languages of iraq, ancient and modern

197 Pages·2014·32.89 MB·English

LANGUAGES OF IRAQ,
ANCIENT AND MODERN
Edited by J.N. Postgate
British School of Archaeology in Iraq
2007
ii
Dedicated to the memory of
Rabi' al-Qaissi
ManhalJabr
Riyadh al-Douri
Nabil al-Safi
Hayef Shinyar
and other colleagues
in the State Board for Antiquities and Heritage
whose lives have been lost since April 2003
Printed and bound at the University Press, Cambridge
ISBN 978-0-903472-21-0
© The British School of Archaeology in Iraq
iii
CONTENTS
Preface v
List of illustrations vi-vii
Introduction Nicholas Postgate, Professor of Assyriology, University of Cambridge 1-3
Sumerian Jeremy Black(t), former Lecturer in Akkadian, University of Oxford 4-30
Babylonian and Assyrian: A history of Akkadian Andrew George,
Professor of Babylonian, SOAS, University of London 31-71
Hurrian David Hawkins, Emeritus Professor of Ancient Anatolian Languages,
SOAS, University of London 72-84
Early Aramaic Alan Millard, Emeritus Rankin Professor of Hebrew and Ancient
Semitic Languages, University of Liverpool 85-94
Aramaic in the medieval and modern periods Geoffrey Khan, Professor of
Semitic Philology, University of Cambridge 95-114
Fieldwork in Neo-Aramaic Eleanor Coghill, Faculty of Oriental Studies,
University of Cambridge 115-122
Colloquial Iraqi Arabic Clive Holes, Professor for the Study of the Contemporary
Arab World, University of Oxford 123-134
'The Kurds are Alive': Kurdish in Iraq Christine Allison, Maitre de Conferences
in Kurdish, INALCO, Paris 135-158
Iraqi Turkman Christiane Bulut, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies,
University of Mainz 159-187
iv
The minaret at Tauq (Daquq) in the Turkman speaking zone
Photo: J.N. Postgate
v
PREFACE
This book derives from a "study day" of the same title, held by the British
School of Archaeology in Iraq on 15th November 2003, in the rooms of the British
Academy. The School is grateful to all the speakers for their contributions on the day,
and for their patience during the long process of converting these into the present
volume. We are much indebted to the British Academy for providing the venue, and to
the Trustees of the Charlotte Bonham-Carter Memorial Fund for very generous
subventions both to the costs of the event, and towards the publication. A grant from
the British Council Iraq has also helped to defray the costs of producing the volume.
The contributions are very varied. Our collection describes three dead
languages, three which are very much alive, and one whose history stretches back from
the present day to antiquity, but whose future seems precarious. The long and complex
history of Aramaic is one reason why it occupies more space in our volume than
Arabic. Arabic of course is quantitatively and culturally the principal modem language
of Iraq, and it may seem perverse that it receives less space than some others: but the
aim of our meeting and this collection was not to give a comprehensive account of one
of the world's great languages, merely to describe the Iraqi dialects of spoken Arabic in
recent times. Arabic has been described many times, whereas we believe it would be
hard to find a substitute for our contributions on Kurdish and Turkman.
For their permission to use images, or help in supplying them, we are indebted
to the Trustees of the British Museum, the Curators of the Babylonian Section of the
University of Pennsylvania Museum, Beatrice Andre-Salvini, Konrad Yolk, Giorgio
Buccellati, Ulrich Seeger, Fabrizio Pennacchietti, Lamia al-Gailani-Werr, Aage
Westenholz, Gernot Wilhelm, Joyce Blau, Zubeida Barwary, The Vatican Library,
George Kiraz and Kristian Heal, and Jennifer Lee at The Rare Book and Manuscript
Library, Columbia University. The Editor is very grateful to Eleanor Robson for her
assistance in adapting Jeremy Black's contribution for publication. Thanks go also to
vi
Sibby Postgate for creating the maps and designing the cover, to Joan Porter Maciver,
Dominique Collon and Jon Taylor of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, and to
Tony Mansfield and Noel Robson at C.U.P. for their assistance in the final stages of
production.
Jeremy Black was the joint organizer of the study day and his untimely death
has been a cruel blow to his colleagues and is a great loss to anyone interested in Iraq's
languages. He would have wished this volume to be dedicated to the memory of our
Iraqi colleagues, known and unknown, but I would like to remember him here as well,
very fondly.
Nicholas Postgate
March 2007
vii
List of illustrations
The minaret at Tauq in the Turkman speaking zone Frontispiece
Photograph J.N. Postgate
Fig. 2.1a-b A manuscript of "The Axe of Nergal" 4
Reproduced with the permission of the curators of the Babylonian Section,
University of Pennsylvania Museum, and with the kind assistance of Kevin
=
Danti (UM 55-21-327 3N-T 43). Hand-copy H. Behrens.
