Neo-Aramaic

(Targum)

   Neo-Aramaic (Targum) was the purely oral language of the Jewish Kurds. Upon its Neo-Aramaic base, Targum also included aspects of the Kurdish language of Kur-manji, Arabic, Turkish, Old Aramaic, and Hebrew. Since Targum was a spoken language, not employed in writing, its vocabulary and pronunciation did not have a standard form and marked variations existed.

   There were at least three overall categories of local dialects. The western category was spoken in Amadiya, Dehok, Nirwa, and Zakho in Iraq and in Diyarbakir, Urfa, Mardin, and Cizre in Turkey. The northwestern category was spoken in Persian Azerbaijan, while the southeastern category was used in the Persian areas of Kurdistan to the south as well as in Rawanduz, Irbil, and Sulaymaniya in Iraq.