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SUMMARY:North-eastern Neo-Aramaic narrative techniques and their areal par
 allels (Kurdish and Arabic) - Prof Eleanor Coghill (Uppsala University\, S
 weden)
DTSTART:20200219T180000Z
DTEND:20200219T190000Z
UID:TALK138547@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:77035
DESCRIPTION:The North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) dialects form the largest
  surviving branch of the Aramaic languages family\, consisting of over a h
 undred dialects native to northern Iraq\, south-eastern Turkey\, and north
 -western Iran. These are or were spoken by Christian and Jewish communitie
 s: the majority have now left their homeland and the surviving dialects ar
 e very endangered. Given their location\, the NENA dialects have long been
  in contact with Kurdish and Arabic varieties\, and show contact influence
 s at all levels of the language. The type and intensity of contact influen
 ce\, however\, vary from dialect to dialect.\n\nThe Neo-Aramaic speaking c
 ommunities have rich oral cultures\, like their neighbours\, consisting of
  folktales\, songs\, rhymes\, proverbs and so on. Many of these have been 
 documented\, both from the Christian and Jewish communities\, in a wide va
 riety of dialects. They show a variety of techniques used in oral story-te
 lling: the particular form these take vary from dialect to dialect\, but t
 here are clear commonalities across the dialects. As discussed in Coghill 
 (2009) and Khan (2009)\, and illustrated in other oral texts published sin
 ce then\, they include:\n\nset formulae (such as story-openings)\nrepetiti
 on of wording in successive episodes\nconnective repetition\, where the la
 st phrase of a short sequence of events is repeated at the beginning of th
 e next sequence of events.\nthe use of the historic present and related te
 nses\nthe use of the narrative imperative\ndevices to enhance the vividnes
 s of a scene\, such as presentatives\, deictic copulas\, the present progr
 essive and special intonation\nthe non-phonemic lengthening of syllables t
 o iconically indicate distance\;\nrepetition of motion verbs to indicate s
 patial and temporal distance covered\nthe frequent use of 'to rise\, get u
 p' to indicate the beginning of a new series of actions\nthe use of the in
 definite specific article xa- to introduce a protagonist.\n \n\nSome of th
 ese devices have parallels in Kurdish and/or Arabic narratives\, for insta
 nce the story opening "there was and there wasn't"\, also shared by Turkis
 h\, the repetition of wording in successive episodes\, the use of the hist
 oric present\, and the frequent use of a verb 'to rise\, get up' (all atte
 sted in the Kurdish folktales presented in Mackenzie 1962). This paper wil
 l investigate these and other possible parallels and discuss to what exten
 t contact between the languages and cultures has cause a convergence in st
 ory-telling technique.\n\nReferences\nCoghill\, Eleanor. 2009a. 'Four vers
 ions of a Neo-Aramaic children's story'\, ARAM Periodical 21\, 251–280.\
 n\nKhan\, Geoffrey. 2009. 'The syntax and discourse structure of Neo-Arama
 ic narrative texts'\, ARAM Periodical 21\, 163–178.\n\nMackenzie\, David
  N. 1962. Kurdish Dialect Studies II. London: Oxford University Press.
LOCATION:Faculty of English\, Room GR-06/07
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