Fig. 2.2a-b Statue C of Gudea, ruler of Lagas ca. 2100 BC. 26
After E. de Sarzec, Decouvertes en Chaldee (Paris 1884-1912) Pl. 10 and 13
Fig. 3.1 Map of the ancient Near East 34
Fig. 3.2 Old Akkadian letter (BM 121205). 40
Copy by A. Westenholz after B. Kienast & K. Yolk, Die sumerischen und
akkadischen Briefe (Stuttgart 1995),Tafel 7.
Fig. 3.3 The Middle Assyrian Laws, Tablet A, § 18 50
Copy by 0. Schroeder, Keilschrifttexte aus Assur Verschiedenen lnhalts, No. 1.
Fig. 3.4 Neo-Assyrian letter Kll, Obverse (State Archives of Assyria XVI, No. 105) 56
©Copyright The Trustees of the British Museum
Fig. 4.1 Hurrian: map to show places mentioned 72
Fig. 4.2 The inscription of Atal-sen on the bronze "Samarra tablet". 74
After G. Wilhelm, in V. Haas (ed.), Hurriter und Hurritisch (Konstanz 1988) 48.
Fig. 4.3 a-b The bronze lion and stone tablet of Tis-atal (AO 19938) 75
After G. Wilhelm, in G. Buccellati & M. Kelly-Buccellati (eds.), Urkesh and
the Hurrians. Studies in Honor of Lloyd Cots en (Bibliotheca Mesopotamica 26:
Malibu 1998), Pl. XIII-XIV.
viii
Fig. 4.4 a-c Impressions from seals of members of the royal household at UrkiS 76
After G. Buccellati & M. Kelly-Buccellati, Archiv fiir Orientforschung 42143
(1985-86), 1-32.
Fig. 4.5 Plan of the Palace and outlying houses at Nuzi 78
After Starr 1939, Plan 2.
Fig. 4.6 Bilingual tablet from Hattusa (Keilschrifttexte aus Bogazkoy XXXII, No. 14) 80
Courtesy Dr. Ji.irgen Seeher.
Fig. 5.1 Early Aramaic: map to show places mentioned 86
Fig. 5.2 The Aramaic text on the statue of a king of Guzan, from Tell Fekheriyeh 88
After A. Abou-Assaf, P. Bordreuil & A.R. Millard, La Statue de Tell Fekherye et
son inscription bilingue assyro-arameenne (Paris 1982).
Fig. 5.3 Aramaic note on the edge of an Assyrian cuneiform legal document 90
(BM 123369, 7'h century B.C.; A.R. Millard, Iraq 34 (1972) Pl. LIVb).
Fig. 5.4 Brick of Nebuchadnezzar from Babylon with Aramaic inscription 91
After R. Koldewey, Babylon, p. 80.
Fig. 5.5 Aramaic inscription of Adad-nadin-ahhe on bricks from Telloh 93
After A. Parrot, Tello: Vingt campagnes de fouilles ( 1877-1933)
(Paris 1948), p. 310.
Fig. 6.1 Aramaic inscription from Hatra 96
After Beyer 1998, p. 10 (courtesy Dr. Ulrich Seeger).
Fig. 6.2 Medieval and Modern Aramaic: map to show places mentioned 97
Fig. 6.3 Syriac with Eastern (Nestorian) vocalization 98
© Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. VatSyr 83 Folio 43.
Fig. 6.4 Yemenite Rabbinic Babylonian Talmud 99
©Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University
ix
Fig. 6.5 Aramaic incantation bowl from Babylon (BM 91710) 101
(J.B. Segal & E.C.D. Hunter, Catalogue of the Aramaic and Mandaic
incantation bowls in the British Museum (BMP 2000) Pl. 13).
Fig. 6.6 Christian literary neo-Aramaic manuscript of 'The thief and the angel' 105
After Pennacchietti 1993, p. 124.
Fig. 7.1 The author with an Alqoshi informant at his home in Damascus 114
a
Fig. 8.1 Illustration from the diwiin of Mull 'Abbiid al-Karkhi 124
Taken from his poem "The Cat and the Rats", a satire on the Blitish in Iraq
Fig. 8.2 Abboud ai-Karkhi, whose Diwan is the most famous literary work
in the Muslim Iraqi dialect 132
Fig. 9.1 Map to show distribution of Kurdish dialects 137
Fig. 9.2 The daily Kurdistan Nwe ("New Kurdistan"), published by the PUK,
10 January 2005 145
Courtesy of Zubeida Barwary
Fig. 9.3 Dildar, from an edition of his verses and poems 150
Collected and introduced by Sherzad Abdalrahman, published by Dept. of
Kurdish Publications, Ministry of Culture and Communication, Baghdad 1987.
Courtesy of Joyce Blau
Fig. 9.4 The independent weekly newspaper Hewal ("News") 155
Courtesy of Zubeida Barwary
Fig. 10.1 Map to show distribution of present day Turkman dialects in Iraq 168