This dictionary is based on old and recent manuscripts printed texts literary Midrashic texts
recorded oral Bible translations folk literature and diverse spoken registers. It has an
extensive introduction including a brief history of the Jewish dialects and their relations to
older Aramaic detailed observations on orthography phonology morphology semantics and
other related grammatical features that will serve the users well. The source for each word is
indicated including context quotations when necessary. A special effort was made to trace the
origin of each and every word be it native (classical and Talmudic Aramaic Syriac etc.) or a
loan word (Arabic Hebrew Persian Kurdish Turkish general European). The Dictionary
includes an index to all the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic words which have cognates or reflexes in
Jewish Neo-Aramaic a very important tool for the history of comparative linguistic studies of
Aramaic. The Dictionary will be useful for scholars of Neo-Aramaic as well as classical and
Talmudic Aramaic and Syriac Semitic Languages Jewish Languages Languages in Contact and
other Near Eastern Languages in general. It is the first scholarly dictionary of Jewish
Neo-Aramaic and is intended to be a linguistic monument to the community that spoke it for
many centuries until its emigration to Israel.
