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Thread: Assyrian: What language does it sound like to you?

  1. #11
    Veteran Member Zroota's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by LoLeL View Post
    In the world of harshness, Semitic languages could compete with Dutch. But in the end, Dutch is the winner.
    German is also up there. But Dutch is definitely more 'harsher' than German and almost akin to Semitic languages when it comes to their frequent usage of "kh". I do like the "kh" sounds in Germanic languages. They seem really exotic for Germanic standards, because you'd think "kh" sounds are only affiliated with Semitic languages. Btw, (Old) English used to have a "kh" sound as well. And its sound is still "fossilized" in the modern spellings of light, night, eight, etc . These words had a "kh", but probably more of a "gh", sound (as uttered in Arabic letter ghayn - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_velar_fricative).

    Hebrew and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic are fairly 'soft' for Semitic and Afro-Asiatic standards though. At least compared to Arabic. But I'm not sure if that's saying much.

    Farsi (Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European) does have a moderate amount of "kh":


    Irish Gaelic too (Celtic):
    Last edited by Zroota; 02-09-2018 at 12:38 PM.

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    Veteran Member magyar_lány's Avatar
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    I agree with Hadouken, it sounds like a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic.
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    Senior Member paprika's Avatar
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    that sounds really interesting, is it a reconstructed language like hebrew or a real language that was directly descended from ancient assyrian?

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    A Semitic language between Arabic and Hebrew.

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    Quote Originally Posted by paprika View Post
    that sounds really interesting, is it a reconstructed language like hebrew or a real language that was directly descended from ancient assyrian?
    It's a real language. It evolved from Aramaic, which had a branch that Jesus spoke (Galilean Aramaic). Modern Assyrian has Akkadian (ancient Assyrian) influences in vocabulary, although it is NOT an Akkadian language. Their only similarities is the fact that they're both Semitic. Akkadian was gradually replaced by Akkadian-influenced Eastern Aramaic among Mesopotamians between the 8th century BC and its final extinction by the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. Furthermore, modern Assyrian has a lot of Farsi and Kurdish loanwords.

    Another video example of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic (start at 31 seconds):


    This woman is from Iran, so her dialect will be Farsi-influenced.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Shelati View Post
    This is Western Assyrian. It's unintelligible to us who speak the Eastern Assyrian variant (the woman in OP is speaking that and majority of Assyrians speak it). It sounds more like Arabic due to the guttural A and H sounds, in which they use constantly.

    The guy speaks sounds more closer to Arabic than to Hebrew since he pronounce certain sounds like 7a and 3a sounds without any trouble.

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    It sounds like German.
    Do what you should.

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    I can see that these languages have influenced Kurdish to some extent, but Assyrian and Chaldean sounds more like Hebrew in my opinion with some similarities to Arabic here and there.

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    I agree with the others saying that it sounds like a mix of Hebrew and Arabic, but it's easily closer to Hebrew since it doesn't have some common Arabic sounds (ع، ح، ص، ط، غ، etc) that both it and Hebrew lack.
    Last edited by Mingle; 02-10-2018 at 02:35 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Shelati View Post
    German is also up there. But Dutch is definitely more 'harsher' than German and almost akin to Semitic languages when it comes to their frequent usage of "kh". I do like the "kh" sounds in Germanic languages. They seem really exotic for Germanic standards, because you'd think "kh" sounds are only affiliated with Semitic languages. Btw, (Old) English used to have a "kh" sound as well. And its sound is still "fossilized" in the modern spellings of light, night, eight, etc . These words had a "kh", but probably more of a "gh", sound (as uttered in Arabic letter ghayn - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_velar_fricative).

    Hebrew and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic are fairly 'soft' for Semitic and Afro-Asiatic standards though. At least compared to Arabic. But I'm not sure if that's saying much.

    Farsi (Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European) does have a moderate amount of "kh":


    Irish Gaelic too (Celtic):
    Both the خ (Arabic kha, IPA /x/) and غ (Arabic ghayn) were present in Old English. When the word had a "g" in the middle or end of it, then it would be pronounced like a غ whereas it would be pronounced like the modern English "g" if it was in the beginning of the word. Most "g"s in English turned into a "y". Just compare the English "day" to the German "tag". A similar sound shift is going underway in Faroese if I'm not mistaken.

    When English had the letter "h" in the middle or end of a word, then it would be pronounced like a /x/. Also, the "gh" was pronounced like a /x/ as well.

    The "gh" in the English word ugh is still pronounced /x/. Northern English and Lowland Scottish regularly pronounce it.

    All words where "ch" is pronounced like a "k" are Greek loanwords where the "ch" was used to represent the Greek /x/ sound e.g. Christian, chemistry, etc. The reason that "ch" was used to represent /x/ is because the "c" used to only make the /k/ sound (rather than the /k/ and /s/ like it does today) and the letter "k" didn't exist back then.

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