehensible to speakers of Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, also Chaldean Catholics, originally from Iraq because of the heavy Kurdish influences on the language. In the middle of the 20th century, the Chaldean Bishop of Senna (as Sanandaj is called in Senaya) was moved to Tehran. The Christian community soon followed, so that there are no native speakers of Senaya left in Sanandaj. In Tehran, Senaya has been heavily influenced by the Urmežnāya dialect of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic spoken by the larger Church of the East community there. Both church communities use classical Syriac in worship. Senaya is written in the Madnhāyâ version of the Syriac alphabet, which is also used for classical Syriac.

Senaya culture

The first recorded music with Senaya lyrics was released by Paul Caldani in 2002, titled Melodies of a Distant Land.

References

  1. ^ Senaya at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ^ Senaya at Ethnologue (13th ed., 1996).
  3. ^ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Senaya".  
  • Heinrichs, Wolfhart (ed.) (1990). Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Scholars Press: Atlanta, Georgia. ISBN 1-55540-430-8.

See also


Christian
Jewish
Other
West Syrian Churches
Orthodox
Catholic
East Syrian Churches
Historical
Current
Indian Saint Thomas
Churches
C.o.t. East
Catholic
Orthodox
Reformed Oriental
Languages
National identity
This article was sourced from Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. World Heritage Encyclopedia content is assembled from numerous content providers, Open Access Publishing, and in compliance with The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR), Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Public Library of Science, The Encyclopedia of Life, Open Book Publishers (OBP), PubMed, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and USA.gov, which sources content from all federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government publication portals (.gov, .mil, .edu). Funding for USA.gov and content contributors is made possible from the U.S. Congress, E-Government Act of 2002.
 
Crowd sourced content that is contributed to World Heritage Encyclopedia is peer reviewed and edited by our editorial staff to ensure quality scholarly research articles.
 
By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. World Heritage Encyclopedia™ is a registered trademark of the World Public Library Association, a non-profit organization.
 


Copyright © World Library Foundation. All rights reserved. eBooks from Project Gutenberg are sponsored by the World Library Foundation,
a 501c(4) Member's Support Non-Profit Organization, and is NOT affiliated with any governmental agency or department.