Lishán Didán

Lishán Didán is a modern Jewish Aramaic language, often called Neo-Aramaic or Judeo-Aramaic. It was originally spoken in Iranian Azerbaijan, in the region of Lake Urmia, from Salmas to Mahabad. Most speakers now live in Israel.

The name Lishán Didán means 'our language'; other variations are Lishanán, 'our-language', and Lishanid Nash Didán, 'the language of our selves'. As this causes some confusion with similarly named dialects (Lishana Deni, Lishanid Noshan), scholarly sources tend simply to use a more descriptive name, like Persian Azerbaijani Jewish Neo-Aramaic.

To distinguish it from other dialects of Jewish Neo-Aramaic, Lishán Didán is sometimes called Lakhlokhi (literally 'to-you(f)-to-you(m)') or Galihalu ('mine-yours'), demonstrating different use of prepositions and pronominal suffixes. Lishán Didán is written in the Hebrew alphabet. Spelling tends to be highly phonetic, and elided letters are not written.

Origin

Various Neo-Aramaic dialects were spoken across a wide area from Lake Urmia to Lake Van (in Turkey), down to the plain of Mosul (in Iraq) and back across to Sanandaj (in Iran again).