64
Dehqan and Mengozzi
A number of Syriac letters, especially in combination with dia-
critics, corresponds more precisely to specific Kurdish phonemes:
bēth,
gāmal, dālath,
kāp,
pē,
tāw with
quššāyā /b/, /g/, /d/, /k/, /p/, /t/
kāp with
rukkākhā
/x/
pē with a dot above
/f/
šin with three dots above
/j/
Beghadkephath letters are
often marked with quššāyā, especially
in word-initial position, to avoid a reading of these consonants as
fricatives. Kāp with rukkākhā is used with the same value /x/ in
Garshuni (for Arabic
!
) and Neo-Aramaic, in the latter case even
for etymological
ḥ (e.g.,
khelmā ‘dream’).
Diacritics, such as a tilde and the dots above, are usually writ-
ten in red ink.
Pē with a thick (here colored red) dot above (
ܿܦ
) imi-
tates the shape of Arabic
!
and is in use for Neo-Aramaic words
of Arabic origin and thus containing the sound /f/.
26
It is unlikely
that
šin without dots in
ji bîr (5b),
dibêjî (9a) and
nebêjin (13d) may
reflect dialectal devoiced pronunciations, corresponding to stand-
ard Kurdish /ş/: şi bîr, dibêşî (?). More probably, the scribe did not
go back to mark the diacritics in red ink. According to the available
transcriptions and descriptions, /f/ and /j/ are respectively written
ٓܒ
and
ٓܫ
in the Kurdish Garshuni manuscript of the Iraqi Museum,
ܼܦ
and
݅ܙ
in the poem published by Kreyenbroek.
A number of consonants are used to write Kurdish phonemes
or allophones which are not distinctively marked in standard Kurd-
ish orthography. They represent Semitic phonemes and it is natural
that the Syriac alphabet allows one either to mark their precise
phonetic nature – pharyngeal or pharyngealized sounds – or to
render them in historical spelling, since they are usually found in
26
A. Mengozzi, A Story in a Truthful Language, CSCO 590, 22-3. The
post-vocalic allophone [f] or [p
h
] of late Aramaic /p/ usually does not oc-
cur in the Neo-Aramaic dialects of northern Iraq, where it invariably
sounds [p] in all positions in words of Aramaic origin. This probably ex-
plains why in that region this special pē with a dot above was introduced
for Neo-Aramaic Arabic-derived words containing an /f/. According to
Classical Syriac orthography, a pē with a dot above (quššāyā
) has the oppo-
site value and indicates the occlusive allophone [p] or its geminated form
[p:].
A Kurdish Garshuni Poem
65
Kurdish words derived from Arabic. They are: ḥēth, used for un-
voiced pharyngeal [ħ], ‛e for voiced pharyngeal [
ʕ
], ṭēth, ṣādē, and ṣādē
with a dot above, used for Arabic /
ẓ
/, in words such as weḥîd (2a),
‛emir (7b),
beṭal (1c),
qiṣe (1a), and
rebb el‘e
ẓ
îm (6d). A
gāmal with
rukkākhā corresponds to the voiced allophone [γ] of Kurdish /x/
and the Arabic phoneme /ġ/: it is probably both a phonetic and
etymological rendering of words derived from Arabic, such as
mexmûn from maġmūm (1b) and xerîb from ġarīb (7b). Standard Īncîl
and însanî are regularly spelled ‛incîl (4c) and ‛insanî (11b, 16a, 18a),
which is possibly a phonetic spelling and indicates a pharyngeal re-
alization of an initial hamza followed by short i.
27
In a couple of words, consonants are repeated twice as if to
indicate that they are geminated: lezet <lezzeta> (1c), kulin <kollin>
(3a), gelek <gellek> (3a and 3b), wê diêşin <wittêşin> ? (3a); dilê is writ-
ten in three different ways: with double l <dillê> (3c), with two
lāmads, the first of which is deleted with
linea occultans, <
di(l)lê>
(10d), and with just one l in <dilê> (14c).
The system for writing vowel phonemes is as rich and incon-
sistent – in fact, inadequate – as the system used for consonants.
zqāpā (+
ālap)
/a/
zqāpā
/e/
pthāḥā
/e/
/i/ (one case, before
ḥ)
zlāmā pšiqā
/i/
– (elision for metrical purposes) /i/
zlāmā qašyā (+
ālap)
/ê/
ḥḇāṣā
/ê/
/î/
rḇāṣā
/û/
/u/
27
Īncîl is spelled with initial ālap and yuḏ in the Kurdish Garshuni ms.
of the Iraqi Museum: ̰"#$ܐ
!"
as Arabic ﻞ"ﺠﻨ%& (Harrak, Catalogue, 31). Inter-
estingly, însān is written with initial gāmal > jīm (Harrak transliterates it as
!ﺎﺴﻨﺟ) in a marginal note of the same manuscript (ibidem, 28). These
spelling variants may be mistakes or, less probably, reflect dialectal varia-
tion in the pronunciation of the initial syllable of these words.