‘That I might speak and the ear listen to me!’: On Genres in Traditional Modern Aramaic Literature

The literary space of Modern Aramaic-speaking communities was, and to a large extent is, characterized by diglossia and, in certain cases, multilingualism. As far as Christians are concerned, before print and modern schools were introduced in Urmia and Mosul, literacy was confined to a small portion of the population and mainly found expression in the Classical Syriac language and literature. On the other hand, Jewish and Christian varieties of vernacular Aramaic were the linguistic medium for a very rich oral tradition, organized according to specific genres. A survey of the commonest literary genres of Modern Aramaic literature is given here, focusing on the better-known and -documented: proverbs, songs, folktales, heroic epics and the religious genres of the Christian durektha and the Jewish targum. Although in different ways, both religious genres functioned as a bridge from written to oral tradition, from classical to vernacular language.