The Lishanid Noshan Alphabet

Lishanid Noshan (also Lishán Noshan, meaning "our language" in Aramaic, ISO 639-3: aij) is a cluster of Jewish Neo-Aramaic (NENA) dialects spoken by Jewish communities formerly resident in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey, now primarily in Israel ^[1]. As a dialect cluster (not a single dialect), it encompasses related varieties from different communities of origin.

Lishanid Noshan is closely related to Lishana Deni (Amadiyya), Koy Sanjaq Surat, Lishan Didan (Urmia), and Hulaulá (Sanandaj) within the Jewish Neo-Aramaic (NENA) group. All share the Hebrew square script and Classical Aramaic phonological features.

Lishanid Noshan is written in the Hebrew square script — the 22-letter consonantal alphabet used for Hebrew and all Jewish Aramaic languages ^[2]. Traditional manuscripts are consonantal (unvowelled), read right to left.

The dialect cluster preserves pharyngeal phonological contrasts — Heth (ח) = /ħ/ and Ayin (ע) = /ʕ/ — unlike modern Israeli Hebrew where these are largely merged. Academic documentation uses Latin transliteration for phonological precision.

Lishanid Noshan encompasses dialects from Jewish communities in northern Iraq (various towns including Mosul, Dohuk, Erbil districts) and southeastern Turkey ^[1]. These communities migrated to Israel primarily after 1948.

In Israel, speakers from different communities interact, creating contact between sub-dialects. Bar-Ilan University has documented these dialects in the Israeli diaspora context.

Lishanid Noshan is defined as a dialect cluster, meaning it encompasses multiple closely related varieties that share enough features to be grouped together but show sub-dialectal variation ^[2]. Compared to its sister dialects:

• Hulaulá (Sanandaj Jews): more Iranian Kurdish contact features

• Koy Sanjaq Surat (Koy Sanjaq Jews): well-documented single community dialect

• Lishana Deni (Amadiyya Jews): related Trans-Zab variety

• Lishan Didan (Urmia Jews): Azerbaijani Turkish contact features

BSOAS articles by Hezy Mutzafi provide the primary comparative analysis of these distinctions.

The ISO 639-3 code for Lishanid Noshan is aij ^[1]. The language is documented at Bar-Ilan University, in BSOAS (Cambridge University Press), and in Jewish Language Research resources.

The single ISO code covers the entire dialect cluster, reflecting the difficulty of drawing sharp boundaries between closely related Neo-Aramaic varieties.

Lishanid Noshan belongs to the Afro-Asiatic → Semitic → Aramaic → Eastern Aramaic → NENA → Jewish NENA branch ^[2].

It represents the living continuation of Aramaic — one of the oldest continuously spoken language families in the world — maintained by Jewish communities in Kurdistan, northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey.

The language is documented at Bar-Ilan University and in BSOAS publications as part of the broader scholarly effort to record the Jewish NENA dialect cluster before the remaining speakers are lost.

Although Lishanid Noshan uses the Hebrew square script, it is an Aramaic language — not a form of Hebrew ^[1]. Key differences:

• Language branch: Lishanid Noshan is Eastern Aramaic (NENA); Hebrew is Canaanite — related Semitic languages but diverged over 3,000 years ago

• Pharyngeals: Lishanid Noshan preserves ח = /ħ/ and ע = /ʕ/ with their Classical Aramaic phonological values, unlike modern Israeli Hebrew where these are largely merged or lost

• Grammar: The dialect cluster has Aramaic verb conjugation patterns, nominal morphology, and pronoun systems distinct from Hebrew

• Vocabulary: Core vocabulary is Aramaic, with Kurdish, Turkish, and Hebrew religious loanwords reflecting the multi-ethnic environments of the home communities

Both languages share the Hebrew script and a large portion of religious vocabulary (due to the Jewish communities' use of Hebrew in prayer and study), but the spoken language is Aramaic in its fundamental structure.

Lishanid Noshan is endangered, with most fluent speakers being elderly diaspora members in Israel ^[2]. The Jewish communities from northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey emigrated to Israel after 1948 and integrated into Modern Hebrew-speaking society; intergenerational transmission of Lishanid Noshan largely ceased.

Bar-Ilan University research and BSOAS publications document the phonological and grammatical variation across the constituent sub-dialects of this cluster while speakers are still available for documentation.